'Rasslin' with God......

Chapter One.....

I ‘uz just thinkin’........Last time I wuz back home (South Shore)...my good buddy, Pig Phillips, told his mother that I was an atheist...I’m not. I ain’t even sure I’m agnostic tho’ that’d be closer to the mark...thing is, I wuz raised a Christian ‘n even with all my internal struggles, I guess I remain a Christian....of sorts.....No, the problem I have ain’t that I don’t believe in God, it’s that I don’t have a lot of faith in Organized Religion...(absolutely pun intended) ’n the way that came about is the process of disillusionment called ‘Life’....
Eastern Kentucky, where I grew up, ain’t the most hard-scrabble place in the world....Heck! It ain’t even the most hard-scrabble piece of Kentucky...that said, there never wuz a preponderance of millionaires hidin’ out among the ridges of Greenup County when I wuz a boy... There may be a couple hiding out there now but that still don’t make a preponderance ....
Anyway, the Greenup County of my youth tended t’be on the lean side with most people bein’ what you might call, the working poor...Heck, what we in fact, tho’t of as middle class were really just those among the working poor that worked a little harder than ever’body else...’n the professional people, the teachers ‘n the ministers weren’t cuttin’ any fat hogs either....as a matter of fact, almost all of ‘em that I knew were hardworking, dedicated individuals who earned a lot more respect than money.....that said, when I got out in the world, I found a slightly different place than what I wuz used to.....
I ain’t complaining, mind you....I had a wonderful childhood, a sentiment that has been echoed by many of the people that grew up in the same time ‘n place.....
Now Life starts out all hunky-dory when you’re a child... You don’t have much to worry about since someone else feeds you ‘n takes care of almost all your personal problems leaving you with the only the task of growing up and learning to take care of yourself.....’n while that ain’t as easy as it sounds, it’s also sumthin’ that you don’t have a choice in....like every bird, sooner or later, you have to fly (or die) on your own...’N while you’re figgerin’ that one out, you also learn that all your idols have feet of clay....
That means that your parents, well-meaning or otherwise, ain’t gods....nor are Doctors, lawyers,’n Indian Chiefs....
All the people that you’re taught to trust ‘n revere as a child are the self-same adults that are going to cheat you out of your eyeteeth when you’re grown.....Caesar’s pat on the back from Brutus is a great example....One of the pats on my back came one day in the back seat of a taxi....the radio wuz on ‘n I tho’t I wuz listening to a comedian by the name of Brother Dave Gardner.....turned out, I wuz listening to Brother Billy Graham ‘n he wuz almost as funny as Brother Dave....’cept he made a lot more money than any honky-tonk comedian...
I know there’s a lot of people who rank Brother Graham right up there close to the second coming, but the man made more money than God....’n not only kept his tax-exempt status, he passed it on to his son.....ain’t that a hoot? Two-thirds of a trilogy....
Ain't sure where this is goin' but I don't pedal very fast anymore 'n I ain't in a hurry anyway.......