Back around 1960, I had cousins that lived in Wichita Falls, which was a real big town 19 miles north of Henrietta, Texas where I grew up.
Actually, it was 19 miles from Henrietta to Wichita Falls, but when you came back from Wichita Falls to Henrietta it was only 16 miles.
The road signs said so, and they ought to know.
For many years, I was convinced that if anyone could figure this out, it might prove to be a time warp, or perhaps the answer to perpetual energy.
Now, however, I'm not so sure.
Whether 16 miles or 19 miles, sometimes my mother took me to join my cousins and their parents at Floral Heights Methodist Church in Wichita Falls.
This was on a Sunday.
My Snooty Aunt Their mother was a lovely woman, but seemed to be forever trying to rise above the perfectly good farm on which she and my mom and their brothers had grown up.
She was ...
snooty.
And that's why the dreadful incident at Floral Heights Methodist Church was so unfortunate for her.
The other part was that she worked, as a secretary, for the minister of this church, a Doctor Hoggard.
I do not know why they called him Doctor.
As far as I could tell, he had no patients like my uncle, the doctor.
Even as a child, I thought that, yes, Rosemary was pretty, but it seemed she was needlessly strict and she put on airs.
So between putting on airs, being snooty, attempting to look like the sober-faced screen sirens of her childhood, and the vast dignity of her position with Dr.
Hoggard the highly important Minister, for gosh sake, she probably found these church services less than relaxing.
And this particular Sunday was Communion.
Happened once a month.
Methodists don't drink, so it's grape juice.
They probably have some reason for not using pressed white bread for the host, and they use crumbled saltine crackers instead.
Perhaps this was part of the Protestant rebellion and maybe Martin Luther had connections in the cracker business.
But whatever the reason, it's grape juice and crackers at every Methodist church I've ever seen.
Even one as important and with tall ceilings like F.
H.
M.
C.
(you know, floral height etc.
) uses grape juice and crackers.
Fancier silver trays, but same old Welch's grape juice, and Nabisco saltine crackers.
Bobby's Communion Exprience The boys, my cousins, were under strict orders to not talk nor fidget.
And this was one of cousin Bobby's first time to go to communion.
He walked down to the little place where you kneel to receive the sacrament.
He kneeled just swell.
The first minister guy came around with the saltine cracker pieces on a very elaborate silver platter thingie, followed by the grape juice minister guy with a tray of tiny cups of grape juice.
I understand that the Catholics use one cup for everybody, with a handkerchief to wipe the lip of the cup.
But that's just what we would expect from the godless and un-hygenic Catholics who drank wine and danced, instead of having grape juice like the proper and sanctified and holy Methodists, such as ourselves.
Bobby waited patiently kneeling, craning his neck surreptitiously to see the approach of the cracker platter.
He selected a piece of the holy saltine cracker, and the minister-waiter guys moved on to help Bobby's parents.
Suddenly the holy atmosphere of the solemn ceremony was shattered.
Bobby was scurrying around on hands and knees, looking everywhere frantically.
"Oh, gosh!" young Bobby cried, "I dropped my cracker!"