by Pastor Brown
Even after 47 years as a man of the cloth, and after countless months of missionary work both foreign and domestic, as well as after starting two brand new Presbyterian churches in Cameroon and Laos, most of you probably best remember me for a brief appearance in that Goddamn Christmas pop song: "Winter Wonderland." I am a man of faith, of God. His work is good, and it is well, but when in Sam Hell did he decide to let some Ho Schmo write that baloney bulwark's song? Sonofabee'sboot! Somerset, Iowa is a rowdy town, the Good Lord knows. I like to think it has never been one of the most rough and tumble corners of creation, but it has had its particular stresses, I will tell you. Like when the Barker Boys hoisted up their own Nativity scene directly across from the Briar Street Chapel in person. Try to picture it! Fourteen year old boys dressed as the Lady Mary and her immaculate baby-child! You should have seen Samantha then, walking out from church that morning. She nearly spilled her thermas of hot chocolates entire! All over her fresh linens and all. What a sight! And, don't forget, when Billy Meyers tried to open his own diner right across the road from Old Man Carter's Briar Street Half-Way Station. Lordy! The commotion the young man caused, all with his rock and roller music and slicked back racer hairs!
Yes, Somerset has had its trials, its tribulations, and I like to think I've handled them with composure, something close to Grace, which only the Lord can bestow upon us--whenever he may choose it. But this "Winter Wonderland" crap has got me entirely flummuxed, and talking like a long shoreman at that! Who do these punk children think they are? Who? Who in all of Somerset told them I wanted them to be married, or that it should be I that would betroth them??? And what does "when I'm in town" mean precisely? Do I look like a W.D. Griffith Medicine Show Scoundrel Booze Lagger, traveling from town to town like a two-penny salesman carrying his wares? Aside from the Lord's work I've down abroad, I have never left Somerset nor do I plan to, ever. Somerset is my home, my town, and if these rough shouldered youths see to insinuate other ways they shall be boxed about the ears roundly by their fathers, I shall see to it.
And this pretending a snowman is an adorned minister of any faith is blasphemous to say the least! And pretending it, a devil's likeness conceived in snow and breathed with life by the magic darkness of the mind, a minister of Presbyteria may be treasonous as well! I have spent weeks in gentle consternation, musing on the magic of this "Snowman" everyone sings about. But the next time I see the rounded figure of any man of snow I shall take my walking cane to it! We will see how resilient the devil-man is to chiseled hickory, good wood stripped and afforded meaning by the burly workers of Somerset Mill Works, inc. We'll see if it can't handle a simple beating by God's own earthly wood craft.
Yes, 47 years I have spoke and prayed the Lord's liturgy and never have I confronted something so wholly irritating as that godforsaken snow song! If only it were Easter, and Samantha was laying before me the nutty taste of white lamb's cake. God, I hate Christmas.
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