I'm working on an autobiographical short story tentatively called "a White Trash X-Mas." I changed a few details, but mostly it is from my childhood as I remember it. Here is a little bit of it.
Hello. My name is Robin G. I was very sick when I was a little boy. Somethuing was wrong with my leg. The doctor said i would never be able to run.
My mother used to lower me into a bath. It was some kind of tub that was on the kitchen table. One time the phone rang. my mother went to answer it. i sank. It felt peaceful. I remembver looking up thourhg th e water. Everything was bright and distorted. The ceiling lamp above the water was dazzling. That is all I remember of that day. Soon, probably a few days later, somethign was wrong with my left arm. It hurt badly and I couldn't use it. I was left-handed. WAS left-handed. The tub had fallen while I was unattended and my arm had been broken. My parents did not take me to a hospital.
In the early 1900s in Appalachia, George Went Hensley, a Pentecostal minister, popularized snake handling as a demonstration of ones faith or devotion to Jesus. In the ritual, the faithfull rolls up her sleeves and reaches into a box and picks up a rattlesnake bare handed. The snake is encouraged to wrap around her body, arms, drape itself over her shoulders. All the while, the faithful are carrying on. They are hollering, jumping, dancing, singing, stomping around, and chanting in nonsensical babbling sylables they call "Speaking in Tongues." As is often the case with Christian Snake Handlers who demonstrate their belief this way, Hensley himself died from a snake bite in 1955.
Even today, some species of Fundamentalist Christians handle poisonous snakes as a demonstration of their "faith." The whole operation is based on, I believe, a single quote from the New Testament:
"And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:17-18 )"
One Sunday morning, my mother (my father wasn't around much during this part of my life) took me to a Church. I had been there before and would be taken there many more times. An itinerant preacher would be there that day. He could heal the sick by praying by "laying on hands." He was a faith healer and could heal "lameness, blindness, gout, dropsy, cancer" anything, as my mother explained. All I had to do was believe, to have Faith, and I would be healed. It didn't even have to be much faith. It was enough even if it was small as a mustard seed (A mustard seed is the size of a speck of dust). Like any young child, I was a Believer. I believed whatever my parents, Sunday school teacher, and other adults told me.
The car ride there was full of anticipation. We lived in the country and it was a long ride over some mountains and into another valley. I remember praying and "believing" and trying to build up my Faith nearly the whole way. My mom had told there might be snakes too. Wow! They had snakes. Like many curious little boys, I looked forward to seeing snakes, no holding snakes, especially poisonous ones the kind they had at this church in I forgot the name of the town somewhere in Oregon. Was it near Eugene? Or was it Rosedale?
By the time we arrived, I was believing pretty hard. We went in, me hobbling behind my mother, and despite my pain, I was all excited. Anyway, at the lobby entrance was a registration desk where people were paying or making "donations" to get in. I remember this because on the way home, she would remind me that she had spent a lot of money and that it had been a financial sacrifice because of me. My mother began filling out a card with my name, ailment, and I don't know what.
It was crowded. People kept coming in. They looked so strange. The women wore head coverings and pioneer dresses. They were gingham or denim and reminded me of Little House on the Prairie, a TV serial on around that time. For some reason, all the women seemed burly. Maybe it was because the dresses accentuated the thickness of their waists. Many also had white nurse tennis shoes. Even at a preschool age, those white tennis shoes bothered me. They did not go with the dresses. Some of their socks might have been black too or is that only old men in Bermuda shorts who do that? Their hair was gathered above their heads in buns with some sort of bonnet.
My mother said something on the lines of even if the pastor dosen't pick my card, if I believe and pray, I will be healed merely by being in the same room with him. We went into the main chamber. It was much like an arena or auditorium. It was crowded and very hot and stuffy. The stage was beyond the crowd on the other end of the room. Being a small child, I couldn't see through the crowd, and it was impossible to tell what was going on. I left my mother behind and tried to squeeze through to the front. Every now and then somebody with a microphone would call a name, but it was never mine. The very front towards the stage was blocked. I could make out glimpses of the preacher with a microphone under flood lights on a stage.
