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Why Can’t I be Like Everyone Else?

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normal

I grew up in a Fundamentalist Baptist home. I spent the first fifty years of my life regularly attending Christian churches. Deeply immersed in the Christian life and way of thinking, I never doubted that I would become anything other than a Baptist preacher. I was five years old when I first told my mother that I wanted to be a preacher when I grew up. Not a fireman, not a police officer, not a baseball player — a preacher. Unlike most people, I never went through the angst of trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. From the time of my conversion at age fifteen to the moment I walked away from the ministry, I never doubted that God had called me to be a preacher of the gospel. I was what people call a true believer®. My life oozed Jesus, the Bible, and my visible, dedicated commitment to the Baptist church. While many people today question whether I was a “real” Christian, no one during my time in the ministry ever questioned that I was anything but a sincere follower of Jesus Christ. Anyone who suggests otherwise is deliberately ignoring the facts.

Yet, here I am at age sixty-four, no longer in the ministry, no longer Christian, and now an outspoken atheist and critic of Evangelical Christianity. I attended Midwestern Baptist College in the 1970s. During its sixty-plus-year history, thousands of students attended classes at Midwestern. Hundreds of men went on to pastor churches or work in some other capacity at churches or Christian educational institutions. Some men went on to be missionaries or evangelists. Women married preachers, went to the mission field, or became Christian school teachers. While Midwestern never had a large student body, its students and graduates can be found serving Jesus all across the globe. Yet, out of all these students, as far as I know, my wife and I are the only two who have publicly renounced Christianity. While I am certain other former Midwestern students are atheists or agnostics, I am unaware of their existence. Perhaps they do not want the notoriety and hassle that come from publicly renouncing Midwestern’s God. I know well the price one must pay when rejecting the tribal God. Polly and I lost dozens of friends and colleagues as a result of our public declaration of unbelief. We are estranged from family, have few friends, and are forced to live with the whispers and gossip of local Christian residents who treat us as some sort of exotic zoo animals. We willingly endure these things because we value honesty and intellectual integrity above cultural or social acceptance.

There are times when I find myself wondering why I cannot be like everyone else. I loved preaching and teaching. I loved helping others. I loved rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty in the work of the ministry. Yet, despite loving these things, they were not enough to keep me in the fold. Why is it my former colleagues and the students I attended college with are able to continue believing and I am not? While it would be tempting to say that I am intellectually superior to them, I know this is not the case. It would be easy to dismiss everyone with a wave of the hand and a snide — bunch of illiterate hillbillies — comment, but I know that in doing so I would be painting with too broad a brush (a brush I wish atheists would quit using).

Perhaps there was something wrong with my faith. I have often asked myself this question. Was there something about my Christian experience that was in some way defective? I don’t think so. While I certainly can see how someone might — by taking a small sample size of my life — conclude that the blame for my faithlessness rests solely on my shoulders, but my life, when taken as a whole, reflects that I was one who truly believed in God, Jesus, and the teachings of the Bible. Yet, I am an atheist. While I doubt I will ever fully understand why I cannot be like others, I have come to a few conclusions about the trajectory of my life and how I arrived at where I am today.

I have always valued intellectual pursuit. While I spent many years bouncing from wall to wall within the Evangelical box, even within these constraints I diligently sought to know the truth. This is why I left the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement in the late 1980s. It is also why I became a Calvinist and then later abandoned Calvinism as I embraced more of a works-oriented social gospel. While many of my former colleagues in the ministry have never deviated from the theology they were taught at Midwestern Baptist College and other Evangelical institutions, I was unwilling to accept certain beliefs as “truth” just because it was the official doctrine of Midwestern or whatever group I was a part of. Years ago, I attended one of the monthly meetings of the Buckeye Independent Baptist Fellowship (BIBF). It was a well-attended meeting, and every preacher had on the uniform — suit and tie. Not I. I wore an ivory-colored sweater. The reason I remember this is because the host of the meeting pointed out the fact that I was wearing a sweater. He found my attire amusing, yet he thought that it was wonderful that I was unwilling to follow the herd’s dress code. Of course, I spent the remainder of the day having corncob in their ass preachers look at me as some sort of liberal compromiser. Closer friends in attendance ribbed me about dressing so casually. I think this story accurately reflects how I viewed life then and still view it today. Unwilling to acquiesce to tribal demands, I forged my own path. Friends and colleagues viewed me as double-minded, whereas all I was trying to do is be honest and follow the path wherever it led. I am, today, still on this path. Who knows where I might yet end up? 🙂

I have never been a go-along-with-the-crowd type of person. Even though I was a committed Fundamentalist, I didn’t do something just because big-name preacher so and so did. As any observer of Evangelical Christianity can tell you, there has been a tremendous amount of upheaval over the past fifty years. Up until the 1970s, the 1950s style of doing church was considered the Evangelical way of doing things. Today? It is hard to find a church that still does things — as IFB preachers call it — the “old-fashioned” way — old-fashioned meaning “the way things were done in the days of Ozzie and Harriet.” While my style of ministry and preaching changed somewhat over the years, I made these changes, most often, for pragmatic reasons. I firmly believed that churches and preachers must adapt their methodologies to the times. While bus ministries and door-to-door evangelism once yielded great numerical growth, these methods no longer work — regardless of what head-in-the-sand IFB preachers might tell you. Churches unwilling to adapt only hurt themselves, leading to attendance decline and closures.

