Good Therapy

Claire Nathan went to physical therapy for her ankle. When she returned home, Randall asked her how it went.

"Oh, it was a good session. I got two new recipes."

Bats In the Belfry Eat Free

Last night was the big community Easter concert. It alternates from year to year between St. John the Baptist Catholic Church and St. John the Catholic Baptist Church, since they have the largest seating capacities. This year was the Catholics' turn.

All the ministers sat in the chancel, between the massed choirs and "Bobby Shafto and his Holy Week Combo." Pastor Patty is still worrked about her appearance, since someone sent her, anonymously, information about beautytipsforministers.com, so she made sure she was sitting between Leader Lola of The Three Round Church and Sister Shubert of The Church of the Enduring Supper, known locally as The Holy Rolls Church. One is especially comely and one is remarkably not so. Thus Pastor Patty figured nobody would even notice her.

Nobody noticed anybody else at all when, early in the service, they were singing "Come, sinners to the gospel feast, let every soul be Jesus' guest, ye need not one be left behind..." and leaving not one behind, the Somali palm insects attacked, apparently summoned by the piccolo in Bobby Shafto's combo, which sounded to them like The Whistler at The Methodist.

On Palm Sunday, the Somali insects had been slumbering in the cut-rate palms the children were waving at The Methodist until they heard The Whistler doing accompaniment for "Ode to Joy." When The Whistler changed his tune to "I'll fly away," they did so. They had only flown across town, however, and taken up residence in the walls of St. John the Baptist. Now they were really hungry, and "Come sinners, to the gospel feast" had an effect Charles Wesley had never intended.

There was screaming and whacking and even calls for God to damn the piratical Somali palm insects. But then, the sound of The Whistler was heard in the land. Still, no one knows the identity of The Whistler, but Detective Abel Cain said this morning that he had one clue: The Whistler is an Isaac Watts fan, for he began on "Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, with all thy quickening powers..."

That was when the bats came out of the belfry.

The Catholics have pretended for so long that they don't have bats in their belfry that everyone had forgotten about them, creating an identity crisis for the bats themselves, who apparently thought they were holy doves, because they dove down into the sanctuary, with their quickening powers, and enjoyed a Holy Week feast like they'd never had before.

Today there is a new sign in front of The Whistle & Thistle: "Blue plate special, $7.95. Bats in the belfry eat free."

EMPTY PLACES & FULL MEMORIES

Randall Nathan likes to take his walks on campuses when the students are gone, and on playgrounds when the children are not there. He likes students and children, but when those spaces are empty, there is room for memories.

Passover Peeps

Rabbi Cindy and Claire Nathan collided at the junction of the Passover and Easter aisles of The Friendly Skunk IGA. Rabbi Itzak is on an extended leave from Congregation Loch Loman to treat his persimmon phobia. Rabbi Cindy teaches at the Hebrew school in Capital City, and she's filling in for Rabbi Itzak for Passover, and she is dreading this evening.

Congregation Loch Loman will eschew family seders for a communal seder for the whole community. That means a lot of basketball-besotted Christians will be there. She is sure that when little Benjamin Greenberg asks, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" someone will answer back, "Because Butler is in the Final Four."

So she was quite pleased to collide with Claire Nathan. Retired Home Ec teacher Claire is widely known to be the leading Christian theologian in Periwinkle County. Rabbi Cindy asked Claire what to do to keep the Christians quiet.

"Tell the Catholics to sing," Claire asked. "That'll shut them up."

"What about the Protestants?" asked Rabbi Cindy.

"Give them peeps and tell them that the Halakhah requires that guests keep their mouths full of peeps during the service."

So Rabbi Cindy and Claire Nathan both filled their carts with peeps, for different celebrations, Claire intending hers for use in the scrambled eggs for the Easter sunrise breakfast, and went to the checkout aisle together.

"Do you prefer to serve peeps fresh or stale?" the cashier asked.

In the parking lot, putting her peeps into the trunk of her Desoto, Rabbi Cindy muttered, "Easter celebrations are really strange."

[If you wonder why Rabbi Cindy drives a Desoto, read the post for March 18, Running a Business Like a Business. And a woman of the author's acquaintance was actually asked the "fresh or stale" peeps question by a cashier this week.]

