Ever eaten Turkish Food? Delicious - Walk in the Pennypack - Poem: The Convert

 Injected 10 units in the car and then walked in to the very crowded Willow Grove Bible Church. It was
lunchtime. I finished up some work for the Compass and then drove over. Perfect timing. I wanted to pay for my meal, but they wouldn't hear of it. Thank God!

I had seconds. The food was absy scrumptious. The yogurt that covered everything was made with dill and mint and other things, I thought I heard white-haired Lori say.

I was instructed on how to eat everything.

Many of the church folk are ministers, proselytizing for Jesus Christ Our Savior. As a Jew born 70 yo on Xmas Day I've always loved Jesus.

  When I was little and we were possibly at Heinen's Grocery Store in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, I asked mom if she'd buy me the above book.

To my surprise she said Yes.

Our relationship was cemented.

People changed chairs and tables like musical chairs. The nice thing is that if you're sitting alone, someone comes and sits with you.

Burt Plaster is trying to convert me to become a Christian. He would ask me to read passages in The New Testament and ask me to explain them.

It was sort like College Bowl with Allan Ludden.  I really enjoyed giving him my ad hoc interpretation of the lines.

He prayed for me out loud and then I prayed out loud too. When I finished he said I was filled with gratitude. 

Told him that when I worked as a psychotherapist at Bristol-Bensalem Human Services - hello Judy Diaz, Greg Perri, Pam London Barrett, Linda Cleighton - I'd explore the neighborhood on my lunch hour.

I'd go to the Mercury Lounge and buy the best chili ever.

I also visited the crypt of Mother Katharine Drexel in Bensalem.

Oh, her Feast Day is coming up in March! Hmmm, I wonder what I could feast on.

More Girl Scout cookies?

Anyway I told Burt that when I walked into her shrine it was not inspiring at all, but I wandered into another room where no one was there. I saw a philodendron growing on a little shelf, behind which was a window with light filtering it.

Look! I have a fake philodendron in my bedroom atop my tall chest

Wait! Is it raining outside? Or is it God crying?

Now we're playing charades. Everyone wrote three words on a piece of folded paper. My words were Los Angeles, which I don't even know how to spell - cake - and matzoh.

Everyone who picked a piece of paper, Peter Piper, got 30 seconds to describe it to their team.

I picked Revelation - Book of the Bible, the last one - which they got - and two others I can't remember.

Round One was finished and I decided to go home. These people are smart and loving!

A missionary was in Turkey trying to convert Sunnis to Christianity. Some of the folks go to Kensington to convert folks.

Convert. What a word. Both verb and noun.

Scott will have our pizza ready at 6 pm, so I'm hurrying to finish this, plus I wanna write a poem. Something about conversion, I'd think.

Okay ready to go to the Pennypack?

 The Director's house. It has a couple of additions on it.

Hard to see but there's lichen growing outa the tree trunk. Never knew lichen was a composite organism, did you?

 And whom should we meet but the Director himself!

Why dyou wanna take a picture of me, asked David Robertson.

B/c I like you, I said.

Then we started talking about the Mickey Mouse Club, which he didn't watch, tho we both grew up in Cleveland.

Scott didn't watch either since he's 13 yrs younger, but he did watch reruns.

I remember a fantastic serial called Corky and White Shadow. I'd pretend I was Corky, played by Mouseketeer Darlene Gillespie.  White Shadow was her white German shepherd.

Later in life, I believe, Darlene got in trouble with the law and served time!

Okay, let's see if I'm right.

Thanks Jade for knitting me this lovely warm cap. I always wear sunglasses during the day.

  Corky and White Shadow. Scott suggested I watch it on YouTube.

Whenever I see this roof, I think it's a drive-in movie screen.

Up up up we go.

Brief pause while I go offstage to write a poem.

THE CONVERT

I will pray for you, he said, as I lay
half-dead in the hospital bed, my truck
having crashed into the railing, so
ashamed, I couldn'stop drinking
at the party. My Lily broke up with
me, was there with another man,
you know the rest of the story.

White casts held my wrist bones
together, my shattered knees,
and a bloody bandage soothed
my concussion. Oh, Lord, I
deserve to die, and hope I do.

Nurse Amy stopped in, put
my hand in hers and said,
Larry, you're going to
live, your vital signs are
strong, and you can think!
No cognitive, uh, brain loss
for you.

A man sat at my bed for quite
a while, I said, a bearded man
wearing stately purple robes,
do you know his name?

She laughed. Larry, no one
was here. No visitors allowed.
Don't worry about a thing. Your
cherry Jell-O is on the way.