Jehovah's Witnesses Come Calling...Soldiers for God...

Forty years ago I lived in a pole house hidden in the remote woods of Chancy, Oh. Millfield, the closest town of fewer than 500 people, had been a big deal when coal mining was still shooting speed into the veins of the local economy. One day in 1930 the Sunday Creek Coal Company experienced a little blemish on their already fly spotted resume. An explosion killed 32 men...things went downhill from there and were still in a free fall when I showed up in the late 1970's at the invitation of my older brother, a Vietnam vet turned back-woods green entrepreneur  in the days before coke fucked everything up. My house had been raised in a brief gathering of hippies, high on wine laced with LSD, who all lived in the woods and took classes at Ohio University. Mostly we went to grad school to have something to do and a place to shower. The showers were communal gathering spots with endless hot water and lots of friends being careful to keep the joint dry as it ran the gauntlet of shower heads unsuccessfully trying to extinguish the fire of the entire group.

But I'm rambling. I mentioned Jehovah's soldiers coming and I have to tell you that I hold those warriors for God in high regard. It was at the pole house on a hot summer day that I heard a car laboring and wheezing up my long dirt driveway. Into view came an older model Chevy four door coupe, just barely clearing the raised mounds of cracked clay as the tires sunk deep into ruts left by tire chains necessitated by the severity of the previous winter. The car was overflowing with the soft flesh of four large, Christian women on a mission. I was electric headed, totally nude, and magnificently stoned. Being on my own property, viewing the advance of uninvited interlopers, unembarrassed and unwilling to retreat, I stood my ground. They continued to advance. With a sputtering lurch the engine clunked to a stop, sounding like it would never start again. The Chevy choked out a variety of pops and clicks as all four ladies struggled to open doors and plant thick ankles firmly into ruts of dried mud.

After unhurried introductions interspersed with my repeated assertions that we would be hard pressed to find common ground, a simply wonderful conversation blossomed that afternoon in the front room (which was also the back room, bedroom, kitchen...every room of my place) of my pole house. Modesty had overtaken any eagerness to be confrontational. I wrapped up in a towel after it became clear that these gals were ready to roll with wherever Jesus took them.

Over an Orange crate coffee table displaying my Whole Earth Catalog and now their copies of The Watchtower and Awake! we talked. I was fine with their polite decline when my offer to pass fat joints of some great Colombian Red was politely turned down. Four large ladies, overdressed and oblivious to the heat, sat on my couch lined up like carnival ducks with long skirts and no hint of judgment. It was totally surreal. We had a great conversation, back and forth. They listened to my points, as I did theirs. Hopefully they still remember that afternoon as fondly as I do. 

I wonder where they are today? I can't help but wish that everyone could get along and share extremely polar views without becoming defensive or hostile, as we did on that sweaty afternoon, in a one-room cabin in the woods, so very long ago.