Even as an atheist, I am resistant to following the herd. The atheist “movement” and Evangelicalism have more than a few things in common. In Evangelicalism, certain preachers are revered and considered mountaintop dispensers of wisdom and knowledge. So it is with atheists. All one has to do is look at the speaker lineup for atheist and humanist conferences. Instead of embracing the diversity of the atheist community, these conferences often become little more than the atheist version of star-powered award shows. And I get it. People are not going to fly or drive hundreds of miles to hear atheist nobodies. As with Evangelicals, many atheists seem to value the pronouncements of big-name speakers and writers over those of everyday, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety atheists. As with Evangelicals, the only way to get in the game is to play by the rules. If you are unwilling to play by the rules, you can expect to not be invited to play the game. I have accepted that this is the way things are. This is the price I pay for maintaining freedom and autonomy. A price, by the way, I am more than happy to pay.

As many of you know, I am working ever-so-slowly on a book. I think the book will be something that doubting Evangelicals and Evangelicals-turned-atheists will find helpful. As with all writers, I hope that my book will become a New York Times bestseller. One way to sell a lot of books is to get well-known atheists to write endorsements. I decided not to do this. While I know a handful of well-known atheists, most of my involvement with atheists comes through this blog and social media. I remain, to this day, a blue-collar laborer, unknown, but happy to have an opportunity to lend my small voice to the collective objection to evangelical Christianity. Knowing that I will never be asked to join the A-Team, I content myself with helping people break free of Evangelicalism’s pernicious grasp. While it would be fun and somewhat rewarding to speak to thousands of like-minded atheists, such an experience pales in comparison to helping people find their way out of the Fundamentalist maze.

I have said all of the above to provide some context for my answer to the question, why can’t I be like everyone else? I can’t be like everyone else because I am me. That is the simplest explanation. I am who I am and my life is what it is. I value honesty over conformity and independence over sameness. These values have only gotten stronger now that I am an atheist. No longer burdened by Evangelicalism’s written and unwritten code of acceptable belief and practice, I am free to be whoever, and whatever I want to be. I recognize that living my life this way might result in me not being accepted by the larger atheist community. I know there are pro-life atheists and Republican atheists who understand what I am talking about. Conformity — even among atheists — is often demanded if one wants to join a particular club. This is why atheism is so fractured. Proponents of various atheistic groups — Atheism+, mythicism, social justice, feminism, and the destruction of all religion — demand fidelity to that group’s doctrines. They are, in many ways, not much different from Fundamentalists, with their rigid codes of belief and conduct. Many atheists have a need to be part of something larger, so they are willing to surrender their intellectual autonomy to be a part of a group. I am unwilling to do so, and this is why, in the end, I cannot be like everyone else.

I am more than willing to work with atheist groups and individual atheists when their causes align with mine. However, as I learned from my battles with the proponents of Atheism+, it is all or nothing for many atheists. Either you accept the 10 Commandments of that group’s dogma or they will have nothing to do with you. This is why more than a few atheists have questioned my atheism. If I dare write something that runs afoul of the received atheist faith, as with Evangelicals, my commitment to atheism and humanism is questioned. If I suggest something that gives the hint of accommodationism, I am accused of promoting religion. I have received countless emails from atheists over the years who object to something I have written. If I say I am agnostic on the God question, the defenders of true atheism® are sure to let me know that they think I am a hypocrite and have some sort of religious hangover. While these letters used to bother me, I now understand that Fundamentalist thinking can be found in every group. There is nothing I can do about this. I am committed to being open and honest about my life and I am committed to passionately writing about my beliefs and worldview. If these things do not meet the criteria for acceptance into the atheist college of cardinals, so be it. I value personal freedom and intellectual integrity far more than I do membership in any group. If this limits me in some way, I am willing to accept that this is the price I must pay for being true to self. These traits will be valued by many, and that is enough satisfaction for me to continue preaching the gospel of godlessness.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Humor: How You Know You Have Gastroparesis — Part Two

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gastroparesis

Humor: How You Know You Have Gastroparesis — Part One

Warning! This post talks about bodily functions, especially vomiting and shitting.

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with an incurable, debilitating stomach disease called gastroparesis. As a result, I have lost 110 pounds. Constant nausea, lack of appetite, fits of vomiting, erratic glucose levels (mine dropped by 30 percent, changing my vision from nearsighted to farsighted), and chronic bowel problems are a few of the common symptoms. (Many gastroparesis sufferers end up on feeding tubes.) Bowel movements are often life’s greatest adventures. Will today be the day I shit? Gawd, that was the mother of all turds. Diarrhea? Really? I was constipated yesterday. Bowel movements every day for a week, and then no bowel movements for days. Gastroparesis, also called stomach paralysis, slows the movement of food from your stomach through your intestinal tract. Sometimes, food takes 4-7 days to make it through my system. My problems are further complicated by the fact that I also had my gall bladder removed several years ago.

I am nauseated all the time. There’s not a day when I am not nauseated. The nausea is such that there are days when I don’t want to eat. Polly is a superb cook. She will whip up awesome meals, only to have me say “I can’t eat” or after eating a bite or two I say, “I’m done. I can’t eat anymore of this.” Typically, I apologize to Polly for my lack of appetite, for making her “feel” like she’s to blame for my lack of appetite. I remind her, “it’s me, not you.” We will go out to eat at an upscale restaurant, only to have me not be able to eat my meal. Or worse yet, I will eat a $20 to $50 meal only to rush to restroom and throw up. There’s nothing worse than throwing up in a “pristine” public restroom. I mean nothing . . .

