The Good Samaritan

Educated in a small town
Taught to fear Jesus in a small town
--Small Town, John Mellencamp
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Last week when gassing up at the local truck stop I was greeted by a disturbing sight.

The denizen derelict who usually begs for money while people are cornered at the gas pump was lying comatose in the 100-degree heat four feet from the front door of the store, seemingly invisible to the truck stop patrons. Like all the crazies, beggars, bums and losers in the lottery of life, he simply did not exist.

I, too, walked past his prostrate form to pay, much as did the passengers in the van next to me from the New Hope Baptist Church. Not one of these virile young people infused with the Holy Spirit bothered to help their fellow Child of God. So much for the lesson of the Good Samaritan.

Well, my mind caught up with my ass and I stopped, parked and went to see if the body was alive. Confessedly, I only stopped because my friend Jim Reid died of heat stroke in the June sun in a diabetic coma. There was a pulse, and spittle drooling from the mouth; other than that, not much. I went to the management and asked them to call an ambulance. They hemmed, and I asked, "What if he dies on your doorstep?" They seemed to move to call the ambulance.

I noticed the license plate of the van as it departed: "Choose Life". It's one of Florida's big sellers.

We claim to be Christians but lack a basic compassion. In losing our humanity, he lost his. He was akin to a cord of wood or a stray Burger King wrapper.

This wasn't a Haitian or an Afghan, but a fellow American, and nobody gave a damn. Charity begins at home. He was dirty and bedraggled, and we guess it looks better to bring the tchotchkes home from a week-long mission in Guatemala.

Religion is organized hypocrisy.

Diddly-Squat

Do you know what you are?
You are what you is
You is what you am
(A cow don't make ham . . . )
You ain't what you're not
So see what you got
You are what you is
An' that's all it 'tis
--You Are What You Is, Frank Zappa

She's come undone
Too many mountains
And not enough stairs to climb
Too many churches
And not enough truth
--She's Come Undone, The Guess Who

Oh lord!
Is there nothing more anybody can do?
Oh oh whoa lord!
There must be something you can say
--Another Day in Paradise, Phil Collins
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While navigating my small town rural southern life Ranger heard the following: "Come on now, get undid!"

He has no idea what this means, but it was too representative of this area to pass it up. This is the same town in which a high school teacher was overheard to say, "We be testin' today." A town in which a double-Masters member of the school board spoke of "testology"referring to the same phenomenon in a letter to the editor of the local paper.

This is the same town that also exceeds the state's illiteracy, STD, AIDS, and infant mortality rates, and also has a large drug problem. Then again, is it a problem if you can buy them anywhere? It suffers the concomitant problems of teenage pregnancy and absentee fathers.

This is the same county in which a 14-year-old dropped a baby in her closet and then burned the corpse on a backyard trash pile, with nobody held to account for the event. Another local girl was delivered of her baby in the school toilet, where it was later discovered by a janitor. Hey, it's just a dead, burnt baby, and replacements are cheap enough.

The same county that lacks mandatory garbage pickup as well as general-use dumpsters, so the county is always plastered in trash.

This may sound like bitching, but it isn't, because Ranger realizes that this little town is just another one of many bypassed on the road to modernity. Just another little bastion where working for Walmart, Burger King or McDonald's is the only career track.

This is a slice of a certain type of small-town life in America, that does not look like the verdant hills on the side of a Ben and Jerry's carton. The concept of civic duty is far down on most of these resident's radar, and the quality of life is deficient as a result.

It is just another town where city and county commissions pretend that they know what they are doing, while everything continues to cycle down the drain.

Yes, somewhere along the way we done got undid.