Texas

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Ohhh, The Hot Mess We’re In

/ Phil Strawn / 14 Comments

Here in Texas, we have a pickup truck full of local sayings and down-home descriptions, and one of our favorites that covers most of our female-induced situations is called ” A Hot Mess.” Sounds sort of like a hormonal-induced biography of Marilyn Monroe’s or Elizabeth Taylor’s life. What it really means is everything is “FUBAR,” another good one that came out of WWII. My father wouldn’t tell me the real meaning until I was a teenager. F…. Up Beyond Any Repair, you get the drift. All of us kids used it, because all of our fathers served in WWII. We heard it daily.

I can clearly hear those angelic acidic voices of my mother and grandmother talking about an unruly cousin (usually Cookie) or an aunt or uncle, or a neighbor being a “hot mess,” or a situation that is out of their control, which was usually me.

I wasn’t a bad kid; like Sinatra, I did things my way and paid for it in the usual way: a Tupperware, 9″ x 12″ hard plastic cake storage container to the butt. I still have a faint Tupperware emblem scar embedded in my left buttock, a free lifelong birthmark compliments of my sainted mother with the arm strength of an NBL pitcher. Then, to make matters worse, she put my birthday cake in the same container, and I had to suffer the humility of blowing out those candles of that lovely cake sitting atop that cruel instrument of punishment. Dr. Johnson, my pediatric MD, would always ask me about that scar when giving me my monthly penicillin shot in the butt for whatever ailed me. It was a fairly new drug back then, so you got a shot for everything. He would say, “Well, at least she made you a cake.” He was an old Army doctor and smoked unfiltered Camels while he examined me. I think he died young while mowing his lawn.

If I’m seeing things right, this country is in a “hot mess.” We got ragheads with missles and exploding drones blowing up large oil filled ships sitting in bean bag chairs working their Gameboy controllers, I-ugh-atolla’s killing all the young folks that want a normal life, crazy ass socialist trying to take over our governement, and are succeeding, a smiling sleezy-assed commie mayor of New York trying to turn one of our greatest cities into a third-world shithole, a million Somali’s ripping off us taxpayers and driving around in Lamborginis and Porsches, Lake Wobegon has gone to hell, and all the strong women and good looking men and above average children have left and moved to Texas and Florida, even old Garrison split for New York and is now trying to escape from Madison Ave to somewhrere where he can go for a walk without hearing a call to prayer five times a day on a sound system bigger than Lynard Skynner’s. I’m telling you folks, we are in a “Hot Mess.” One thing about Texas is, we all have guns, ammo, lots of coldbeer and pork rinds, HEB frozen pizzas, and we are pissed off most of the time because it’s so hot, so the “Hot Mess” the rest of the world is in doesn’t faze us that much. Governor Abbott already issued hunting tags for all the terrorists we want to shoot; limits don’t apply, and the taxidermy mounting fee is fifty percent off.

Don’t get me wrong, we still have a “hot mess” down here, but ours isn’t as bad as it is where you are. So, if it gets unbearable in your hometown, come on down to Texas; we’ll watch out for ya.

“

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Don’t Ask The Addled Texan Floating On The Lone Prairie

/ Phil Strawn / 18 Comments
This picture is only partially AI-generated. Me, the hair, the hat, the background, and the Mandolin are real; the suit is taken from Porter Waggoner. I hate AI.

Being a native Texan is a damn challenge, and not every one of us can pull it off without a series of small nervous breakdowns, panic attacks, and, of course, a few bottles of coldbeer (it’s considered a form of cultural blasphemy to pronounce it as two words in Texas). So, we tend to meld our words into one; it makes it easier to speak without sounding like a high roller walking around in high cotton. We do have our own language down here in the Lone Star State.

I consider writing my job now, perhaps my trade. So far, I’ve not made a nickel for any of my literature, possibly because it’s about Texas, my childhood, country music, and all the characters I’ve met along my journey on the lone prairie. There is a book of short stories in the works, but an addled mind has a problem picking out twenty of the four hundred I’ve written over the decades.

Gardening was a passion for a while; I became a master gardener and imagined my landscape to equal George Harrison’s Friar Park or Martha Stewart’s backyard. It’s too hot in this part of Texas to keep anything alive, so all of my plants are expiring, begging for me to put them out of their misery. I had a small service for two purple Salvias this morning, and last night, I saw another Rat at our bird feeder. Momo would cook for the little Avians every morning if I didn’t stop her.

