Light My Fire

I was raised in the church. The Methodist Church to be precise. Mine was a church-going family right up until the time the preacher ran off with the choir director and both of them were married to other people at the time. Before that the biggest scandal in our church had been the time one of the ushers absconded with Sunday morning’s haul and blew it all on the crap tables in Vegas. After the pastor and the choir director snuck off it took great courage to admit to someone in our small town that you were a church-going Methodist. And so for awhile we became what is known in the trade as “C and E Christians” which meant the only time we went to church was on Christmas and Easter. It got so I’d rather drink Drano than go to Sunday services presided over by our new worst preacher in the business. That’s how shooting pool on Sunday morning at Grandpa’s house became a new Sunday morning ritual and how I became a good pool hustler and a terrible Christian.