Traces of Texas
22 mins ยท
I feel a little guilty laughing at The Texas Quote of the Day, which describes a Christmas pageant in Texas that experienced a few ... problems. It needs a bit of historical background, though. Once upon a time, meaning the mid-1950s, Jules Loh, who would go on to become a national prize-winning writer in New York for the Associated Press, labored as a young reporter for the Waco News-Tribune. He was sent to report on a Nativity pageant being staged in the rural community of Blooming Grove, Texas. This is the pageant story as seen through his eyes. The News-Tribune declined to publish this:
"BLOOMING GROVE, Texas
They held the Nativity pageant here Monday night, and if it had happened in Bethlehem like it happened in Blooming Grove, Christmas would be a day sooner - or maybe not at all. For a year the good people of Blooming Grove, Barry and Emhouse, Texas, had prepared for the pageant. They practiced religiously, as it were, and sacrificed nothing to realism. The women made the costumes; the men gathered their sheep. Somebody even found myrrh. The Blooming Grove preacher, a former tent show operator called Brother Bill, arranged the setting.
The manger was in an old barn. A milk cow and an old ram were tied to the manger. At the left was the inn, and at the right were the fields where shepherds, costumed and holding long crooks, were watching over their sheep by night. Brother Bill had put spotlights on both sides, which were to follow the characters as they entered. Miss Alva Taylor was the reader. As she read the Christmas story from the Bible the characters would enact the passage. However, some things got enacted that weren't exactly Biblical.
The choir began to sing, the reader began to read, and the pageant was on. Out of a pasture behind the barn came Mary and Joseph on their way to enroll; Mary riding a donkey, Joseph walking beside. The donkey was balky. He kept stopping, and Joseph kept yanking at the halter. Finally, right before they got to the inn, the donkey had enough. With a grand bray, he rared back and pitched Mary right on her bundle of swaddling clothes. She lit with both legs up in the air. The audience gasped. Some of the women thought she was actually pregnant. The donkey went down on his side. Joseph thought the donkey was hurt. The donkey wouldn't get up. While Mary picked herself up, Joseph inspected the donkey's legs. He finally decided it was a too tight saddle girth that caused him to pitch. There was Mary brushing straw off her clothes, and Joseph loosening the saddle girth, and Brother Bill hollering, "For Lord's sake, get those spotlights off'em! Shine 'em on the inn!" Mary was fixing to mount up again for another try, but the saddle was too loose so she and Joseph decided to walk the rest of the way to Bethlehem.
Joseph stopped at the inn and just as he was about to knock, the door opened with the innkeeper shaking his head. Mary had forgotten about the inn and was already kneeling at the manger. The ruckus didn't phase Miss Alva a bit. She kept right on reading and managed to stay about four verses ahead of the rest of the pageant. Then it came to pass for the angels to appear to the shepherds.
At about the same time the spotlights shifted to the fields and the choir began with "Angels We Have Heard on High," the sheep spied that ram tied to the manger. The sheep started for the ram. The angel popped up from behind some cedar boughs and said, "Fear not!" but the shepherds were sore afraid. They were running this way and that, swatting the sheep with their crooks, trying to keep the whole flock from charging the manger. A few got away - about six. They crowded into the barn next to the ram, and began eating the straw out of the manger. Happy now, the old ram went "Baa, baa" the rest of the night, and it was somewhat disconcerting to Miss Alva. She would look over at that ram disgustedly, lose her place, find it and continue.
Out of the east came the wise men, slowly, following the star. They deposited their gifts before the manger - all except one of them who had a vase and couldn't get it to stand up on the straw. Finally he got it balanced, stepped back. The old ram stepped up and kicked it over. The wise man shrugged and let it lay. Now all were in the barn - Mary, Joseph, shepherds, wise men, sheep and cow - for all to watch and meditate while the choir sang. But there was more excitement. In the middle of "Adeste Fideles," the loudspeaker went to shrieking. And during the deathly pause while it was being fixed, the old milk cow raised her tail and let loose right where somebody was sure to step in it. Then the Blooming Grove Nativity Pageant was over. "Amen," said Brother Bill, and the audience answered, "Amen."
@edgarblythe,
I couldn't stop laughing thank you Edgar for this wonderful story!
@edgarblythe,
on Traces of Texas: your story reminded me of some old Lewis Grizzard books. He always entertained us.
@glitterbag,
It reminded me of Oberammergau.
It's a town in Germany where every five or ten years they perform the passion of Jesus from the entry to Jerusalem up to the crucifixion.
The whole town turns out to perform and the town itself is like some religious theme park.
When we started watching the performance the person next to me pointed out how much **** was being produced by one of the sheep.
