Things I Learned from R. B. (April 5th, 2020)

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Episode 10

We decided to settle into Shreveport, Louisiana, where I took a job as a professor at a Bible college, teaching drama and also Music Director at the adjoining church.

The college was very small—only twenty students—and the church maintained a faithful fifty. But it garnered me living quarters and a small weekly stipend.

I took the opportunity because I thought “college professor” would look good on my resume.  I also speculated that it would give me several months to think things over before the evangelical church, which financially supported the college, grew tired of me and my creative ways.

R. B. accompanied us, but only in body—somehow absent the heart and soul which had once plumped him up into being human. The misadventure in Minnesota had left him defeated, devoid of confidence. So upon arriving in Shreveport, he found a young couple who had an extra room, and he moved in.

Although he was only ten blocks away from us, we gradually lost contact.

He despised the director of the Bible college and came to church services very infrequently. I did not agree with him about the founder of Hope Bible College,  even though the man wore cowboy shirts, bolo ties, boots and stabled two horses on his property. He and I were not a natural match, but still maintained a strange respect based upon the fact that he yearned for my youthful intervention at his dream institute.

And I certainly loved having my rent paid and enough money to fund my addiction to lunch meat.

There was a small dormitory on site which housed six students. One was the onsite janitor, whom the college touted as “recovering from mental retardation.” He was not really challenged—just a young kid with the shit intimidated out of him. There was also a black student, fulfilling Hope’s MLK moment. And then there were four gentlemen who certainly, in the real world, would have been prescribed anti-depressants, but were instead being sustained by prayer-healing.

Now, I knew my stay would not be long, so I launched.

I wrote two original plays and staged them in a small auditorium where we built a stage and I wired in two banks of overhead colored lights. The proctor of our “college-ette” was thrilled beyond measure when we presented the first play, and not only was the auditorium filled to the brim, but the local newspaper arrived to review it.

Yet R. B. only showed up when I asked him to play organ in the church. He arrived attempting to play with a black gospel-jazz flair. Unfortunately, R. B. was not black, nor jazzy.

In a nutshell, he was frustrated and confused.

He took up smoking, started to socially drink (which the congregation found quite unsociable) and he was touchy. I guess “touchy” was an old-time word we used when a human being was always ready for a fight. For R. B, a grimace had replaced his grin.

My stay at this institute of higher learning turned out to be seven months. It was eventful, troubling, and even though the president of the college loved my talent, he hated the challenge and the competition.

Truth of the matter is, so did I. I was weary of having ideas that had to come under the bar of religious prejudice.

So I left Hope on agreeable terms. R. B. gladly left with me.

I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I was not madly in love with Shreveport, but even less inclined to pack up one more time and darken the road. My wife had a job; my kids had schools.

So I stayed—and so did R. B.

But it wasn’t a mutual friendship holding us together. Rather, it was the need to hold onto one another during a mutual disintegration.

Sit Down Comedy …March 29th, 2019

Jonathots Daily Blog

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I, too, have no collusion with rushin’.

Slow down

That’s what I say.

Slow-cooked chicken. Give the bird a chance to reflect on its journey before you dip it in the gravy.

I like the slow lane on the freeway, just in case, on a whim, I decide to exit.

I’m the guy you honk at because I’m going the speed limit

And for some goddamn reason this has ruined your life.

I had to quit football because there was running. I loved the blocking. I loved the tackling. Looked pretty good in the uniform. I could not convince my coach that running was unnecessary. He explained that the other team would have people carrying the ball, and we must chase them, and stop them. I suggested we surround them and move in slowly for the kill. He didn’t agree.

I was at a department store yesterday, entering the door, when two ladies in front of us stopped to chat with a friend. It blocked the entrance. I was happy. For a few moments I didn’t have to move.

The lady right in front of me, turned and peered at me, hoping to get support for how stupid it was for these two women to be talking to another human, blocking her progress. She move her cart around them, but there was no room. Finally the two women who were having the delightful conversation realized they were being assaulted from the rear and stepped aside.

The lady zoomed by, disgusted.

She’s fast.

I’m not. All my turtles win by a “hare.”

So you can imagine how ill-suited I am for a season in which how speedily things are accomplished is more important than the quality of what is produced. I dare to say that’s the entire problem in our nation.

We have the evangelical church, which is racing around looking for signs of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ, while young people are testing the temperature and depth of the oceans, convinced we’re all in hot water, preparing to cook like lobsters.

Here I am, slowing down

We have picked our past four Presidents because they were like fast cars and we were acting like teenagers.

Bill Clinton was not ready to be President. He and his wife had not yet made their peace about his flirtations and womanizing.

George W. Bush should never have been President. We should have put him in charge of CIA Black Ops, and he could have murdered Saddam Hussein, which would have saved tens of thousands of lives and about a trillion dollars.

Barack Obama was also ill-prepared for the transition. Although a pleasant man, he did not understand the futility that had to be overcome to lead the country and fell victim to cunning minds.

And Donald Trump was doing extraordinarily well working with buildings and an “Apprentice” here and there, without being given a job which cannot always be negotiated through “The Art of the Deal.”

It was all too fast

And because of that, we are in the midst of an ongoing “clean-up on Aisle 3,” with mistakes being made which don’t seem to mop up.

So not being in a hurry to give my opinion, and allowing myself a space of time to think, I will tell you…

(to be continued)

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