Late last night, I became increasingly nauseated. I’ve become good at judging my nausea, whether I can just tough it out or whether I will end up face down in the toilet. As my nausea became increasingly “challenging,” I took 4 mg of Zofran — a drug given to chemotherapy patients to combat nausea. Zofran is a quick-acting sublingual drug. Typically, Zofran lessens my nausea in 5-10 minutes. Not this time. I decided to take 4 mg more of Zofran. “Surely, this will tamp down my ‘nausea’ to tolerable levels,” I thought to myself. Unfortunately, my nausea only got worse. Soon, I knew it was time to head to the bathroom.

As I haltingly shuffled to the bathroom, I put my left hand over my mouth, hoping to quell the gag reflex that was telling me to vomit right then and there. I made it to the bathroom without incident, knelt down, and violently vomited. And I mean “violently.” After ten or so minutes, I got up off the floor, washed out my mouth, and washed my face. I also had to wash my beard since it’s long enough that it drops into the toilet water when I am vomiting. Gastroparesis, a gift that keeps on giving.

I shuffled back to the living room, plopped down in the recliner, and started watching the Big Ten Men’s Basketball Conference Tournament again. (Ohio State lost. Damn you, God.) I had Bethany get me a glass of room temperature water, hoping to remove the taste of regurgitated food, stomach acid, and bile from my mouth and ward off the dehydration that was sure to come.

Typically, once I have vomited I do not vomit again. Unfortunately, on this Mother of Gastroparesis Day, I repeated my first bout of vomiting. Afterward, I checked my blood pressure. It was 180/100 and my pulse rate was a racing 120. People can and do have heart attacks or die from violent bouts of vomiting. I took 100 mg of Hydralazine to drive down my blood pressure. Worse, the muscles in my abdomen, chest, and back were screaming. The muscles in my abdomen were so stressed and inflamed they were protruding. I saw and felt numerous knots in my abdomen, the direct result of the toll the two bouts of vomiting took on my body. Today I feel as if Polly beat me with a baseball bat.

What I have shared above alone would be a top-of-the-charts day. This night, however, was only getting started. Earlier in the day, I had a bowel moment. Somewhat normal, not too much work. Yea! A couple of hours later, I had another bowel movement, and a while later yet another one. These shits were looser, but still within the normal range. (People with gastroparesis spend a lot of time thinking about eating and shitting.) In the early morning hours, things changed. I had two successive bowel movements that were watery, smelly, and oily. Not a good sign. Thinking things were somewhat under control, we headed for bed. It was 4:00 am. Polly had come home two hours early from work to care for me. I was weak and unstable. I rarely ask her to come home, but I needed her help.

Polly quickly fell asleep. Damn, I am so jealous. I would not fall asleep until 10:00 am, six hours later. Thanks to the herniated discs in my upper back, I have to lie on my right side, with my head propped up with four pillows. Typically, I put my iPad Pro on the nightstand on my side of the bed — 12 inches away. I put on my MPow Bluetooth headphones, turned on the Apple+ app, and started watching The Mosquito Coast series (which is nothing like the 1980s movie with the same name — one of my favorite movies). Two episodes in, I felt a sudden urge to use the bathroom. I stood up, and as I did, my bowels exploded. I shit all over the bed and floor. As I made my way to the bathroom — twenty feet away — I plopped shit on the carpet and on the bathroom floor. My backside and legs were covered with smelly oily shit. I sat down, said WHAT THE FUCK, and emptied my bowel. Or so I thought I was emptying my bowel, anyway. Once I was done, I reversed my steps, cleaning up the mess I made. Thirty minutes later, this happened all over again. Then, at 8:00 am, I would have the mother of all bowel explosions.

After my second mess and clean-up, I brought two bath towels to bed and put them on my side of the bed. Back to The Mosquito Coast. Around 8:00 am, I felt an overwhelming urge to shit. I mean right now, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I stood up and then it happened. I said NOOOOOO!, grabbed one of the bath towels and put it up to my ass, trying to stop the mess that was coming. I ended up with shit on the bed, floor, wall, curtain, nightstand, and iPad charging cable. along with shit on the dining room carpet, bathroom floor, and toilet. I later washed up my backside.

I finally fell asleep around 10:00 am, waking up at 4:00 pm. Polly came into the room and said she needed to strip the bed so everything could be washed, including our electric blanket. I am washing our bedding now. The oily shit permanently stained our padded bed cover. It now smells clean, but it sure looks like shit — literally. 🙂

I asked Polly to take a look at my backside to make sure I was shit-free. She started laughing. River Shit had cut a course down the back of my right leg. In between my toes and on the bottom on my feet were covered with shit too. Polly said, “Buddy boy, you need a bath.” I replied, “ya think?” We both laughed, and off to the bathroom I went to take a steamy hot, bubble-filled bath.

My life is back to “normal” today. Outside of a stained bed cover and lots of abdominal muscle pain, all is well. Or as I tell my counselor when she asks how I am doing, “I’m fine, wonderful, awesome, super, present and accounted for.” 🙂

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Why I Write About My Health

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garfield pain

Occasionally, I write about my health problems and the struggles I have in my day-to-day life. Doing so, of course, will attract people who perversely revel in my pain and suffering or love telling me that my health problems are God’s judgment on my life, a precursor to the pain and suffering I will experience in the Lake of Fire after I die. Some commenters such as Tom/James/John/Joe go into graphic detail describing what God will one day do to the atheist named Bruce Gerencser. Yet, these same miscreants want me to join their Jesus Club and worship their God on Sundays. Even if God is real, and he’s not, I would never, ever worship such a deity. Such a God is a psychopath, as are some of his followers.