Time passed, but I didn't see any snakes....
Hello. My name is Robin G. I was very sick when I was a little boy. Somethuing was wrong with my leg. The doctor said i would never be able to run.
My mother used to lower me into a bath. It was some kind of tub that was on the kitchen table. One time the phone rang. my mother went to answer it. i sank. It felt peaceful. I remembver looking up thourhg th e water. Everything was bright and distorted. The ceiling lamp above the water was dazzling. That is all I remember of that day. Soon, probably a few days later, somethign was wrong with my left arm. It hurt badly and I couldn't use it. I was left-handed. WAS left-handed. The tub had fallen while I was unattended and my arm had been broken. My parents did not take me to a hospital.
In the early 1900s in Appalachia, George Went Hensley, a Pentecostal minister, popularized snake handling as a demonstration of ones faith or devotion to Jesus. In the ritual, the faithfull rolls up her sleeves and reaches into a box and picks up a rattlesnake bare handed. The snake is encouraged to wrap around her body, arms, drape itself over her shoulders. All the while, the faithful are carrying on. They are hollering, jumping, dancing, singing, stomping around, and chanting in nonsensical babbling sylables they call "Speaking in Tongues." As is often the case with Christian Snake Handlers who demonstrate their belief this way, Hensley himself died from a snake bite in 1955.
Even today, some species of Fundamentalist Christians handle poisonous snakes as a demonstration of their "faith." The whole operation is based on, I believe, a single quote from the New Testament:
"And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:17-18 )"
One Sunday morning, my mother (my father wasn't around much during this part of my life) took me to a Church. I had been there before and would be taken there many more times. An itinerant preacher would be there that day. He could heal the sick by praying by "laying on hands." He was a faith healer and could heal "lameness, blindness, gout, dropsy, cancer" anything, as my mother explained. All I had to do was believe, to have Faith, and I would be healed. It didn't even have to be much faith. It was enough even if it was small as a mustard seed (A mustard seed is the size of a speck of dust). Like any young child, I was a Believer. I believed whatever my parents, Sunday school teacher, and other adults told me.
The car ride there was full of anticipation. We lived in the country and it was a long ride over some mountains and into another valley. I remember praying and "believing" and trying to build up my Faith nearly the whole way. My mom had told there might be snakes too. Wow! They had snakes. Like many curious little boys, I looked forward to seeing snakes, no holding snakes, especially poisonous ones the kind they had at this church in I forgot the name of the town somewhere in Oregon. Was it near Eugene? Or was it Rosedale?
By the time we arrived, I was believing pretty hard. We went in, me hobbling behind my mother, and despite my pain, I was all excited. Anyway, at the lobby entrance was a registration desk where people were paying or making "donations" to get in. I remember this because on the way home, she would remind me that she had spent a lot of money and that it had been a financial sacrifice because of me. My mother began filling out a card with my name, ailment, and I don't know what.
It was crowded. People kept coming in. They looked so strange. The women wore head coverings and pioneer dresses. They were gingham or denim and reminded me of Little House on the Prairie, a TV serial on around that time. For some reason, all the women seemed burly. Maybe it was because the dresses accentuated the thickness of their waists. Many also had white nurse tennis shoes. Even at a preschool age, those white tennis shoes bothered me. They did not go with the dresses. Some of their socks might have been black too or is that only old men in Bermuda shorts who do that? Their hair was gathered above their heads in buns with some sort of bonnet.
My mother said something on the lines of even if the pastor dosen't pick my card, if I believe and pray, I will be healed merely by being in the same room with him. We went into the main chamber. It was much like an arena or auditorium. It was crowded and very hot and stuffy. The stage was beyond the crowd on the other end of the room. Being a small child, I couldn't see through the crowd, and it was impossible to tell what was going on. I left my mother behind and tried to squeeze through to the front. Every now and then somebody with a microphone would call a name, but it was never mine. The very front towards the stage was blocked. I could make out glimpses of the preacher with a microphone under flood lights on a stage.
Time passed, but I didn't see any snakes....
