Back to church

We're going to try this again. For two or three years I worked with several friends to get a gay-friendly church going in Columbus. Then when that died, I visited a couple of Ashland churches, but didn't find any that really attracted me.

So now I'm back where I started, at Grace.

It's really obvious that I'm nowhere near their target demographic. Of course, they couldn't pick a demographic that's much worse—white couples with school-age children and a total distrust of anyone outside their nuclear family. This isn't the stuff of Christian community. I looked in the church bulletin yesterday and found all sorts of activities for youth, for women, and for married couples who had been together less than ten years, but nothing for men, older married couples, or single adults.

But I will persevere. I'll attend the adult Sunday school sessions (now THAT'S a new feature for Grace!) and actually say something. I'll sing in the Advent ensemble. I'll even bring food for the children's mid-morning snack. (Somehow coffee after church got eliminated because it's too much trouble.)

We'll see what happens. Will I fit in? Is there anyone else there like me?

Cars

I watched the movie Cars last weekend. (I had owned it for a while, but it was out on loan to a friend.) Old memories began to surface as I watched the doings in the town of Radiator Springs ("cutest little town in Carburetor County"). When I was a small boy (under eight years old), my father used to take us on a LOT of trips through exactly that countryside. He had a government job that required a lot of driving, and often he just took Mom and me along.

Then I remembered that I have a family wedding on the West Coast next June. Plans began to circle within my head. I looked at the website for the Route 66 Preservation Society. Looked at brochures for new cars. (My ever-faithful Toyota Matrix should have about 200,000 miles on it by then.) The trip actually looked pretty good. I'd drive to St. Louis (as quickly as possible because the Indiana/Illinois part of the trip is pretty boring), spend a day there, then wander down I-44 and other roads that have replaced Route 66. A bit of time at the wedding in Los Angeles, then up the coast to San Francisco (which is probably worth at least another day), then back on the successor to US 40.

All was looking really good until I realized that the wedding will take place right in the middle of the time I normally teach. Can I persuade them to move it three weeks earlier? I doubt it. Will I make the trip anyhow, then fly back for a one-day wedding-only visit? That's appealing, but sounds pretty expensive. And will I make the whole trip alone? I can't think of anyone right now who would like a two-week road trip with me.

Questions, questions.

Three Weeks in October

Book review, sort of. On the plane to LA, I tried reading Three Weeks in October. If any book had a hope of captivating me, this should have been it. It's the story of the sniper who shot thirteen people in suburban Maryland near Washington DC. Many of the deaths were within two or three miles of my mother's house, and most of them are in places I'm totally familiar with. The snipers were captured at a freeway rest area where I stop frequently.

So I should have loved the book, right? The author, Charles Moose, was the police captain who cracked the case, so he should have known everything there was to know.

I got 48 pages into it before I got tired. OK—I was trying to read on a cross country flight in the economy section of a six-abreast plane. (But I did finish a Harry Potter and half of another book that way.)

Three Weeks, unfortunately, commits two sins. It's an "as told to" book, and the real author, Charles Fleming, should have known better. But anyhow, it focuses on the trivia. Who cares whether the Moose's brother got into trouble with the law when Moose was a child? Who cares what sort of gun he carries when he's doing a press conference? I cared a LOT about the crime and its investigation, but I got bogged down in his personal history.

As if that isn't enough, the style is choppy and disorganized, something I'd have trouble allowing in my Freshman Comp students. Example from page 42 (about as far as I was able to get)

My brother David was the firstborn in my family. He was born in New York. I was born in New York, too, four years later. Shortly after that, my father decided to move back to the South.

It doesn't take much writing like that to discourage the reader—even one who really wants to read the book.