Most readers of this blog don’t have a problem with me writing about my health. I recognize that this site is not a blog about gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, or hemorrhoids. People read my writing because they are interested in what I have to say about religion and politics, especially Evangelicalism and the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church movement. For the record, I have mentioned fibromyalgia thirty-three times, gastroparesis eleven times, and osteoarthritis twenty-one times in my writing. My health problems are an insignificant part of my writing, yet according to one Evangelical preacher I won’t mention by name, mentioning these things more than once is unnecessary (and evidently irritates his hemorrhoids). Of course, I could say the same thing about his writing. He’s mentioned God/Jesus thousands of times in his writing. Surely, mentioning the Big Kahuna and his sidekick Jesus once is enough. 🙂 Right?

There are several reasons I write about my health problems.

First, many readers want to know how I am doing.

Second, I am homebound. Due to declining motor functions and vision problems, I stopped driving in March 2020. I must now rely on Polly to chauffer me where I want to go. She works full-time, so there’s not a lot of time for me to be out and about. We go to the grocery and out to eat, but the rest of the time I am homebound. We do take short road trips occasionally, and when it gets warmer, I will wander out into our yard to do a bit of yard work, but most of my days are spent within the four walls of our two-story home.

Writing about my health problems and life in general allows me to connect with people outside of my claustrophobic world. The Internet allows me to maintain human connections with family, friends, and acquaintances, relationships that would have been impossible in a pre-Internet world.

Third, I want to be an advocate for people who suffer from the same diseases I do. I want them to know that I understand. Until you have actually had, say gastroparesis or Fibromyalgia, you can’t understand how these diseases affect humans. Much like reading the experiences of former Evangelicals, reading the stories of chronic pain and chronic illness sufferers resonates with people who are walking a similar path. When Polly, who has ulcerative colitis, had to have part of her colon and bladder removed three years ago and had a colostomy for eighteen months, she found it helpful to hear from readers of this blog who have had similar experiences. When Polly was diagnosed with A-fib, she appreciated talking to people who had A-fib too. There’s something comforting about knowing that you are not alone; that if others can make it to tomorrow, so can you. Don’t underestimate the power of a kind, thoughtful blog post, email, comment, or social media message. When you are suffering, sometimes, it’s the little things that often mean the most. Money helps too. 🙂

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Eating “Right”

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food police

Recently, I wrote a post titled Humor: How You Know You Have Gastroparesis. Any time I write about my health problems, someone will either leave a comment or send me an email about what I need to do “fix” what ails me. I have repeatedly asked people not to do this, but much like Evangelical zealots they are determined to evangelize for the gospel of “eating natural,” homeopathy, keto, vegetarianism, veganism, supplements, or countless other “diets.” I’ve even written posts about not offering me unsolicited medical advice:

Bruce, Have You Tried . . .?

Please Do Not Offer or Send Me Unsolicited Medical Advice

Have You Tried (blank)?

The Similarities Between Food Fundamentalists and IFB Zealots

Leave it to Fake Dr. David Tee to ignore all that I have written on this subject and offer me “advice” anyway:

I am just curious. You do know that antibiotics wipes out both good and bacteria in your digestive system. Have you thought of going to the following foods and spices to help restore some balance- pepper (good for inflammation), cinnamon (not a lot), Greek style yogurt, pure honey, relish, dark chocolate and similar foods. These items work on restoring the good bacteria your stomach needs as well as help with bloating and inflammation.

If you have don’t bite my head off and if you haven’\t talk to your doctor about more natural remedies

Sigh

There are several assumptions that people make about my health problems.

First, I am to blame for my health problems. While lifestyle and environmental factors certainly play a part in diabetes and high blood pressure, how am I in any way to blame for gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, and osteoarthritis? How am I to blame for the herniated discs in my upper back and neck? How am I to blame for the plethora of problems I have with my spine? Or the Morton neuromas in my feet? What could I have done differently that would have resulted in a better outcome?

For the record, my diabetes and high blood pressure are managed with diet and medication. Last A1c? 5.4. And my cholesterol? Normal, across the board.

Second, because I am overweight, I must have a “bad” diet or eat the wrong things.

Third, my reliance on evidence-based, science-based medicine keeps me sick.

If I would just eat better and eschew Western medicine, my health would improve overnight; my stomach would magically “cure” itself; the arthritis and degenerative disease in my spine, feet, and hands would magically disappear; my fibromyalgia would magically recede into the background of my life, never to be heard from again.

If only life were that simple, right?

Fake Dr. Tee assumes that there’s something wrong with my diet; that if I would eat the right things I would be magically cured. He provides no empirical evidence for his claims, no double-blind studies that show the efficacy of his magical foods. Just personal opinion.

Here’s the thing, my diet is just fine. In fact, it’s more than just fine.

Currently, on our kitchen counter and in the refrigerator you will find:

Veggies: carrots, asparagus, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, lettuce, beets, red potatoes, yellow potatoes, russet potatoes, sweet onions, red onions, green onions, green peppers, mushrooms, celery

Fruit: apples, bananas, lemons, oranges, tomatoes

Damn, Bruce, you and Polly must like eating veggies and fruit. Yep, and we have eaten this way since the late 1990s — twenty-two years. So much for “food” being the problem.

I even take a few supplements, even though science clearly shows that taking supplements is largely a colossal waste of time and money. The only time we need to take supplements is when we have deficiencies.