Music would be my other pursuit of happiness. Still, I mostley play with our church band, which is primaraly worship songs: ain’t no Amie, The Weight, or Like A Rolling Stone getting played in the sanctuarary, even though we have the intrumentation to pull it off, and some of the musicians actually can play that type of music, mostley myself since I am the oldest old codger on stage and the rest of the bunch is in their 40s, and that leaves me as the “old relic from another era, the Woodstock generation, that played Hendrix and The Band, and tried to change the world, but failed miserably and had to go back home with our collective tails between our legs. Our parents laughed, “See, you stupid ass, we told you so.” They were half-right.

My main interest now is Mandolin: bluegrass, jazz, country, the music played by Ricky Skaggs, Sierra Hull, Mike Marshall, Sam Bush, Molly Tuttle, and Billy Strings, and of course Bill Monroe.

When I was a wee child, maybe five, my father brought home a tater-bug mandolin, likely given to him by a musician friend. I learned four or five two-finger chords, and then grew bored with the instrument: Cartoons were more interesting. My father was a professional country fiddle player, so he should have whooped my butt and made me stick with it, but my mother intervened. One musician in the home was more than enough. Now, that I’m older and bored with the guitar I’ve been playing since the age of twelve, I’ve gone back to the Mandolin and fiddle. I’m much too far down that rabbit hole to stop, and Momo, my wife, says it’s the only thing, except a trunk full of medications, keeping me alive: she is always right. If I stopped playing, within twenty-four hours I would assume room temperature and the paramedics would have to bag me and haul me away. So, I keep playing and writing. It’s a vicious circle, one that I created for myself. There is no escape, and I can’t take it with me when I go, and neither can any of you reading this. Everything stays here except your new suit and no shoes.

We are taking a road trip to Mount Rushmore in September, and I hope that seeing those big faces, Custer’s Last Stand, and maybe Yellowstone will revive us and add a few more years on our punch card. I plan to watch Not by Northwest before we go, so I can see how I could climb on Teddy Roosevelt’s nose and not fall off. I also have plans to run with the Bison, which is the newest form of self-destructive dopamine hits that old folks do these days. I’ve always wanted to pet a Buffalo, or a wolf, so this will be my chance.

I’m no travel writer or influencer, so don’t expect anything spectacular or even interesting when we return. I may do a Podcast full of rants, but that would be it. God Bless the Alamo and Texas.

The Texan

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AI Has Ruined Writing, And Will Eventually Get Around To Us

/ Phil Strawn / 10 Comments

I recently joined Substack, a supposedly writer-friendly site. I may be leaving it as soon as today. AI has taken over the site and flags most everything written on there as AI-generated or assisted. I put a few of my stories from WordPress on there, and it was immediately labeled AI-generated: I’ll call bullshit on that one. Many of you, like me, have read the great authors over the years and remember their writing, so yes, we might be influenced by their ability to weave a story. There are only so many words and ways you can use them, and AI has taken everything into a database that thinks it knows best. So, why write at all? Is the day of writing over for the non-educators? I say that with a bit of menace in my mouth. I took a poll a while back at Half Price Books and found that most of the writers who are selling are women, past and present educators or professors of whatever, and spit out garbage. Gone are the days of Wolfe, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Welty, Stein, and others. Amor Towles may be the exception, but there aren’t many. At this point, I am pondering whether I should even bother.

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Scratch A Little To The Left

/ Phil Strawn / 8 Comments

I ran into old buddy Mooch at Whataburger a week back. I was waiting on my Number 1 meal, large fries, and Dr Pepper when he walked in with his little cloned Chihuahua, Gravy, attached to his chest via a baby papoose holder. Giblet, the original mean-as-hell Chihuahua, finally bit the dust, and he had him cloned, as well as his wife’s cat, Here Kitty, which is now the clone cat called Here Kitty Kitty. You have to live in Texas to understand the way we think down here.

Mooch looked pretty good, even though his overalls still had the same Ketchup stains as they did last year. What I did notice was that his fingernails were perfect and he was wearing an expensive Rolex watch. What the hell? Mooch has always been poor as a hobo with no train to ride, so this was perplexing. I knew better to ask but it had to be done.

I spit it out, ” Mooch, where did the Rolex watch and the fingernails come from, did you win the Texas two step or sell a body part?”

