Rambling Rambles

I’m out for two weeks, which is why I ain't been around much. This is my last trip before the hectic pace of life returns in September. (Here I go breaking my role of not talking about work and family.) This here is a real family vacation as we’re all going to be together—Mom and Dad, my brothers and sister and spouses and kids. My 87 year old grandmother may even come for a couple of nights with my sister, who can only make a couple of nights (she uses her job as an excuse). Starting tomorrow, the extended clan gathers. We’ve gone in on renting two 5 bedroom beach houses on Ocean Isle. By luck of the draw, I’ll be housed with my younger brother and family, his which makes sense since [notice the clever use of words] he has kids my daughter’s age. We’ll have to wait and see what kind of vacation this might be. Putting the two of us together is kind of like mixing oil and water, or maybe more like combining a spark and gas flumes. He’s just to the right of Attila the Hun and sometimes makes Rush Limbaugh seem down right reasonable. His unquestioning devotion to our President strikes me as a violation of the first commandment. Heaven help us if this place has cable. I can’t stand seven days of Fox News and their biases. (Did I pack wiresnips so I can cut the cable?) And to add a little more fuel to the fire, several decades ago, when I was a teenager and my younger brother was a toddler, I tormented him mercilessly. This here, my friends, is just another example of how a thing that goes around comes around.

Let’s see. I’ll have a week at the beach with the family, a family reunion with lots of folks I never met, and nearly two thousand miles behind the wheel… By the time it’s over, I’ll be ready for another vacation. However, I won’t be able to afford another one after paying European prices for gasoline. Are BP’s problems on the North Slope a bad omen? Maybe! Pray for me and for the gas supply. One second thought, don’t worry about me. Instead, ya’ll have fun and I’ll attempt to occasionally drop in and post some tidbit of wisdom.

Here’s tidbit #1: “No Creek Primitive Baptist Church.” What a name! I caught a glimpse of the name taking the backroads across North Carolina. It was somewhere between Mocksville and Lexington that I spotted a sign pointed down a side road to the this church. I’ve been up the creek without a paddle a few times, but at least I had a creek. However, having no creek seems to be a ritualistic challenge for a Baptist Church, especially a “primitive Baptist.” It seems to me their name imply they don’t have one of them there electrically heated pools up behind the pulpit. A long time ago when I was living in rural Columbus County, in this great state, I lived down the road from a "Fire-baptized Baptist Church." They didn't need a creek. I always wanted to visit just to see what went on there, but it was way out of the comfort zone of this Presbyterian. There were never more than six cars in there on Sunday morning, mostly older makes. I now find myself imgaining one of their deacons calling an insurance agent and requesting a quote on fire insurance.