Older brothers are real handy if you need scientific information about things. Anything at all. The end of the world was something I worried about when I was a first grader. After all, it was the topic of most sermons that we were bombarded with back then. Especially over at the Holiness Church. Clyde Nichols of Allen drove over and was the preacher. He had memorized the entire bible because he had never learned to read. His wife Robbie read it to him. I figured he was the smartest man in the world and he often said, “the end is near.” My brother Gerald and I agreed with him.

The preacher said Hitler was the antichrist, while Bonito Mussolini was a beast with another set of horns. I couldn’t keep them straight but I knew Hitler was the worst. But Hitler would, eventually brand us all with the sign of the beast (666) and we would be very sorry as we sizzled in Hell. This type of sermon was preached regularly and in the newsreels up at the school house we would see Adolph riding down the boulevard in Berlin in his big armored Mercedes waving his swagger stick.

Gerald and I went to the funerals in Centrahoma. All of them. They were very entertaining and informative to us too. One family who lived out east of town was comprised of only adults. Seems like there were several women and perhaps a man or two lived on the farm. But it was the women who were dying off. So, according to our custom, we went to the Methodist Church, where the funeral would take place to have a look. This included a careful inspection of the hearse, the family car and lastly, the body which lay in state at the front of the church. There was just one in a long line of unfortunate and untimely deaths afflicting the women of this large family.

Mom had taken a dish out to the house (of the bereaved) the day before and as usual the house was packed full of people, just sitting around and not talking too much. I wandered about and on the back screened in porch found a water bucket with a dipper in it. I got myself a nice cool drink of well water. Mom found me about then and because our ride (Ina Mae) was ready to go back to town, she rather roughly took me back to the car and we left. “I told you not to touch or eat or drink anything in that house.” She was talking about me drinking that well water.

The next day when Gerald and I were prowling around the funeral and all, I asked him why was mom so worried about me drinking that water. I shared how I had drank the well water from that dipper. We spoke of how many of that family had already died from drinking that water and lastly I asked him what I could do. He said, “nothing.” “You’re gonna die.” I don’t remember what we did next but I remember that night (we slept together) I quarried Gerald about my chances of not dying. They were just about zero. That night I dreamed I was buried alive. The resulting nightmare earned me a good dose of worming medicine followed by a near lethal dose of Castor Oil.

While the medicine may not have cured anything, it did teach me to keep my mouth shut when it came to my dreams. On a good note, Gerald seemed unaffected by the entire sequence of events. And after 75 years or so of living, I think I’m about over it too.

Hope all of you are well and can make it to church Sunday and that all of your dreams are fairly non-threatening.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

waynebullard@sbcglobal.net