I take:

  • Potassium for low potassium levels, likley due to the blood pressure medicines I take.
  • B12 for low B12 levels; the cause is unknown. I have had low B12 levels for 20+ years
  • Iron for anemia, caused by gastroparesis. This remains an ongoing concern as the supplements have not appreciably raised my red blood cell counts.
  • Vitamin C, taken to help with the absorption of Iron

Fake Dr. Tee also mentions spices. I will let the following photos from Polly’s kitchen tell you everything you need to know:

pollys spices (1)
pollys spices (2)
pollys spices (3)

Time for dinner! Tonight, I am eating Oreos, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and a Snickers, washed down with A&W Root Beer and a double shot of Jameson. I’ll sprinkle some cayenne pepper on the ice cream so the food police will be happy. 🙂

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Humor: How You Know You Have Gastroparesis — Part One

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gastroparesis

Also titled, “talking shit about shit.” 🙂

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with an incurable, debilitating stomach disease called gastroparesis. As a result, I have lost 110 pounds. Constant nausea, lack of appetite, fits of vomiting, erratic glucose levels (mine dropped by 30 percent, changing my vision from nearsighted to farsighted), and chronic bowel problems are a few of the common symptoms. (Many gastroparesis sufferers end up on feeding tubes.) Bowel movements are often life’s greatest adventures. Will today be the day I shit? Gawd, that was the mother of all turds. Diarrhea? Really? I was constipated yesterday. Bowel movements every day for a week, and then no bowel movements for days. Gastroparesis, also called stomach paralysis, slows the movement of food from your stomach through your intestinal tract. Sometimes, food takes 4-7 days to make it through my system. My problems are further complicated by the fact that I also had my gall bladder removed several years ago.

As I typically do, after watching Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption — two sports news programs — between the hours of 5:00 pm and 6:00 pm, I propped myself up on the couch so I could do some writing. Due to the herniated discs in my back and neck, I am no longer able to sit in my chair in the office and work, so the couch has become my new “office.”

I always hope that my bowels (or bladder) will leave me alone while I am writing. It’s no small feat for me to get situated on the couch to write, so I prefer not to move until I am done writing. Today would not be one of those days. All of a sudden, I had painful cramps, urgently calling me to the bathroom to make a delivery. I painfully got up from the couch, grabbed my cane, and shuffled off to the bathroom.

Before sitting down, I grabbed the latest issue of Orion Magazine that was sitting nearby. I always like to read something — anything, including the ingredients in the air spray — when I am taking care of business. My cramps suggested that I was fixing to give a massive offering to the porcelain god. Surely, I thought, this won’t take too much work. Boy, was I wrong! This day’s bowel movement took a lot of pushing, straining, and swearing (keep in mind that I take soluble fiber and bowel medication twice a day), causing increased pain in my upper back. Have painful herniated discs in your back and you will quickly learn how often you use your back for the basic daily functions of life.

After five minutes or so and one short Orion story, the deed was done. I turned around to look at what took so much effort, only to find a golf ball-sized turd. With nary a thought, I said out loud to the turd: that was a lot of work for that! 🙂

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Learning to Number Our Days

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cheating death

The King James Bible says in Psalms 90:12:

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Good advice. If I live to be seventy-five, and I seriously doubt I will, I will have lived 27,375 days. The clock will have clicked to the next hour 657,000 times. We all hope to have a long, happy, and productive life. We know our days are numbered. We woke up today knowing that we are one day closer to death than we were yesterday. Regardless of our wealth, health, status, or fame, each of us will die someday.  We can not avoid death. No matter how many supplements we take or how much exercise we do, we will, at some moment beyond the next breath, die.

When I was young I rarely thought about death. Death was for old people or for people who got cancer or were hit by a truck. Every once in a while my sensibilities were startled by a young friend, family member, or acquaintance dying, but for the most part, death never entered my mind. My uncle Dave died at age 26 and several high school friends died shortly after graduating. My wife’s uncle, my dad, and my mother all died in their late 40’s and early 50’s. When these deaths occurred I paused for a moment and considered my mortality, but in a short while, all thoughts of death disappeared. I was young and I had my whole life ahead of me.

Fast forward to today. I am almost sixty-five years old. I have a plethora of health problems — gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, four herniated discs in my back — older relatives are dying, and rarely does a week go by when someone I know isn’t memorialized on the local newspaper’s obituary page. These days I think of death often, pondering my own mortality. I consider the notion of nothingness, never drawing another breath.  Unrelenting chronic pain and debility have turned my life into an hour-by-hour, day-by-day struggle. I ponder in the still of the night going to sleep and never waking again. I have thoughts about how life will be for my wife and family once I am gone.

I don’t fear death. I have no control over it. I know death is lurking in the shadows. Some days, I feel death’s cold breath on my neck. I know that most of my life is now in the rearview mirror. I wonder, what awaits me in the days, months, and years ahead? The Psalmist also said, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” Again, good advice. We don’t know what tomorrow might bring. The best we can do is live for today, pursuing that which brings love, happiness, and satisfaction.

Older people like myself often speak of time flying by so quickly. Young people think their 16th, 18th, or 21st birthday will never come. For young people, most of their lives are yet ahead of them. Not so for us old folks. Time flies so quickly for us because we have so little of it left. If I live until I am 70, I have about 2,000 days left out of 25,550 days, less than 10% of my life. The meter is running and I am all out of change.

What do I want to do with the life I have left?  This is a hard question for me to answer. To live my life well requires me to daily decide what really matters. To what or whom do I want to give my time and energy? I envy those who have life all figured out. I am a restless person, constantly being pulled this way and that.  My passions burn and wane, and I often have a hard time fixing on those things I want my life to be defined by. When I was a Christian and an Evangelical pastor, all these questions were answered for me. I knew my calling and how God wanted me to live. The Bible was the roadmap for life. Some days, I wish I still had that sense of purpose and certainty. Now I know I must make my own way and find my own meaning and purpose. As a free man, free to do that which I wish to do, I ask myself, how do I want to spend what life I have left?