No, little buddy, he says, ” Me and the missus started us a nail and back scratching salon over by the old McDonald’s. She got a bunch of these little Vietnamese girls to do the nails, and with those long nails, they also do back scratching while you’re having your nails done. Feels real good, and they finally got that one spot that’s been itching for years; turns out it was a big old blackhead, and that little gal dug it right out with that sharp little fingernail. Now we’re rolling in the dough. Miss Mooch got her a new Kia, and I got a new bass boat and a pickup. Lunch is on me today.” I appreciated that; I usually pay, and that damn dog bites me. Gravy is more mild-mannered than the long-dead little demon dog, Giblet.

I will admit, I have some scratchy spots on my back, and Momo scratches me like a mongrel dog once in a while, so I said I’ll stop by for a manicure and some scratching. Every man needs a good back scratching once in a while by a little dragon lady with talons.

Happy trials, God bless the Alamo, and I’ll catch on down the line.

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New York, New York: Old Blue Eyes Would Have A Stroke.

/ Phil Strawn / 8 Comments

If Frank were still around, he would be giving his mafia buddies a call to do something about this grinning commie Rat-bastard who got himself elected mayor by the young nepo-elitist children of the rich democrats. Frank was a Dem, but from a different era, when it meant love of country and, of course, JFK, Jackie, Marilyn, and Ava. I read today that the old handsy storyteller from Minnesota, Garrison Keillor, is pissed that his taxes on his multi-million dollar townhouse are going to be doubled, so he is going back to his cozy little Lake Wobegon, that mythical magical place where all the women are strong, the men good-looking, and the children above average. Sounds like a tidy place to reside.

Give New York City a year, and all the party girls will be covered in Burkas, the single Beta-sexual men will be dating goats, and the Build A Bear stores will be converted to “Build A Bomb” stores for all the newly indoctrinated child terrorists. Sounds like we need Supergirl, Superman, Super Dog, Cat Woman, Soupy Sales, the Fantastic Four, and maybe Batman to fly into Laguardia. My son and his family briefly visited there on their way to Niagara Falls, and he thinks his DNA may have been damaged.

So this is what our nation has come down to: Socialists, communists, foreigners, and non-citizens calling the shots, and we sit back and do nothing while they steal our country and tax money from us. If you are a Democrat and read my blog, I’m calling you out. It’s nothing personal, only the way 88 million more Americans and I feel.

Let me rub some more Gulf of America sea salt into our gaping national wound: guess what! Hollywood is as dead as a Rat that just ate a piece of yummy bait inside the guts of my hot tub. Fort Worth, Cowtown, home of the shit-kicking, rodeo-riding, pickup-driving, cowboy-boot-wearing country music playing and listening boys and girls, is now the new Hollywood, thanks to a real cowboy-turned-producer, Taylor Sheridan. The girls here in Fort Worth don’t need Ozempic; they look quite nice in their Wrangler jeans and Justin boots, and they live off of Mexican food, Whataburgers, and Shiner Bock.

It would be nice if old Blue Eyes could come back for one more concert at Madison Square Garden, now that Taylor Swift is a has-been and Ella Langley, a true country artist, has outsold Mariah Cary and the long-gone Whitney Houston for fourteen straight weeks with “Choosing Texas.” Yeah, take that LA music machine.

None of this is political; it’s just how I feel most of the time. Hold my beer and watch this, hide and watch, and get off of my lawn.

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Ask A Texan: The Summer of the Dog Days Is Upon Us

/ Phil Strawn / 18 Comments
The Texan

Is It Really This Damn Hot In Texas, Or Did I Accidentally Set Myself On Fire With A Cherry Bomb?

I recently read that only two of the original members of The Grateful Dead are still breathing, which is a feat in itself considering all the drugs and other things they ingested, not that they remember any of it. Now, are they ‘truly grateful they are not dead quite yet?’ Old musicians are the biggest whiners. Springsteen is now a competent politician and is glad to tell you about his breakdown, when he isn’t trying to remember which chords to play on his out-of-tune Telecaster, which doesn’t say much for him, since there are no competent politicians and he is no musician. He can’t sing anymore, not that he ever could; hell, even Bob Dylan sounded better than him, and at least Joanie could harmonize with Bob, and The Band did all the heavy lifting.

