“The Pearly Gates. Am I the only one who finds it odd that Heaven has gates? What kind of neighborhood is Heaven in?” - Jim Gaffigan
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then I want to go where they went.” - Will Rogers
When will this brutal weather finally break? The tomatoes look like they do after the last frost in late October. Three-fourths of the corn didn’t make much more than a pale, pitiful, little crispy thin stalk. What’s left of the cucumbers are now yellow and shriveled-up like a grandmother’s face. The pond is almost as dry as a normally overheated day in late August and the old mud hole is slap full of snakes.
There’s no way anyone would bet good money, or even crypto currency, whatever that is, on a decent second cutting of hay. ‘Pen-hookers’ at the stockyard in Athens are telling horror stories about how a raft of local cattle owners are now actually feeding hay in July.
These are clear visions of the depression era dust bowl, resurrected and rolling around like tumble weeds on the Great Plains. It’s just too easy to see how farmers and ranchers back then just flat out went bankrupt, gave it all up on account of lack of water and evil bankers; and slowly became a bunch of “Okies.” Migrants who sadly roped everything they could, piled high on old trucks, and slowly made the long dusty trek west towards California.
Fast forward to our recent June drought, California would likely be the last place on earth anyone, but the most desperate, would migrate.
Author Jeff Guinn writes in “The Last Gunfight, The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral and How It Changed the American West,” about the birth of Tombstone Arizona, and the early days following the 1878 discovery of silver in that dry part of the state. About how the mother lode of silver was prospected by Ed Schieffelin, and how Tombstone became a boom town almost overnight.
Tombstone real estate, in those long ago days, became a smoking hot commodity that was hawked by shyster realtors, speculators and land agents. Slick salesmen who immediately scoured the West. Trying vainly, to sell Tombstone township lots to unsuspecting rubes in other honest hamlets nearby. If there was such a thing in 1878, as honest hamlets.
One such sales pitch by voracious Tombstone land speculators was to sell to prospective buyers, gathered on town squares, by offering free lunches. For the price of a free lunch, you could be potentially swindled into believing that, “The only thing that was missing in Tombstone is Good Society and Water!”
This sales pitch was fearlessly launched to the crowd, to which, one judicial bystander was heard to loudly reply to the gathered assembly, “They say the same thing about Hell!”
June was short on both Good Society and water around here, as far as I’m concerned. This was some strange semblance of 1880 in Tombstone.The weather has just got to change soon.
Literally, for decades, I routinely avoided reading obituaries. Maybe it was that youthful issue of mistakenly feeling that everyone I ran with was strangely, somehow invincible. Maybe it was that I just callously didn’t feel all that inclined to keep up with who had recently moved on to the “other side”. Maybe it was just that I was too transient for extended periods of time. But here lately, and maybe it’s just somehow that time in my life. I find myself sort of drawn to the subject. I wish I could understand the phenomenon a little better, but it happens. It’s a little confusing, this thing about obituaries.
Unfortunately, in June, I stumbled on a couple of obituaries of two good people, folks that could be quantified as being Good Society. Good hands that I had the pleasure of spending fall and winter days with in deer camps. Deer camps from Cherry Branch to Jackson County on the Cumberland.
While reading about their lives, their accomplishments in life, their remaining loved ones, their brief stories evoked some significant amount of sadness. But somehow, their obituaries also managed, in some strange way, while being rather somber, their last story, managed to elicit some very fond memories. But it’s those visual memories of the minds eye that caught me a little off guard.
I could see those past fall days so clearly, so suddenly, enabling the vivid visualization of the colors in the hardwoods we drifted through before they were gone. There was laughter and congratulations that came from a hunt well done. Large campfires and good food comes to mind. How does an obituary do this sort of thing?
How is it that the finality of a life, a past fall’s day, a brief time spent years ago, experienced in the glorious woods of a short light, how is it that these brief images can conjure up these memories?
It’s been said that getting through the Pearly Gates requires passing grades on a test or two. Tests strictly administered by Old Saint Peter.
I don’t know how these two, now passed friends, finally graded out on the last big test covering the Ten Commandments. I’m not sure how they made it to their last hunt. I’m not even clear on how they lived their last days. But I’m more than certain in the fleeting days we shared together, no matter how long ago it might have been, these friends were invested in the belief that, “Do unto others as they would do unto you,” was the way that we spent our times together in the hardwoods. That test, they passed.
There’s an old joke about those who finally float up to heaven and come face to face with Saint Peter. They’re there for the final test in life before they can access heaven at the Pearly Gates. It goes something like this….Saint Peter asks for your name as he slowly rummages through the big file cabinet in the sky. All the while, you stand quaking at the desk by the gate, ALL NERVOUS AND AFRAID.
Saint Peter then peers at your file for long agonizing moments, which tick by like your lifetime, and after much agony on your part, he finally speaks.
Saint Peter looks at the file and he slowly traces his finger over the section that specifies your IQ.
If you have an above or a really high IQ, Saint Peter asks you a series of questions about how you feel about the existence of a Supreme Being and its relationship to string theory, or quantum physics, before you can enter the Pearly Gates.
If he looks at your file and finds that you have just a simple high IQ, he asks you a series of questions about how you feel about Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, or which presidential candidate you think is more likely to be the best choice for the country.
If Saint Peter sees you have, what some refer to as an average IQ, then Saint Peter asks; ”Did you get your deer yet?”
Ed and Jackie both passed their final test there at the pearly gates. I’m quite sure of this. I was a witness that they both got their deer. It was indeed my honor to be there with them on that day when they got that deer. It was a day that will be with us forever.
Good Society was with us that day.
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