The Goose

As you read this story, I really would like you to consider how I was raised. I grew up in a very religious/spiritual home. I had never been goosed before. So, the first time it happened, it was not a pleasant experience. I, of course, made it even worse, but more on that later. 

When I was a wee lad, my parents used to make me attend the Christian Reformed Church at the end of the road. I do not remember much of this. The memories I do have are less than stellar. It may have been a fine church. But that is not the way I remember it. At all. To put it succinctly, and briefly, it was mind numbingly boring. Many of you who attend church now have probably had a much different experience. For those of you who rarely, or never attend church, things have changed a lot over the last few years. 

Many different churches have really tried to update their styles, with varying degrees of success and acceptance by their respective congregations. Now we have electric guitars and drums. Pastors show movie clips and talk about pop culture. Things have come a long, long way. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that I am getting kind of old. Back in the day, church was a completely different animal. To stay on this metaphor a minute longer, current churches might be something like a cheetah. The church I attended as a small boy was more like a tortoise. A dying tortoise. With a bad rash. (is that too harsh?)

I recall, quite vividly, what Sunday mornings used to be like. When I was about 7 or 8, I was usually the first one up. I would open my eyes, and somewhere in the recesses of my pre-pubescent brain I would try and recall what day it was. Oh dear. Sunday. I was old enough now to have a basic understanding of how time worked and what it entailed to get our family up and ready to go. If it got to be too late, we wouldn't be able to make it. 

There must have been some time where I was expecting the weekly dose of torture and somehow, miraculously, it didn't happen. My parents overslept! This was winning the kids lottery! Yeah, I know you might want to judge the miniature version of me, but you weren't there! The pews were made of granite. The guy who spoke talked for about 45 hours. Nobody looked like they wanted to be there. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, my parents said we needed to go EVERY week. And to make matters worse, after service they didn't want to leave right away. They actually stood around and talked to the other inmates. Cause seriously, it was like a prison break after the service was done. I think I actually once saw a man push over an elderly lady so he could get into the parking lot to light his cigarette. People often looked like they just got done serving time. And they had been sentenced to cruel and unusual punishment. 

Again, I know this sounds harsh, but this was my perception as a 7 year old. Ok, yes, to be honest, sometimes I have felt that way as an adult... I am not really ADD, but sometimes I do get bored easily. And is there anything worse than a boring church?

I submit that there is not.

For instance, if you get bored reading this, you will stop. Nobody will know or care. If you don't like a movie you walk out. You shut off a bad TV show. You get it. But if you walk out of church? You instantly get that look. Especially if you live in a smaller town. 

"Look Dale, there is that Dave guy walking out again. Let's pray for his pagan soul and let's remember to never associate with him again." Well, that's how I interpret that look. 

On most Sunday mornings I used to lay in bed and hope as hard as I knew how that my parents wouldn't wake up. Not permanently, mind you, just a temporary extreme sleepiness. They had to oversleep quite severely because the church was about 3.2 minutes away. And that was by horse and carriage. This is why I encouraged them to drink heavily on Saturday nights. "Goodnight mom and dad. Can I get you anything before I go to bed? A hug? A vodka slushy? Near lethal doses of codeine?"

This presented a troubling dilemma for a young boy. There isn't much you can do to control your life at this age. All I could do was hope that they overslept. I wanted to pray, but, well, that seemed counter-intuitive. How do you phrase that???? "Uh, Dear God, could you please make my parents sleep so we don't have to go to your house? Never mind. Please don't send me to hell. Or church." You see from what my dilemma stemmed. 

Then everything changed. It was the 70's and there was something happening across the nation known as the "Jesus Movement" or the charismatic movement. It was sweeping the nation and my parents were pulled into the whirlpool. It started with my mom being "baptized in the Holy Spirit". Then my dad did as well. They decided they were going to start being "serious" about God. This worried me. The people at the church we attended were the most serious looking people I had ever seen. What did MORE serious look like? 

We abruptly switched churches. We went from a Christian Reformed church to a Charismatic church. Yup. Night and day. You couldn't go to a further extreme. One Sunday we were in boringville and the next week we were in charismatic chaos. After the first service at our new church I was behaving very strangely and my parents rushed me to the hospital. My condition? Severe spiritual whiplash. But seriously. One week we are sitting in wooden pews. The most emotion that was showed was when the service ended (as I have stated). In this new church? People danced.

DANCED.

IN CHURCH. And nobody smacked them. Or looked weird at them. Heck, they looked at you weird if you DIDN'T dance! 

After a few months the senior pastor tragically dies while mowing his lawn. They didn't replace him. Nope. But we still had church. We had the dance/rock and roll/ raise your hands in the air like you just don't care time- and then we had a time of "sharing". This meant that anybody could come up and speak about whatever God "laid on their hearts". It was a very interesting experience. Honestly, the services were even longer, but I was rarely bored. After awhile, we switched churches- to one that was a bit more stable.

We started going there when I was 13. I didn't switch until I was 33. And that was to leave to become a pastor myself. We went to church 3 times a week. Sometimes more. This is how I grew up. I didn't want to drink, smoke or listen to rock music. Cause those were baaaaad. But I did like the ladies. I just didn't have a clue about them. 

I soon made some friends in the youth group, and in the Sunday morning classes I attended for my age group. My best friend, Jim, wanted to attend church camp during the upcoming summer. I didn't know much about church camp, but he assured me it was a lot of fun, and best of all, there were sure to be some choice females there. That was enough for me. He had my buy in. 

You have to understand a little bit about Jim. He was a cool kid. I very much wasn't. He liked to party. I first thought he just really liked celebrating other people's birthday's, which I thought made him a very nice guy. Those were not the parties he happened to be speaking about. He explained what he meant. I pretended I was worldly enough to understand. I didn't. But for some reason the two of us really hit it off. 

I'm not bragging, but I have been told by more than one woman that I have a very nice looking rear end. I consider it to be one of my finer features, if you must know. Ok, perhaps ONE of these ladies said something about me being a "fine ass" but I get to interpret that the way I want to. 

To finally get to the point of this story, I am standing there at camp, trying to absorb the strange little world church camp is. There are hundreds of other kids my age milling around. And Jim, that worldly wise kid, was right. There were girls there. Lots of them. And there were some real foxes. (hey, that's what we called them then) 

And then it happened. 

I was standing there very innocently when I felt a very unexpected and surprisingly strong pain emanating from the area of my finely shaped touche. 

I was instantly  enraged! Who would do such a thing! Why this unprovoked attack on my innocent buttocks?!? I looked around wildly, trying to identify the guilty party. 

My eyes landed on a group of girls. One of them was looking back at me with a coquettish smile on her lips. 

Her.

She was the guilty party!

She pinched me! 

So I did what any good, church-raised 14 year old would do. I made her aware of my displeasure with her by yelling "YOU FINK!" in a volume that, upon retrospect, was done at a very embarrassing and inappropriate volume. 

I sometimes still can't believe I ever got married. 

One final note. If you happen to be a very attractive female, around 35-44, and you happen to look upon my above average behind and feel the compulsion to pinch it, I might allow it.

And I won't even call you a name.

Probably.