I was outside for a short while yesterday and came back in with brown, crusted skin akin to homemade bread left in the oven a few minutes too long. It was 106 degrees in the shade, and 138 degrees in the sun. My hair is at least two shades whiter thanks to the sun bleaching. Momo believes I suffered a mini-sun-stroke, or something similar, but it’s actually early onset Dementia, or Oldtimers, and my neurosciencetist comedian doctor gave me some cute little pills to take care of it, says in two months I’ll be 25 percent better as long as I continue to play my instruments, which stimulate my brain and keep me focused on something other than sitting by the window and waiting for the postwoman to deliver the junk mail. I asked him if, if I upped the dose, I would be 50 percent better in four months. He has a nice laugh and drives a Tesla. Momo is a retired RN, so she knows he’s full of shit.

Now I sit in my music room, play my mandolin all day, and write nonsense on my computer. Soon, I will embark on my podcast adventure using my Garrison Keillor whisper voice combined with the folksiness of Walter Brennan talking to Pepito about driving the tractor through the living room of the farmhouse. Of course, being a Texan, you won’t be able to understand my accent, so I’ll attach a scrolling screen of the words I speak for those of you who don’t speak Southern. How in the hell did Terry Southern, Larry McMurtry, and Truman Capote ever make it through life with their Southern affliction? I believe Taylor Sheridan would appreciate my unique vocabulary in one of his many TV shows that are filmed around our town.

My buddy, Mooch, is turning 80 next month, and wants he and I to get together for one last songfest on our guitars. He can’t remember the lyrics, I can’t remember the chords, and neither of us can carry the heavy equipment, and our drummer is reduced to playing Ricky Ricardo bongos (without Lucy), so it is bound to be entertaining. We had our rock days back in the sixties, so it deserves one final suck on the oxygen tank and a geriatric version of Inna Gadda Da Vidda, Wagon Wheel, and Blackbird.

Catch you on down the road. The Texan

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The Last Home. The End of The Line…

/ Phil Strawn / 23 Comments

Notes From the Cactus Patch

Jul 11, 2026

It wasn’t the first time he had gone with my wife to visit her brother in a Rehabilitation Center- that’s the newest, kindest, less shocking word for a nursing home. It’s not a pleasant place to visit, and it certainly does nothing for one’s mood afterward. Eating a pleasant lunch or running a few errands on the way home seems pointless. Their spirits have slipped into the reality that this could be their future, existing in a similar setting with other older people in that end-of-life environment. Will their children visit and try to cheer them up, or will they come by a few times a year out of guilt? The man is not sure he can return, but his wife is a few years younger than he is, and driving a two-hundred-mile round trip by herself is not an option.I’m reminded of the Traveling Wilburys song, with Roy Orbison’s rocking chair moving as his cherished guitar sits in the chair instead of the recently departed Roy. No one wants a preview of the end of the line.

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The Call of The High Desert: A Marfa, Texas Tale

/ Phil Strawn / 28 Comments

Momo and I are creatures of habit, wandering through the peculiar tapestry of our country, mainly the desert southwest and the mountains of far West Texas. Drawn like a moth to a porchlight, time and again to the whimsical embrace of a certain town.

Marfa, Texas, stands as a solitary beacon of floating lights in the mountains amidst the vastness, nestled alongside its mysterious neighbors—Alpine and Fort Davis—forming a curious landlocked Bermuda Triangle of odd happenings in the Chihuahuan high desert. Strange lights, ghostly apparitions floating around town, young hipsters from Austin that migrated to the new Nirvana, only to find out that it costs more than they can afford to live there, and who will buy their third‑rate art and used clothing? The local folks call them “Marfa Surfers.” Either the surf is up or down, and then on to the next beach. The average shelf life for these young gypsies is around three to six months: then it’s back to Austin, where their air of weirdness is commonplace.

Each visit finds us returning to the Hotel Paisano, a historic haunt where the stars of the film “Giant” once breathed in the same desert air, their whispers still echoing through the adobe walls, reminding us of the historical stories that linger in this town.

There exists an ever-growing assembly of characters, primed to share the local tales intertwined with a potpourri of exaggerations, all while maintaining a devilish demeanor as they weave their narratives, and Planet Marfa appears to be their favored stage.

Sagebrush Sonny Toluse was my favorite from our last visit. Sporting a long white beard and a wooden leg, courtesy of a large desert dump of toxic nuclear waste from the 1945 Atom Bomb. The waste was eaten by a group of escaped Chihuahuas from a breeder in Persideo, which turned them into vicious, mutated killer mongrels, which in turn relieved him of his right leg. I believed most of it, but truthfully, he’s full of crap, but it was fun crap. I was hoping to run into him again, ply him with beer, and hear a few more stories.

