THIS IS THE CHURCH; THESE ARE THE POUS

Dear Caelan,

Your great grandmother Gertrude Pou, nee' Moreland, attended Broadmoor Baptist Church in Shreveport faithfully as long as anyone would help her get ready and take her to services. Indeed, when her mind was gone to such an extent that she didn't recognize her own children consistently, she could still remember dozens of hymns in their entirety. When I visited her in the nursing home during her last years, I must admit that I took advantage of her condition and utilized her services as a confessor during my visits.

She was fascinated with stories of the life I was leading in those days, and I knew she'd never repeat my tales to anyone. I told her about a minister's nude wife chasing me half a block down an icy sidewalk in Richmond, yelling, "You forgot something, you forgot something," and of finding out later that she was talking about half of a Domino's pizza left over from the night before. I told her about that same woman having some sort of mental breakdown, going without sleep for ten days, and of my finding her in the back yard one cold March morning, nude again, building symbolic figurines from garbage can twist ties and pineapple chunks. If memory serves, my grandmother responded with "The Old Rugged Cross," which I think demonstrates her strong attachment to religion.

One day in the late 1940s, a call went out to Broadmoor Baptists asking for accommodations for two missionaries, whistle-stop touring the Bible Belt between the wilds of Africa and the wilds of Appalachia raising money for their soul saving activities. Many people believe that God is everywhere, but He often seems to leave his wallet in His other trousers when He goes there; and that's why the missionaries were back in civilization trying to drum up some dough, and that's why they needed a place to stay while they were in Shreveport.

Yes, your great-grandmother volunteered to house and feed the missionaries for a week, and then she forgot completely about them. On a hot summer day two months later, she decided to paint her kitchen. Doing so would disrupt household routine for a couple of days, but it needed to be done. Halfway through the windowed wall between the kitchen and the downstairs screen porch, she became very hot and tired, and decided to sit down and have a cold drink. Going to the refrigerator, she found a pitcher of what looked like lemonade, filled a large glass, gulped it down, refilled it, and went to the table to relax with it for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, the pitcher did not contain lemonade at all, but salty dogs, a mixture of gin, salt and grapefruit juice popular at the time, made by your great aunt Millie for a planned afternoon around her sister Johnette's swimming pool across the street. More unfortunately, your great-grandmother never took more than one glass of wine, and that only on holidays or during parties, and when she first got a television and was overly influenced by the Mogen David ads during afternoon soap operas for a few months(in the long run, the influence of Cheeze Whiz ads was probably more harmful, but that's another story), and usually reacted to significant alcohol intake by fanning herself and seeing snakes. Most unfortunate of all on that steamy Shreveport summer day, when the sheets came in from the clothes line feeling as damp as when they'd been hung there, when the air was full of rainbows all day long, when a deep breath felt as if it could cause drowning, was that the doorbell rang just as your great-grandmother went to get a fourth glass of what she thought was lemonade, and Einez led the missionaries back to the kitchen.

Despite not being able to feed these forgotten house guests due to the kitchen being in complete disarray, Mrs. Pou rallied and led them upstairs to a guest room, stopping only briefly in the dining room to fan herself and see snakes. She was unaware when she threw open the guest room door that Millie's friend Imogene, who always had twigs in her hair, was niece to General George Patton, later wife to another uncle and lived on a large plantation outside of town, had passed out drunk, sprawled across one of the twin beds at some point during the previous night. The missionaries were treated to as intimate a first view of Imogene as one could have.

Your great-grandmother was a somewhat formal person, always addressing her husband as "Dr. Pou" through over five decades of marriage, four children, and twice-daily lovemaking until two days before his death at eighty-nine, and Imogene's posture and condition were not acceptable to her, snakes and fanning or not. "Imogene, what do you think you're doing," scolded Mrs. Pou, swaying a bit in the doorway. "Get out of here immediately!"

Imogene obediently rose, still drunk from the night before, and staggered nude through the door between the guest room and the upstairs screen porch, where she stumbled upon another bed to collapse across. This was the very bed that Dr. Pou was using for his afternoon nap, and a roar reached the missionaries through the door. "God damn it to hell! What in the name of the Virgin Mary's knickers is going on! Jesus H. Christ and the white mule He rode in on, Imogene, get the hell out of here!"

I don't know where Imogene went from there. It may have been with the snakes. Nor do I know what became of the missionaries, who ended their planned weeklong stay at 1030 E. Kings Highway six days early and never wrote, called, or otherwise communicated with the family to express their thanks.

Comments always welcome