Daily Dose of Sultnpapper 04/18/18> “LEAVE !!!!”

I have been owing a friend of mine on here ,@ericvancewalton, a daily dose dedicated to a project he is conducting here on steemit called the Steemit Block Chain Memory Project. I like participating in things like this, but only on my time schedule, and now is the perfect opportunity to place my story I am about to share into the project.

I first have to thank my oldest daughter for reminding of this story, so “thank you, Blondie”. She was told the story by my wife, who was told the story by my mother many years ago. The story came up at this time because Blondie will be confirmed into our church in a couple weeks and so we have been busy getting prepared for that event.

Back when I was young our family was members of the local Catholic parish, and just like my two older brothers before me, once I was confirmed in the church I became an altar boy. I think back then we got confirmed around fifth grade, the catholic grade schools had 8 grades and the high school 4 grades. So, most altar boys had about a three year stint serving the church. Most is the “qualifier” in that last sentence, and I have never been like “most” my entire life, going all the way back to the day I was born, Leap Year Day.

To give you just a little background on my mother, she was very active in the church; she served as president of the ladies Altar and Rosary Society on numerous occasions. She also was on the planning and steering committee, and helped run several fund raising events for numerous years. Back in that era stay at home mom’s were the norm and volunteering was also the norm, she did both really well.

My stint serving the Lord and the church as an altar boy lasted all of about three months before I was no longer needed.

Before I get to that part though I have to tell you just a little bit about my father, he was a railroad engineer. He started railroading back when steam engines were still being used, and spent over 50 years of his life riding and guiding the engines and train cars along rails. Railroad men are kind of like sailors, except their ships are on land, and steel rails. The other similarity would be that they have quite a vocabulary of colorful words that aren’t really all that acceptable in church. I spent a lot of time with my dad when he was home, even though I was the youngest of three boys I was named after my father. We only shared the same first and last name, not the middle name, he didn’t want me to be called “junior” my entire life is what he told me. One thing about spending time with parents is you tend to pick up some habits.

Let me get back to the story now. So I’m newly confirmed in the church and now an altar boy. The church had a big fancy altar area, and the ladies of the church would always make sure that there were plenty of fresh cut flowers decorating the altar area when flowers were blooming in their gardens. No need in paying a florist to decorate when it seemed like every house back then had big flower beds and plenty of blooms to share with the church.

If you were an altar boy your main job function at mass was to carry the cross into the church and also light the candles on the altar. Most of the mass services had two altar boys, special services might have four if it was Christmas or Easter, you know, big church days. There were always two chairs on each side of the altar for the altar boys to sit in while the priest conducted the service.

This church was pretty old and wasn’t air conditioned but there were plenty of stained glass windows that opened so the air flow was pretty good through the church, as long as there was a breeze. Seeing how the windows opened outward, there weren’t any screens on them. So it wasn’t uncommon to get an occasional bird to drop in every now and then.

I happened to be scheduled to be one of the altar boys for the 9:00 AM mass one Sunday in the springtime. The nine AM service was the most well attended mass for this church and I think there was probably about around 150 or so people in the pews that morning. The altar was full of yellow daffodils and some other red flowers and there happened to be some right behind where the altar boys chairs were situated.

About the time the priest finished reading the gospel and was starting to give his sermon a bumble bee starting working the flowers right behind me. I could hear him buzzing but I didn’t put two and two together, I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head and I didn’t turn around to investigate, I just sat there listening to the sermon.

The next thing I know is that something just flew in my left ear, and as I reached my had hand to my ear, I let out with, “son of a bitch”, which was one of my father’s favorite sayings when something went wrong. Well something had gone wrong; the bee had stung me in my ear. Needless to say the people in the pews didn’t know what had happened; the priest turned around and gave me a “go to hell” look. My mother was totally embarrassed; I couldn’t see how my brothers were reacting because my eyes were tearing up from the pain of just being stung.

Father Gallagher kicked me out of the Altar Boy Society and the church right then and there when he screamed, “Leave!!!” That old priest didn’t have to tell me twice, I walked off the altar and peeled off the smock thing that altar boys wore and dropped it right there at the side of altar. The church had a back door about twenty feet away and I was out in a flash.

It wasn’t but a few minutes from when I was stung to when I was standing by the family car and here came mother and my brothers. My brothers were laughing almost uncontrollably, mother got that under control quickly because she wanted to know what caused my outburst, she had no idea I had been stung. When we got home mother got some tweezers and dug the stinger out, which was almost as painful as getting stung.

My father wasn’t home that Sunday as he was working, when he got home though, he got an earful too.

My total number of masses that I worked was 2 and 1/3, I’m pretty sure that set the record for the shortest stint as an altar boy in our church.

In all honesty, I really wasn’t “altar boy material” and sometimes nature as a way of straightening things out, which is what I guessed happened that day. I’m just real glad that my father wasn’t big on the use of the M F er saying, or things would have been a whole lot worse for both of us.

Our church we attend now is the church my wife’s family help found back in the 1870’s and they have the young folks who are about to be confirmed serve as acolytes, which is the Lutheran equivalent to the Catholic altar boys. Blondie has passed me up as she has 4 church services to her credit, but she has also been warned by her father to keep as far away from the flowers as she can in church.

Until next time,
@sultnpapper

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https://sola.ai/sultnpapper