As luck has it, he was at his usual seat at the end of the bar, looking much worse for wear than two years ago. The dry desert air is supposed to preserve one like an Egyptian mummy, but Sonny may be the exception. He looked as if he had been vacationing in Hell and just arrived home that day. His drinking a case of beer a day is not considered medicinal or practical, and he was smoking two cigarettes at a time with a third sitting in a classic Hotel Paisano glass ashtray, ready to be lit. I didn’t see money on the bar, so the kind young bartender likely lets him drink for free these days.

I saddled up beside him, and he remembered me:

“You’re the fella from Fort Worth who liked my stories,” he says.

“Yep, that’s me,” I reply. Mister gullible, but interested enough to listen and use what he tells me, even though much of it is a tall tale, and I do know something about that genre.

I ask the bartender to bring Sonny two beers, on me. He appears to have had more than a few already, but I can sense he is ready to orate a few of his tales. It’s then that I notice he is wearing a black patch over his left ear, and his left arm is missing: his shirt sleeve is held in place at the shoulder by a safety pin, and there is a large area of his scalp on the left side that is bare of hair. The poor man looks like a wreck, so I ask if he was in a car accident. He drinks his beer in one gulp, lights his third cigarette, and I can sense he is going to explain his ghastly appearance. Momo is sitting under a canopy, enjoying a beer, texting, and taking a few pictures. A light rain has started to fall.

Sonny wastes no time and begins his story.

He speaks in between deep draws of his cigarette and swigs of his fourth beer, ” Back about a year ago, I was driving on the highway over by El Cosmico, you know that bunch of hippies from Austin that live in those tents and trailers. There was this 1960s Fairlane station wagon with the hood up, spewing steam, and a family standing by the side of the highway, so I stopped to help. The man said they were from Minnesota and were looking to set up camp in the desert, but couldn’t afford to rent a space in El Cosmico. They were a ragged-looking bunch, three kids, all wearing boxer shorts and sneakers, long hair with fishing lures woven into it. The wife, who called herself Sassy, was cute, but kind of a smart ass. The guy, Tiberius, was really nice. I told them there’s an old abandoned campground about ten miles out that might fit their need, and it has a little pond the kids can swim in. After I put some water in their radiator, they followed me to the spot, which is way out yonder in the desert. When we got there, they were excited to see a few Yurts that were still livable, so after I got rid of the rattlesnakes, they moved right in. It was getting dark, so they asked me to stay for supper and spend the night. I had a cooler full of beer, and they fixed up some beans and weiners and sat around the campfire swapping stories. That’s when I told them about the toxic killer Chihuahuas that roamed the desert at night, and that’s why I have a wooden leg cause they chewed the other one off. They thought I was full of crap and got a big hoot over my story, which was really a warning: this place ain’t safe at night. They laughed so hard, the wife wet her shorts, and they thought I was telling a tall tale. Around midnight, we all said goodnight and hit the hay.

I ordered him two more beers and a fresh pack of cigarettes, and he continued, ” I was sleeping in my truck, and during the night I had to pee, so I hobbled a few feet away from the truck, because at night, I take my wooden leg off to give my stump a rest. That’s when the little demon Chiuauas jumped me. They had been hiding under the pickup, waiting for me. The little demons got me down, chewed off my left ear and most of my left arm, and took a good part of my scalp and hair, which was sparse already. The family woke up after the attack, piled me in the car, and drove me to the hospital over in Alpine, and the doc saved my life, cut off the rest of my arm, and sewed up what was left of my ear and scalp. I was there for a week or so, and when I returned to Marfa, the family had packed up and gone back to Minnesota. They were too weird for me anyway.” I looked at the bartender, and he gave me a smile and a nod, as if to say, It’s all true.

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The Boy Who Became Sweet Baby Jesus

/ Phil Strawn / 19 Comments


The year was 1955, and at six years old, by my grandmother’s observation, I was a heathen child, almost feral. Being raised in the big city of Fort Worth on a steady diet of television featuring Popeye, Bugs Bunny, and the Three Stooges, I was living in a religious void. I saw the “good book” as a large decoration on the dining room table and read it at Christmas, Easter, and family funerals. Recently, I had been attending a few services at the Poly First Baptist Church with my parents. Still, the preacher, with his over-animated, stage-stomping Hell-and-Damnation rants, scared me more than The Mummy and Frankenstein combined. I was wishing for a fatal disease to strike so I would be bedridden and couldn’t attend.


