Preaching for Supper

"WELL BOY, COME PREACH ME A TEN MINUTE SERMON. I NEED TO BE WITNESSED TO" rang out across the den in Uncle Robert's trademark gravelly, smoke-cured voice; and I immediately regretted telling him that my cousin Jimmy is a licensed Presbyterian minister.

Jimmy, vaguely uncomfortable and new to the annual beach trip, stood in the den shifting his weight foot-to-foot; unsure how to respond.

He didn't have long to wait for the next salvo:

"HE AIN'T A PREACHER. I KNOW THAT MUCH. LOOK AT HIM. HE LOOKS TOO MUCH LIKE YOU. THAT AIN'T HOW PREACHERS LOOK."


"WELL, IF YOU AIN'T GONNA PREACH THEN MAKE YOURSELF USEFUL AND GO GET ME SOME CIGARETTES."

The beach is great, but we don't need the beach to have fun - we just need Uncle Robert and one unsuspecting guest and we're in business.

We ended up having a ball that night and no, cousin Jimmy didn't have to preach for his meals (much to Robert's chagrin), but we did hear a series of in-depth lectures on love and marriage compliments of Robert between the hours of 3 and 4AM that I'll treasure always. I think Cuz will too, so when he woke me up with "Pssstt..Jimmy. Are you asleep? Do you really think Robert did all that stuff? I can't quit thinking about it." I wasn't surprised. All I could say was "I don't know, but it sure did sound pretty great, didn't it?"

Its been fun having insane geniuses like Robert in the family. Even now I can hear Uncle John (thats John T. Slocumb, MD to you) in the kitchen behind me cooking low-country-boil and teaching the grandchildren gynecological terms. "Taint" was immediately accepted as purely clinical by virtue of John's hard-earned MD, but "Episiotomy" is their new favorite. Its medical explanation garnered a chorus of howls from grandkid middle-management (and one neighbor boy who slipped in under the radar) that startled Uncle William out of a deep slumber and widened John's trademark slow-spreading grin nearly to his ears.

Unfortunately, their howls startled William a bit too badly and he, in his fright, rolled over on the large box of Big Cheezit crackers and Nilla Wafer Cakester soft cakes he had fallen asleep cradling - crushing his Big Cheezits and mussing his Cakesters. A fountain of profanity and couch cushions soared for the heavens. After he collected himself and sent Daniel back out for more snack cakes he noticed me sitting nearby, glared from behind now-crooked polarized Vaurnet's and hollered "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, NASTY?"

Hey, I'm just sitting here minding my own business.