Two weeks ago, I sold all of my photography equipment, a gut-wrenching decision. I hadn’t meaningfully taken photos in two years, so I knew it was time. Unable to hold a professional camera due to its weight and no longer able to hold a camera steady or keep from falling, it became clear to me that my equipment was just a depreciating asset, one that must be sold while it still had value. Doing so was hard. I wept as I boxed up the last of my equipment and shipped it off to KEH in Georgia.

For now, I am content to focus on family, writing, and crossing things off my bucket list. I know there will come a day when I will no longer be able to write, walk, or ride in a car (I no longer drive), so I continue to do these things while I can. I still hope to finish my Lionel O-gauge layout. I haven’t touched it for six months, not steady enough to navigate the stairs to the room where the layout is located. I continue to drink in the love of my wife and family, knowing that when the day comes for me to die, they will be the ones that matter. We leave this life as we entered, surrounded by those who love us.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Defining a “Good” Marriage

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bill gothard marriage
Bill Gothard’s Evangelical view of Marriage

Evangelicals, particularly Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB), have a strict definition of what a “good” marriage is. I was taught by my IFB pastors and professors and I later taught to church members a patriarchal and complementarian form of marriage and family. Husbands are to be the heads of their homes. Wives are to submit to their husbands in all things. Husbands and wives have strict roles. Husbands are to lead their families and be breadwinners. Wives are to be keepers of their homes, bearers of children, and coin-operated sex machines. Children are to obey their parents in all things under the penalty of corporal punishment for disobedience.

I spent most of my twenty-five years in the ministry teaching and modeling a patriarchal marriage to church members. Within that framework, Polly and I had a “good” marriage. It wasn’t until we began the slow process of leaving Evangelical Christianity that we realized we had a warped understanding of what constitutes a “good” marriage. We’ve been married for forty-three years. We were virgins on our wedding day. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that our marriage began to change in appreciable ways, moving from a complementarian marriage to an egalitarian one. Our marriage is very different today from what it was forty, thirty, or even twenty years ago. Is our marriage a “good” one? Maybe. Good is such a subjective term, meaning different things to different people. The same goes for dysfunctional marriages. By what standard do we determine whether a marriage is good or dysfunctional?

Years ago, I sold insurance for United Insurance in Newark, Ohio. I had one married couple who was a client that I saw each month. I would stop by their home to pick up their insurance premium, and inevitably they would start screaming at each other. They had been married for fifty years. The first time I heard them hollering, I thought they were going to kill each other. After months of watching them holler at each other, I realized the hollering was just a part of the ebb and flow of their life together. They deeply loved one another.

Polly and I have had more fights than I can count. I explain it this way. Temperamental Bruce loses his temper and hollers. Quiet, passive Polly says to herself, “I’m not putting up with his shit!” I will draw a metaphorical line in the sand, and Polly, with few words, will step right over the line. And then we fight, albeit briefly. I can’t remember a fight that lasted more than a few minutes. I can’t remember the last time we’ve had a fight that mattered. We deeply love one another, and according to our own standard, we are 98.9 percent of the time happily married. What works for us may not work for others. That’s why I don’t encourage couples to follow in our steps. We’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years. We’ve gone through tough times, some so serious that the future of our marriage was threatened (1981-82 comes to mind, when our second child was born, Polly devoted herself to two children under three, and I was working 60-70 hours a week for Arthur Treacher’s).

I take a live-and-let-live approach to life and marriage. It’s up to individual couples to judge the quality of their marriages. What may work for one couple may not work for another. This is not to say that there is no such thing as a “bad” marriage. I counseled countless Christian couples over the years, people who had “bad” marriages; marriages filled with violence, abuse, and infidelity. Oh, they may have loved Jesus, but they treated their spouses and children like dog shit on the bottom of their shoes. Over the years, I encouraged women to separate from their abusive husbands. Sadly, none did. I witnessed child abuse, and, quite frankly, practiced it myself when I whipped my three oldest sons. Fortunately, I came to understand that it is wrong to use violence (and beating children is violence, regardless of what the Bible says) to discipline children. Unfortunately, I can’t undo what was done in the past.

What are your thoughts on good, bad, and dysfunctional marriages? How do you describe your marriage? I would love to hear what you think.

I am content to say that I am happily married. If I had to do it all over again, I would still marry Polly. We’ve had a rough-and-tumble roll in the hay all these years. When it’s my time to die, I hope I have the opportunity to tell Polly one more time that I love her. Most of all, I want to be able to tell her, “thank you, it’s been good.”

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Should the Disabled Expect and Demand the Same Rights and Access Everyone Else Has?

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ADA
Crippen Cartoons

I am disabled. I walk with a cane at all times, and I often have to use a wheelchair or motorized cart. This has been the case for me since 2009. For the longest time, I just walked with a cane, but over time, as my body and mobility slowly deteriorated, I started using a wheelchair if we were going to be out and about for any length of time. In February 2020, due to increasing physical and cognitive problems, I stopped driving automobiles. Later in 2020, I swallowed my enormous pride and used a motorized cart for the first time.

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities.

The purpose of the ADA is as follows:

(1) to provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities;

(2) to provide clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards addressing discrimination against individuals with disabilities;

(3) to ensure that the Federal Government plays a central role in enforcing the standards established in this chapter on behalf of individuals with disabilities; and

(4) to invoke the sweep of congressional authority, including the power to enforce the fourteenth amendment and to regulate commerce, in order to address the major areas of discrimination faced day-to-day by people with disabilities.