I had been visiting the farm for six weeks, from June into July, and it was my first time away from my parents. The farmhouse had no television, only a radio. By the third day of no cartoons, I had the shakes and a low-grade fever. I did bring my Red Ryder BB gun and enough ammo for a summer’s worth of popping some of my grandmother’s five hundred chickens: the BBs bounced off their thick feathers, so none were harmed. Other than throwing dirt clods at Rattle Snakes, it was all the entertainment I could muster. Granny was a wise Cherokee, medical Shaman, and self-proclaimed Texas Biblical scholar, and she felt a week at the Baptist Church Vacation Bible School would fix me up and assure my acceptance into Heaven. I had no idea where Heaven was or when I would be required to visit, so I trusted my Granny would make my reservations.


Miss Ida Belle Mae and her younger sister, Rita Rose Mae, are the self-appointed teachers of our Bible school class of 25 children, ages 6 to 10.
Homely as a sack of poultry feed, the two are old maids and prolific spinsters rumored to survive on a tidy income from a single pumping oil well on their farm. It has been a long-standing gambling bet at the Domino Parlor that that gasping little well will give it up. To date, no one has won the wager.
When the holidays come around, the two sisters are rumored to donate a substantial sum to the church. To appease the ladies and keep the money flowing, the kind but timid preacher is forced to let them do what they please. Their pleasure this summer will be teaching Bible school. The preacher will regret this decision.


On the first day of Bible School, our class cut, pasted, and signed 270 prayer cards for the sick and unfortunate children in Africa; quite a feat for 25 kids. Most of us were injured and bleeding from paper cuts and glue poisoning from licking the envelopes. My tongue swelled up the size of a buttery biscuit. The kid beside me glued his lips shut, and Miss Ida had to pry them open with a spoon and a douse of grape Kool-Aid.


Miss Ida sent us outside to lounge under the trees and recover from our stint on her assembly line. There is no recovery; it’s 96 degrees and not a rustle of a breeze, but it’s better than forced child labor.


A black Cadillac sedan stops in front of the church, and an older lady escorts a boy of maybe nine or ten into the main building. The kid wears a black suit, white shirt, and red bow tie. We assume he is here for a funeral or a baptism, but don’t care because it’s too hot to move or think. Miss Ida rings the lunch bell. Yummy peanut butter, grape jelly sandwiches, and lukewarm Kool-Aid await—the usual menu for Bible school attendees.
After we are seated, Miss Ida brings the suited boy to the front of the class. She is beaming like a schoolgirl attending her first prom In a giddy voice, she addresses us,


” Children, I would like to introduce Master Stewart Sweet. His daddy is the famous tent-preaching evangelist and faith healer from San Angelo, the Right and Honorable Doctor I.M. Sweet. Master Stewart will attend our Bible school and lead the children’s Bible study on Sundays for a few weeks. I can assure you that he is quite capable since he has read the Bible three times, all before he was six years of age, and preaches at his father’s tent revivals.” Miss Ida doesn’t know this kid’s back story, nor do we, but it will soon come to light.


As a class, in childish camaraderie, we are unimpressed and instantly dislike this brat. Will this kid, dressed as a department store dummy, preach to us about sin and saving our little souls? At our young age, the worst thing we could have done is tell a few small lies, steal a cookie, or shoot a chicken with a BB Gun. Hell and Damnation are years away for most of us.


Young Master Stewart steps from behind Miss Ida’s table and slams his ten-pound Bible down on the floor so hard it sounds like a firecracker. A few girls in front are shaken and begin to whimper.
The young preacher Stewart raises his hands to the Heavens and launches into a tirade that can only be considered appropriate for adults designated to luncheon with Beelzebub within the hour.


After ten minutes of our first fiery sermon, we are ready to wrap this kid in scotch tape and send him to Africa with the prayer card. Suddenly, he stops and begins to bless our food. He bows his head and, in a reverent whisper, says,


” Dear Lord, these children, wretched little hayseeds that they are, cannot survive on the butter of the Peter Pan and the mush of Welches. They need a substantial amount sustenance so they may be healthy to accept your holy spirit. Starting tomorrow, a glorious feast of grilled sausages wrapped in soft buns, the salad of the potato and the ruby-red fruit of the melon will be their manna from Heaven. Amen.”


