The Pagan Icon
Dear Randy,
Well we got that new computer we was talkin' about for about the last ten years or so. It is exactly the one we wanted too. They finally went on sale over an the "Hardly Ben Tried" used furniture store. We got it for ten dollars and a steel bed frame without a mattress. That's the one we only let the circuit servant, Iva Rammer, and his too tall wife Hadda, sleep in once. You remember, the night we all stayed up and watched the station pattern on TV. Anyway we no sooner got the computer hooked up and turned it on than we got this surprise visit from the company servant, brother Richard Noze, and his hired man Mutt Mc Suttop, who is his uncle's first cousin by his second marriage to his first cousin and who is the newest elder. Mutt says that they have heard rumors that we are engaged in idol worship and some of the brothers are saying that we are stumbling them because of our disregard for the counsel from the brothers and for our seeming inability to follow the guidelines and suggestions outlined by the Society. Maw is just standing there with her mouth open.
We told them that we always made our kids sit during flag salute and national anthem singing in school and if we see a flag we do just the opposite of all the worldly people, and if they stand, we sit, and if they sit we stand, and we got rid of all the Cracker Jacks toys in your old room. They said they were talking about the computer and the problem was the little "icons" on the screen that we use to change games. They said that the word "Icon", means "idol", and it is a sin to have an "idol" or "icon" in the house and to do the same thing worldly people do in front of one. They said that worship can be a ritual and we all agreed that when we saw the "idol" or "icon", we did observe a ritual, namely to click on it. We have been clicking on an idol. We did agree to get rid of the computer and we told them we were sure thankful that they came over and counseled us or we would never have known we were doing anything the Society didn't agree with. It all seemed innocent enough to us. This is sure one of the benefits from us having the truth, I mean to have someone willing to stop shoveling out the horse barn and come over here and save us from doing something against the truth.
I have to go now. We are gonna take the computer back and see if the guy will trade us back for the bed. We hope to see you Saturday after Thanksgiving when we are all getting together for a big family turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Bubba says that by having the dinner on Saturday instead of Thursday, that the truth says we are not like the worldly people who make a fuss out of holidays and then don't even take the Watchdog magazine or nothing.
Clem
PS LeRoy wants you to pick up a set of those nice wooden skies for him and bring them with you Saturday.
#32 Letter From Home
Indoor Outhouses and Vindication
Dear Randy,
We just got back from service with sister Bump and brother Small. We went over by Cassville. It's always is hard to witness to them flatlanders with them indoor toilets. I never could trust anyone who would do his business right there in the house like that. Plus it makes it harder on the sisters, what with being gone for the whole day and all. In the rurals, we just use the outhouses at the not-at-homes, but up there on the flatland and them indoor outhouses, the sisters had to knock on the doors and ask to use the bathroom and then after they was finished they could offer the magazines. They tried it the other way around a few times but that didn't work at all! We was all glad to git back into the hills. The other thing about flatland that is dangerous is that when we's driving we can see critters on the road too far ahead and we can't make a decision which way to go around them. In the hills we just put the gas rod down, crest a hill and "wham", there's absolutely no thinking involved at all.
Maw got into a big argument with a Baptist lady. She's still a little upset about it. The old bag asked Maw what we was doing there and Maw says that we was there to vindicate God's name. The Baptist lady says that there was no need to vindicate Gods name and that we should instead exalt it. Maw was so mad that she stepped right off the porch into a rose bush. We spent the next hour and a half picking rose thrones from her leg. Then we stopped for coffee at the Donut Pit and did we ever have a time. Sister Bump got so big and fat last winter with her glandular problem that she had to take to walking with a cane. Well she slides into the booth okay, but when we was ready to go she had stiffened up and she could hardly git up. Finally, she slid across the seat laying down and then we pulled her back to sitting. Except she forgot her cane clear over by the window and when she reached for it her feet came off the floor and there she lay on the bench on her belly. It was quite a site.
I have to go and pick up Bubba from work. His truck is broke down again and we are thinking that Armageddon will have to come soon or we will have to buy some new parts. Write when you can.
Clem
PS: We got the box of fruit you sent last summer that the mail lost. LeRoy ate it all and he and Granny are fighting over the box.