Discrimination is described this way:

For purposes of subsection (a) of this section, discrimination includes

(i) the imposition or application of eligibility criteria that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability or any class of individuals with disabilities from fully and equally enjoying any goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations, unless such criteria can be shown to be necessary for the provision of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations being offered;

(ii) a failure to make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures, when such modifications are necessary to afford such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to individuals with disabilities, unless the entity can demonstrate that making such modifications would fundamentally alter the nature of such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations;

(iii) a failure to take such steps as may be necessary to ensure that no individual with a disability is excluded, denied services, segregated or otherwise treated differently than other individuals because of the absence of auxiliary aids and services, unless the entity can demonstrate that taking such steps would fundamentally alter the nature of the good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, or accommodation being offered or would result in an undue burden;

(iv) a failure to remove architectural barriers, and communication barriers that are structural in nature, in existing facilities, and transportation barriers in existing vehicles and rail passenger cars used by an establishment for transporting individuals (not including barriers that can only be removed through the retrofitting of vehicles or rail passenger cars by the installation of a hydraulic or other lift), where such removal is readily achievable; and

(v) where an entity can demonstrate that the removal of a barrier under clause (iv) is not readily achievable, a failure to make such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations available through alternative methods if such methods are readily achievable.

Enacted into law in 1990 and amended in 2009, the ADA dramatically changed access to shopping, services, employment, and education that were previously inaccessible to people with disabilities. The law is not perfect. The ADA is littered with exclusions that allow businesses and churches to ignore the requirements of the law. Small businesses, in particular, are exempt from many of the law’s requirements. This is why I find it almost impossible to shop at stores in downtown Bryan and Defiance. Many of these businesses owners have no regard for people with mobility problems. Narrow store aisles and inaccessible restrooms make it impossible for disabled people to navigate their stores. So I don’t, choosing to do an increasing amount of shopping online.

Every two or three weeks, Polly and I, along with Bethany, drive fifty miles to Toledo to shop for groceries at stores such as Costco, Whole Foods, Fresh Foods, Fresh Tyme, and Meijer. All of these stores are required to follow the ADA (and they do, for the most part). As I navigate these stores (and others), I have a seat-level view of how the world looks to people with mobility-related disabilities. Things appear very different from a wheelchair or a motorized cart from how they look when you are walking freely on two feet. Even when walking with a cane, the world is very different from that of those unencumbered by haltingly navigating the store with a cane. When you walk with a cane, your mind and eyes are often focused on hindrances to your mobility; those things that could cause you to trip, stumble, or fall.

I could spend hours sharing stories about negative experiences I’ve had while shopping using a cane, wheelchair, or motorized cart. Sometimes, I will point out these issues to store managers or service employees, asking them to do better. For example, we love to eat the Texas Roadhouse in Findlay, Ohio. Great food and service. However, the restaurant stored chairs in a main walkway that required me to use a different egress that had a steep incline/decline (for me, anyway). I mentioned this to the general manager, and she quickly said, “you are right. I will have those chairs removed immediately.” And they have stayed removed.

Sometimes, store employees simply don’t pay attention to disabled people. Stockers at Meijer are notorious for leaving their stock carts in the middle of the aisles. Sometimes, I will educate them, suggesting they move their carts to one side of the aisle or the other. Other times, I will just sit there, waiting for them to get my hint. Some never do. I have mentioned this problem to Meijer management, but no changes have been made (even though this is a violation of the ADA). Several weeks ago, we were shopping at Fresh Tyme in Toledo. I was using a motorized cart. I stopped by the meat counter to buy some steaks, shrimp, and fish. I was parked three feet or so away from the counter. When the employee asked who was next I said, “I am.” However, he ignored me. He couldn’t see me due to the fact that he was standing directly in front of the scale. I politely (but secretly irritated) said, “if you move over a bit you can see me.”

disabled people
Crippen Cartoons

Here’s the question I want to answer: Should people with disabilities expect and demand the same rights and access everyone else has? Some disabled people say, YES! ABSOLUTELY YES! They are the people on Friday nights at 5:30 pm who are bound and determined to drive their motorized carts down crowded aisles, inconveniencing disabled and non-disabled people alike. They are the people who will horizontally park their cart, making everyone have to turn around and go the other way. Such people are inconsiderate, showing no regard for other people. I have had more than a few terse words with such people. I may be disabled too, but I pay attention to my surroundings and try to stay out of the way of other people. Granted, that same care is generally not shown to disabled people. I’ve had countless people walk in front of me, bump into me, and otherwise rudely and selfishly impede my path. Sometimes, I will say something, but most of the time I just curse loud enough under my breath that they hear me. One night years ago, we were leaving Great American Ballpark after a Reds baseball game. One of my sons was pushing my sorry ass back to the car. As we were crossing the crosswalk, a car sped up, trying to get by us before having to stop. They were unable to do so, so they stopped their car inches from my wheelchair. I showed my disapproval with a few choice swear words, and then, much to my son’s horror, I thumped their car with my cane. The driver wisely stayed in his car. I know, I know, not a good idea, but sometimes, I get tired of assholes showing no regard for me. I’m sure my sons, daughter, and Polly will have more than a few “Dad and His Wheelchair” stories to share at my funeral.

Unlike the aforementioned disabled people, I do not expect and demand the same rights and access everyone else has. I expect reasonable accommodations. I know the world will never be a level playing field for disabled people. Many things can be easily changed, and should be. Other changes might be prohibitively costly or impossible to do. During the summer, I attend dirt track races at Limaland Motorsports Park with my sons. We like to eat dinner before going to the races at Kewpee — a 50s-style hamburger joint. Their store on Allentown Road is not well-suited for disabled people. The seating is way too small, and it’s impossible to use the restrooms (unless you drop your pants outside of the door and back into the small closet-sized restroom). I don’t expect the owners of Kewpee to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make their store ADA-compliant. Now, if and when they build a new store they will be required to follow ADA regulations. Moving to an ADA-compliant world will take decades. That doesn’t mean businesses shouldn’t be challenged to do better, but lasting change takes time (and the ADA itself needs improvement).