Miss Ida is speechless. The little preacher kid has called her food “garbage,” and she has to sit there and take it. The class is now a bit impressed. This kid is good.
The sisters, rattled by Young Sweets’ blessing, need time to recover and devise a plan to send this kid back to San Angelo as soon as possible. So they send the class outside to suffer in the heat again.


Miss Rita delivers the ice cream freezer and instructs two larger boys to start churning for the afternoon dessert. Allowing us to have ice cream may be the only kindness these two witches grant us.


Twenty-five minutes into the churning, the ice cream remains a pitiful mush. Now impatient for their treat, the class gathers around the freezer, demanding an explanation. We are kids and know nothing about how these machines work. You add ice, salt, liquid, and chur. That’s all we know.


Young Stewart parts the crowd and approaches the ice cream freezer. He kneels and places both hands on the contraption. In a soft, almost inaudible voice, he says a small prayer and violently shakes the machine a few times. He rises and declares, “There shall be delectable ice cream in five minutes.” He is right. This ice cream might be the best we have tasted in our young lives. Little Master Stewart fixed the ice cream machine. A girl calls it a miracle.


After ice cream, Miss Ida calls the class for Bible study and a story. Her stories are known to last too long, and kids tend to lose interest and fall asleep. Her voice is that of an older man who smokes two packs of Camels daily — raspy and accentuated by the occasional hack.


Bitsy, the smallest and youngest girl in class, is seated at the front table and is in distress. The new kids in the class are unaware that she has an immobilizing speech defect. She stutters, and her vocabulary is limited to a simple yes or no. The little girl is wide-eyed and squirming in her chair.
Miss Ida knows her problem, and when Bitsy politely raises her hand to request a bathroom visit, Miss Ida insists that she must stand and ask aloud in front of the class. Of course, Bitsy, immobilized with fear and embarrassment, wets her pants. Miss Ida snickers and calls her a little baby child. We all knew these two sisters were mean, but now we know they are darn right evil.


Master Stewart comes from the rear of the class and stops in front of Bits. He turns and gives the two sisters a “stink-eye” that makes them fall back into their chairs, white with fear.
He bends down, takes Bitsy’s head in his tiny hands, and declares,

” Take this affliction from this small child. Purvey upon her the diction of William Shakespeare and the wisdom of Mark Twain. Let her words flow forth like the singing of Doves on the south wind. She will never again stammer or grasp for words and will someday speak to massive gatherings of people who will clamor to hear her message. Amen.”


The class sits in stunned silence. Healing the ice cream machine was a warm-up compared to this. A girl from the back of the room yells, “Thank you, Sweet Baby Jesus.” And there it is: Young Stewart will now be known as Sweet Baby Jesus, or just Sweet Baby for short.


Miss Ida and Miss Rita sit rigidly in their chairs, eyes glazed and staring into nothing. The amount of “stink eye” Stewart, now known as Sweet Baby Jesus, put on them must be compelling.
He approaches the two women, lays his small, soft hands on their wrinkled, sweating foreheads, and mumbles a few words. His back is to the class, so we have no idea what is said. The two evil sisters shiver a few times and awaken from their “stink eye” trance. They stand, gather themselves, and tell the class they are going home. Master Stewart will teach for the duration of the Bible school. They depart the church as if in a zombie trance.


Sweet Baby Jesus takes his Bible, sits on the edge of Miss Idas’ desk, smiles, and says, “Now, let’s hear some real Bible stories straight from the source.” It was a beautiful afternoon full of unexpected laughter and acceptance. For once, we kids found that listening to the word of God from another kid made us feel good, sort of like hot oatmeal on Christmas morning.


The following day, the preacher greets us with the news that young Stewart is back in San Angelo and will teach the class for the remainder of Bible school. Of course, we were sad to see our new Sweet Baby Jesus depart our Bible school. Bitsy, in between constant talking, sniffles, and wishes him the best.
The class wrote a letter to Sweet Baby, thanking him for his kindness to Bitsy and for putting the evil sisters in their place.


I attended the vacation Bible school for a few more summers, but it wasn’t the same without Sweet Baby, and I attended my last one at eight years old.
A few decades later, I read that the Right and Honorable Reverend Stewart Sweet, with assistance from his wife, Bitsy, had established an enormous ministry in Africa and healed everything from Beri-Beri to auto engines.
It looks like Sweet Baby Jesus is still doing a great job.

