Once upon a time, when Papa was just a little boy,
he loved dinosaurs with a passion, and loved to carry handfuls of them wherever he went (these were tiny plastic dinosaurs, not massive creatures the size of elephants, although one of Papa's favorite movies involved cowboys roping a tyrannosaurus rex and a bunch of other things happening, until at the end when a circus elephant attempts to protect all the people and unwisely fights with the t-rex, and Little Papa remembers weeping profusely when the poor elephant died), even to church. When he was two years old the whole family went to church together, including Grandmas Medvee and Larsen, and Grandpa too, and Dougie had two big handfuls of dinosaurs that fell onto the parking lot as soon as he climbed out of the car.
"Put those all back in the car! You don't take dinosaurs to church!" Dada yelled. He had probably suggested earlier, and strongly, that Dougie not even bring his dinosaurs into the car, let alone attempt to smuggle them into church. Church was no place for dinosaurs.
"Oh, let him take a few," Grandma Medvee said, hugging Dougie (who was already crying).
Grandma Larsen snorted. "There won't be dinosaurs in heaven, at least the Bible doesn't say so." Grandma Larsen knew the Bible very thoroughly and often argued with Grandpa Medvee. Grandma Medvee never argued about the Bible, even though she always went to church. But Grandma Larsen loved to argue with everyone, about any subject, on any day of the week.
There was a general consensus that dinosaurs didn't belong in church, and with heartbroken sobs Dougie watched Dada toss all his cherished dinosaurs back into the backseat of the Cadillac.As Grandma Medvee led Dougie away to Cradle Roll, he kept looking back over his shoulder, where his poor dinosaurs languished, all alone, miserable in the hot, hot car. When Grandma and Dougie were sufficiently far enough away from the rest of the family, she pulled a duckbilled dinosaur out of her white glove and passed it down to Dougie."Shhh," she breathed.Dougie beamed. At least this dinosaur would get to go to church and learn about Jesus. It didn't seem right that the others wouldn't make it to heaven. It's true, most of them were carnivorous, and this duckbilled dinosaur was a vegetarian, but it seemed that if God made all the dinosaurs, he ought to love the foul meat-eaters too, it's not their fault that they loved the taste of pork and the rotting corpses of other disgusting dead things. Poor things. Despite their bad breath and fouled digestion, they should get to go to heaven too!In Cradle Roll things were generally boring. All the children stared. Most sucked their thumbs, or chewed on pacifiers. But Dougie was more mature than that. True, he didn't speak much, because he was always shy around people. And he loved to make monster faces, and not all grown-ups appreciated that skill, and he learned early too keep the monster faces on a discretionary basis. But then something wonderful happened. One of the helpful nice ladies who taught Cradle Roll produced a small theater upon a folding table (upon reflection, it was probably a TV tray, with a little jungle scenario glued to the surface).But this was the Garden of Eden, and there was a little naked Adam and Eve with leaves wrapped around their bodies. And there were lots of animals. Dougie placed his duckbilled dinosaur on the table, because he figured that his dinosaur might appreciate the Garden of Eden, and have a chance to get named by Adam. The nice ladies smiled and brushed the dinosaur off the TV tray Garden of Eden.Then something truly miraculous happened. One of the nice ladies pushed a button, and a little wiggily snake came writhing down out of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.It was such a hilarious sight, that snake wriggling down in a shaky spiral, that all the children laughed, even the ones chewing on pacifiers. And Dougie laughed the loudest of all. His loud laughter began when he was very little, and grew to amazing proportions as his head grew and grew and grew. The children loved the descending snake so much the nice lady had to reload the serpent and push the button several times. The children giggled and laughed."Okay, that's enough of the serpent," the nice lady said, a little concerned that the children appreciated the serpent far more than they did the miniature naked Adam and Eve.But Dougie had seen the nice lady push the button. And he wanted to see the snake come down one more time, and he knew how to push buttons, and he loved to push buttons, so he started climbing up on the Garden of Eden and before the nice lady could snort in slow motion, the whole Garden of Eden collapsed under Dougie's weight and he collapsed on top of the Garden of Eden, flattening pretty much everything.Poor naked Adam and Eve. Poor spring-loaded wiggily snake.For a few moments the nice ladies didn't appear so nice. They seemed much like Mama and Dada did every day when dealing with Dougie. Because he did stuff like this, all the time. Not that he tried to do these things, or planned to do them, or enjoyed causing the ruckus that everything he did seemed to inspire. In fact, he probably disliked the table collapsing beneath him even more than the once nice ladies did. In fact, he was crying louder than they were yelling.Grandma tutted and shushed and soothed and took him up on her lap. After a few moments Grandma led Dougie from the room. Before they entered the main sanctuary, Grandma tucked the duckbilled dinosaur back into her white glove."Isn't church fun?" Grandma said gaily.Yes, Dougie thought it was pretty fun. If only he could get one more shot at that wriggly snake! Oh that button, how he loved to push buttons!All Stories © 2009 Douglas Christian Larsen
important - FIGHT THE FLU WITH HERBS - important
