Rough Stone Rolling

Once again, the highlight of Conference for me was the Priesthood session, where the men don water buffalo hats and hear the things the women aren’t ready for.  I could point to at least four talks that spoke directly to me. The “anger” talk by Pres. Hinckley is particularly noteworthy. I’ve cultivated anger to such a virtuoso level, if it were one of the talents referred to in the parable, I’d be one uber good & faithful servant. On the road, in the face of discourtesy, with certain special interest groups, and (much to my shame) with loved ones– I get medieval. It gets me in trouble and makes me instantly feel like a chump. But this weekend the prophet told me to cast off the anger, admitting it was a subject the Brethren didn’t touch on very much. Must be a lot of us out there for him to address it then, all that wrath in the body. Oh well, the way I look at it, if the Lord’s agent calls me out on the carpet I’ll pay heed, but it won’t be a walk in the park. Those porn and alcohol transgressors have it so easy.

Halloween approacheth– even here in Southern California you can smell it in the cooling air, like the night train in “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” A lot of great memories come from Halloweens past. I remember in kindergarten I dressed up like the Lone Ranger, cap guns in my holsters. In the 3rd grade I got to wear one of those great old Ben Cooper costumes, remember those? Eyeless plastic masks grinning at you from windowed boxes… devils, wolfmen, Wonder Women, etc. I was a gorilla that year. I can still smell the toxic plastic and feel the cold sweat against my face, hauling that huge sack around the Long Island ‘burbs. The last Halloween I dressed up as a kid, I was 13. But before I talk about that, I have to go back a ways, to before my turn on earth:

When my dad was a kid in Estonia, he really dug the Nazis. I don’t mean the politics and all that hateful stuff– what kid cares about that? I’m talking about the uniforms and the songs and the sophisticated auras given off by the higher officers. He even joined an Estonian chapter of the Hitler Youth. My grandfather wasn’t so thrilled; he slipped messages about the Nazis to the Russians and was eventually taken into the woods and shot. Later when Dad came to America, he ran into German expatriates who fought in the war and had them over for cocktails and storytelling. When I was around 12 or 13, he made friends with an old SS soldier who snuck into the U.S. after the war and quietly melted into the mosaic. The adorable old fugitive reminded me of Laurence Olivier in “Marathon Man,” only dowdier. I guess something about Dad loosened the old man up, ’cause he lent me his Iron Cross and other medals for Halloween that year. So I put on Dad’s army shirt from Korea, pinned on the medals and goose-stepped through my last trick-or-treating experience.

Nowadays our whole family dresses up every year for the ward’s “trunk-or-treat” activity. This year my 11-year old daughter wants to be a dead Marie Antoinette and my wife, a riotous French wench. Naturally, I’ll be the executioner and our SUV, the guillotine. I love that my ward embraces Halloween. There are, I imagine, Mormon congregations that view it more parochially, that see it is as an influence of the Malevolent One. It has, after all, pagan roots. You know, like Christmas.

Admittedly, our ward does bear the countenance of the odd duck. A number of celebrities and Hollywood players have attended there over the years, and a few of our widows were at one time “B-girls” in 40’s flicks. One of them likes to read her invocations and benedictions off 3×5 cards. Once as she offered her prayer, she suddenly stopped, tapped the mike and said, “Is this on?” Another time, on a testimony Sunday, a brother had a screen and video projector set up before the meeting. Then when it was his turn to bear testimony, he bore witness of the power of the Beatitutdes and– in an effort to send home the message– had us watch an excerpt of “The Greatest Story Ever Told” during the Beatitudes scene. I leaned over excitedly to the sister in front of me and said, “Jesus looks just like Max Von Sydow!” Another brother, an old crooner, sings his testimony to us. We currently have a few young actors there, too, whom I won’t name. It suffices to say they’d be easily recognized, and I have to believe their ward is one place they don’t want groupies.

One day we’re going to move away and have to start attending a “normal” ward, a lone & dreary ward, and I suspect I’ll feel like Henry Hill at the end of “GoodFellas,” after he’s placed in the witness protection program: “I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup.” 

*sigh*…

Until then, we’ve pulled out the orange-and-black bins from the garage, we’ve decked the halls with boughs of nightshade and look with great anticipation to the night we get to don we then decayed apparel.