Religion, Family, and a Baptism Gone Wacky

/ Phil Strawn / 15 Comments

Swimming With Jesus In A Cement Pond

I wrote this story some time ago. It was water Baptismal day at our church today, so I figured, why not share this bit of family history with my readers?

My first taste of religion came when I was six. A boy from Fort Worth, I was taken to the Polytechnic Baptist Church to witness the near-drowning of my young father. He was baptized by a man named Reverend Agustin Z Bergeron. The preacher, a certified Cajun from Chigger Bayou, Louisiana, was a legend, standing alongside only two others: Reverend J. Frank Norris and Billy Graham.

Someone in my family, an aunt or a cousin or all members thereof, thought that father’s soul needed saving to ensure his path to Heaven would be an honest one. I suspect it was his mother. She was a championship sinner with no apparent way to redemption, so convincing her only son to Baptism might also gain her entry to God’s domain as a parental guest. I also suspect that the bottles of hooch and the .38 Special in her traveling suitcase would be overlooked as she accompanied him through the pearly gates. Looking back on my family history, I now realize that the entire bunch of my father’s family was street rat crazy. They also loved alcohol and were world-class consumers of hooch. It didn’t faze them a bit that, back in prohibition, the entire bunch went temporarily blind from a bad batch of moonshine my grandmother’s brother brewed in the woods behind their house.

The Sunday of the Baptism was as hot as I can remember. The church was surrounded by large shade trees, but there was not a whiff of a breeze inside the building. Religion and suffering are one and the same. July in Texas is considered a preview of the weather in Hell, and the good reverend used it well.

I sat beside my mother. My little sister was in her lap, not yet a year old. My clothes were soaked with sweat. I might have wet myself and not known it. The summer heat rose from the wooden floor beneath us. Hell lay just below, waiting for us to waver, to lose our faith. Satan would pull us down through the cracks in the floorboards if we let go. It seemed so simple. I didn’t understand sin or what it meant to fall into Hell. Kids don’t think about such things.

Pacing the floor, Preacher Augustin moved from wall to wall. Behind him, the choir of big-haired women added their Amen and Hallelujahs, their voices sharp and clear. The pulpit held the preacher’s Bible, unused, but not forgotten. He did not need its leather-bound wisdom. He knew all he needed to instill fear in the hearts of those gathered in that church. The stifling air was drenched in repentance.

The sermon concluded, and the baptism commenced. Father was the last on the list.

Mother had dressed him in a new white shirt and a black tie. With his new black horn-rim glasses, he looked like the television comedy star, Steve Allen. The shirt was stiff as cardboard, making it hard to move. One might expect that if someone were dunked in water, a swimsuit or at least a robe would be appropriate. But no, Baptists preferred it genuine, fully dressed in their best clothes, shoes, watch, and wallet had to be saved.

Father’s name was called. Entering the pulpit from behind a velvet curtain, he climbed into the baptismal tank. I found it odd that a church would have a small swimming pool at the altar. A waist-deep concrete tub full of unpurified water from the Trinity River. How would one know that the occupants hadn’t released a stream of urine into the sacred water in their moment of personal repentance and acceptance? It’s a natural response akin to peeing in a lake. Father stood in the holy waters awaiting his deliverance. He carried the look of a trapped man; no escape route was available, so his fate was sealed. It’s not that he wasn’t ready to accept Jesus as his savior, but the whole scene felt off-kilter. The preacher smoked Camel cigarettes and drank iced tea while he preached, and the combination of the smell and his aftershave was awful.

Preacher Augustin wasted no time. He asked Father if he was ready to accept Jesus and be bathed in the Holy waters. Father mumbled a few words, and the preacher pushed him back into the Holy water. Time passed, it seemed like minutes, and along with lovely words and passages, Father was still immersed in the Holy waters. A hand, then an arm, reached up, flailing about. Finally, a leg broke the surface, and a shoe flew off. Still, Preacher Agustin continued the baptismal.

Looking back, it was common knowledge that father was a country musician and made his living playing in the beer joints along Jacksboro Highway. Preacher Augustin figured that since my father was a fully certified sinner, an extra dose of salvation was needed.

Father made it to the surface with seconds to spare. Sputtering and coughing, on the verge of death, he rolled over the side of the cement pond and lurched toward the side door of the church. Holding my baby sister, my mother grabbed me by my bony arm, and we made a hasty beeline to the car. Father was there waiting, dripping wet, looking like a bad meal on a china plate, but he was a saved man.