The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Louisiana just legislated the 10 Commandments be put in every schoolroom in the state. Doesn’t bother them that the Supreme Court has already ruled on this, might as well spend some tax dollars on defending that decision. It is, after all, the Word of God. Well, at least the God of the Christian Louisianans. Not so much some other religions’.

When I was a pup in the school system of Georgia back in the early ‘60’s, we had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning first thing and then one pupil would be required to read a verse from the Bible at the front of the class. I must have been in 5th grade at the time but even then I resented being forced to listen to Bible passages. Much less have to read one myself out loud. When my turn came around I read the shortest passage in the King James version: Jesus wept. Then sat down. Some of my audience snickered but most assuredly my teacher was not amused. Even though I had kept to the exact requirement she had laid out. And so she sent my Yankee ass down to the principal’s office, I guess to teach me some sort of lesson I hadn’t gleaned listening to my fellow classmates’ recitals from the Good Book.

It did teach me a lesson, although not one Mrs. Gilroy might have hoped I’d learned. It taught me I didn’t want the Bible or any other religion shoved down my throat. And so, back around 1980 when I heard the Stanwoodopolis high school was bringing in a Creationist speaker to argue against Darwin and that evil theory of evolution, I went to my one and only school board meeting to protest. I mentioned the Supreme Court decisions and argued that this school administration was wasting us taxpayers’ time and money pushing an agenda that was sure to end up in court and cost plenty in attorney fees. Gary, another concerned citizen, echoed this sentiment.

So naturally the following day I found religious brochures stuffed under my shack door and Gary, caretaker at the time for Cama Beach resort, woke the next evening to a carload of Chapel highschoolers apparently intent on intimidating him, honking their horn and spinning gravel down the long drive. When they arrived at his cabin, Gary was waiting in the shadows, shirtless, sawed off shotgun in hand and in no mood for these shenanigans. He tapped his shotgun against the driver window and asked to have the window rolled down. Please. Which, suddenly quieted, they did.

Gary explained that he was going to be merciful. This time. But next time …. He whacked the barrel of the shotgun on the bottom of the window frame and suggested they ought to get on home. Gary ended up getting fired from his caretaker responsibilities, a heavy price for self-protection, you ask me, but it did send a message. Some folks value their freedom. Thou shalt not take it away. Without a fight. Jesus may have wept.

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