PALM SUNDAY & CHAOS THEORY

P. Irish Smith, Distinguished Professor of Physics at Cratchit State U, was at the Palm Sunday service this morning. Prof. Smith never goes to church on special occasions, because there is too much chaos. His Physics specialty is Chaos Theory, and he is afraid that his observation of ecclesiastical chaos will prejudice his observation of physical chaos. So he goes to church only in what the prayer books and lectionary calendars call "ordinary time," when there is just the ordinary chaos of sopranos cracking on the high notes and children during the kids sermon insisting that the name of Jesus' father was Bob.

For this Palm Sunday, though, Pastor Patty has requested his help in identifying "The Whistler."

For a month of Sundays, or maybe two months, someone has been accompanying every Prelude and Postlude, every anthem and solo, every hymn and offertory, with whistling. It comes from the back corner of the church, known as "The Ahem Corner" because of the sounds of old men clearing their throats back there. No newcomers have been observed in The Ahem Corner, so The Whistler has to be one of its regular denizens of single men, single by choice or by accident or by choir. When questioned, though, each Ahemer claims to know nothing about the whistling, and they are believable, because they are all either hard of hearing or so unobservant that they don't realize they are wearing unmatched sox.

It's not bad whistling. Some people think it is a nice addition. However, the organists and the choir directors and Jamie "Perfect Pitch" Bunning have all threatened to quit and/or leave if it doesn't stop. Pastor Patty isn't sure what she'll do to get The Whistler stopped, once he's identified, but she knows she has to do something.

In addition to Chaos theory, Prof. Smith is an expert in the physics of baseball and bird calls, so he was sitting in the second row on the diagonal from the Ahem Corner, the spot he had determined would be best to calculate the angle of the sound of whistling, when the UFOs struck. During the Prelude.

Moira Choi, the SS Supt, had lined the children up at the back of the sanctuary and started each one off precisely 3.5 seconds after the previous one, each one waving a palm frond. The spacing was to be sure that the last palmists would be starting down the center aisle at the precise time the lead wavers had come back up the side aisles. Thus the congregation would be surounded on all sides by waving palms. It had the added advantage that Walter Weter was far enough behind Courtney Peters that he was unable to poke her behind with his palm.

That was when The Whistler began to accompany Winton Luqton, the organist, on the preludic "Ode to Joy," which he had selected to impress Joy Schlingerheimer, who is otherwise unimpressed by Winton. They are both opera fans, but with Winton it is Grand, and with Joy it is Grand Ol'.

Apparently the whistling sound was a signal to the millions, some say billions, of winged creatures that had been slumbering in the cut-rate palms Moira had ordered from Somalia. It would have been a perfect occasion for Prof. Smith to study chaos, except that he was as busy as everyone else in futile flailing at the invaders. Abraham Lincoln would have loved it, for he was famous for saying, "I like to see a preacher who looks like he's fighting bees." On this occasion, it wasn't only the preacher.

Just when it looked like the Somalian insects were winning, The Whistler changed his tune. No one had ever heard The Whistler on his own before. Previously he had only accompanied. Now, though, the new and naked sound could be heard throughout the church. Most folks knew the words to the tune. "I'll fly away, O glory, I'll fly away, in the morning..." And hearing their marching, or flying, orders, that's what the palm pirates did.

Pastor Patty spent the rest of the service thinking she didn't need to identify The Whistler and get him to stop. She just has to get him to whistle a tune that will work on The Kitchen Nazis.

She's Coming Home

Two weeks ago, as Claire Nathan was picking out persimmons in the produce section of the Gray Squirrl [sic] IGA, Ken Grantham told her that his wife had left him that morning.

Ken spends most of his time in the produce section. He doesn't work there, but he doesn't like coffee or beer or books, so there are no other public places he can hang out.

For two weeks, he's been getting invitations to supper from people who feel sorry for him because his wife left him. She just went to visit her sister in Amarillo for a couple of weeks, but Ken doesn't like to cook or eat in restaurants by himself.

Now she's coming home. He's preparing by moving the furniture an inch so that the leg holes will show in the carpet and thus make it look like he vacuumed.

Spring Sports

The folks in Periwinkle County have been so busy with the NCAA basketball tourney they've not had time for much else. However, Ransall Nathan and Johnny Kendy were playing soccer in Johnny's yard, and as Johnny explained it later, "The window got broken while Grandpa and I were playing soccer."