He's back!

The beginning of  Bob the Dog's adventures can be found here.

The other evening, on the way back from The Home Depot out on on IH35, we stopped by Fresh Cup Yogurt.  I'm enjoying my cup of Bananas and Strawberry piled high with healthy fresh fruit, looking out the window at all the traffic on the back entrance to Wal Mart. Gradually it dawns on me that all this traffic is focused on the big field between Fresh Cup and the Golden Corral, which is normally nothing but a sea of grass but now boasts a very large tent and row after row of automobiles. Hmmm. Must be a carnival or maybe a circus or something.

Then I saw the sign.

Tent Revival and Healing Service Tonight! 

Reverend Bob - Evangelist and Healer

You don't suppose... surely not! I turned to Barb to say something and she's looking at me with alarm in her eyes. She is thinking the same thing I am.

"I'm going over there," I say.
"I'm staying right here," she says.

I walked over to the tent, swept up in a stream of people headed that direction; little old ladies, couples with kids, a flotilla of wheel chairs and a forest of crutches and walking canes. I push my way into the tent and take up a position in the back, against one of the poles. On the stage a band is playing "I'll Fly Away" and I'm pretty sure it's the guys from the Back Yard Howlers, only now they are wearing choir robes.

Bob is nowhere in sight but in a few minutes, the band starts in on a spirited rendition of  "Onward Christian Soldiers" and a Great Dane, who I think is Leroy, the bass player for the Howlers, takes the mike, begins a flowery introduction and sure enough, out comes Bob the Dog in a gold lame outfit so gaudy everyone in the first 2 rows had to put on dark glasses. Or maybe that's where all the blind people were seated.

Bob takes the microphone and starts working the crowd while the band is playing "Power in the Blood" softly in the background. I have to give him credit. The dog is good. He started out slow, in a melodic baritone - just a hint of the Australian accent and no slang - and gradually built up to a crescendo.

"In the hustle and bustle of daily life I wonder how many of us stop to think that in all that is highest and best we are ruled not by even our most up-and-coming efforts but by Love? What is Love--the divine Love of which the great singer teaches us in Proverbs? It is the rainbow that comes after the dark cloud. It is the morning star and it is also the evening star, those being, as you all so well know, the brightest stars we know. It shines upon the cradle of the little one and when life has, alas, departed, to come no more, you find it still around the quiet tomb. What is it inspires all great men--be they preachers or patriots or great business men? What is it, mates, but Love? Ah, it fills the world with melody, with such sacred melodies as we have just indulged in together, for what is music? What, my friends, is music? Ah, what indeed is music but the voice of Love!"

I'm impressed. That part about "love is the morning and evening star" is, is... Familiar. I've heard that before, I just can't remember where. By this time the band is playing "Shall we gather at the River" and Bob has moved through the body of his sermon and into the exhortation.

"Oh, my brothers,  are you going to put off repentance till it's too late? That's your affair, you say. Is it? Is it? Have you a right to inflict upon all that you hold nearest and dearest the sore burden of your sins? Do you love your sins better than that dear little son, that cherished daughter, that loving brother, that saintly old mother? Do you want to punish them? Do you? Don't you love some one more than you do your sins? If you do, stand up. Isn't there some one here who wants to stand up and help his brother or sister carry this gospel of great joy to the world? Won't you come? Won't you help me? Oh, come! Come down and let me shake your hand!"

And before he's through, people are trampling each other to get down the aisles!

I left before the healing service began, and on the way back to Fresh Cup, I remembered. Elmer Gantry!  Sophomore English. The whole thing - every word - is straight out of Elmer Gantry!

Oh, Bob! Now you've really done it.

...Oh yeah! This will be continued.