More than a few readers of this blog are mobility challenged. What are your thoughts about what I have written? Do you have horror stories to share? If you are an able-bodied adult, how do you view the disabled people you come in contact with when shopping or in other places where the public gathers? Please share your pithy thoughts in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The Genesis of My Battle with Pain

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garfield pain

In the spring of 1971, my dad took me to see a female doctor. I was having pain in my elbows, legs, and feet. The doctor gave me an exam, including checking me for a hernia. Asked to drop my pants so she could check my testicles, I briefly passed out when she touched my genitals. She was the first and only woman who would ever see/touch my genitals until I married my wife, Polly, at age twenty-one (I did not pass out then). 🙂 The doctor concluded my pain was nothing to worry about. I had “growing” pains.

The pain in my elbows became so bad that I missed part of my freshman baseball season. The pain later went away, but I view this experience as the genesis of my pain problems. The next year, I missed weeks of school because I had mumps and chickenpox. That summer, I was exposed to chemicals in a swimming hole frequented by my friends and me. Chemical barrels had been dumped in the water, exposing us to harmful substances. Several of my friends ended up in the hospital. I was fortunate. I had large blisters on my skin, much like the blisters fair-skinned people get from a bad sunburn. A year later, I started having a problem with painful, debilitating swelling in my big toes. A doctor in Sierra Vista diagnosed this as gout — elevated uric acid levels. I took Zyloprim for several years and the gout went away. A rheumatologist would later cast doubt on my gout diagnosis. His explanation? I don’t know.

By the time I was in my twenties, I was having widespread joint pain, especially in my feet, legs, and back. My primary care doctor at the time blamed my pain on arthritis and sports injuries. I played competitive baseball, basketball, and softball until my early thirties. I also played racquetball and tackle football (without pads/helmets). I have injured every joint in my body — or so it seems, anyway — numerous times. I would walk out the door in fine shape, telling Polly I was going to the Y to play basketball, only to return home crippled and beat up. Some of these injuries required medical attention, including drawing fluid off my knees. I stopped playing competitive sports after an orthopedic doctor told me my knees were so bad that I was going to end up in a wheelchair if I didn’t stop playing basketball.

Over time, my pain problems became more pervasive. In 1997, I was, after two years of doctoring, diagnosed with fibromyalgia (widespread fatigue, pain). In the early 2000s, I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis (pain in the spine, feet, neck, shoulders, hands, knees), and in 2020, after extensive testing, I was diagnosed with gastroparesis (nausea, vomiting). In 2021, after seeing a doctor for excruciating pain, a CT scan and MRI revealed four herniated discs in my upper back.

Today, pain is my ever-present “friend.” I accept that this is my lot in life. I have two choices in life, keep moving or roll over and die. I choose, at least for today, to take narcotic pain medications, potent muscle relaxers, and other drugs that help me to keep moving forward. The goal is an improvement of quality of life. There’s no miraculous healing forthcoming — Jesus, you had your chance and did absolutely nothing — so I choose to embrace life as it is. Sure, I wish I didn’t live with constant pain. Sure, I wish I could sleep through the night. Sure, I wish I didn’t have to use a wheelchair or walk with a cane. Sure, I wish I could play with my grandchildren and not feel like I’ve been assaulted in a dark alley by an MMA fighter. But wishing and hoping change nothing, so I choose to accept my life as it is. What more can any of us do?

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Short Stories: 1983: Smelly Carpet, Sprite, Psycho Bruce, and a Christmas Tree

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christmas tree new lexington 1985
Christmas tree at another New Lexington house, 1984

In July 1983, I planted a new church in Somerset Ohio. I would, for the next eleven years, pastor Somerset Baptist Church, starting in a storefront and later holding services in a 150-year-old brick church building purchased from the Methodist Conference. I would learn a lot about myself during the time I spent pastoring this church For a few years, the church experienced rapid numerical growth (reaching 200 in attendance), leading to scores of professions of faith. And then, just as quickly, the church numerically receded, returning to a typical country church of fifty or so people. I could spend months writing about my experiences as pastor of this church, but for now, I want to focus on a house we lived in on Water Street in New Lexington, Ohio.

When I started the church, we lived in Buckeye Lake, twenty-five miles north and west of Somerset. Wanting to live in the area where I would be ministering, we sought out housing in Somerset. Unable to find housing, we rented a house in New Lexington — a community built on a hill nine miles south of Somerset. After moving into the home, we noticed the carpets had a smell. The longer we lived there the worse the smells became. I mentioned this to the owner. He said the previous tenants had animals and that’s why the carpet smelled. Determining that we were likely going to move if he didn’t do something about the smell, the owner had the carpets replaced in the living room and main bedroom. Despite the carpet replacement, the house still had a faint smell of animal urine. I suspect the urine had soaked into the wood floors underneath the carpet, and as anyone who has ever had to deal with such a problem knows, once this happens either the floors must be sanded and refinished or shellacked to seal in the odor. Six weeks later, we decided to move to a ramshackle farmhouse northeast of Somerset, near Glenford, Ohio.

There are several stories I would like to share from the few months we spent living on Water Street. I have always been a pop (soda) drinker. My drink of choice was/is Pepsi, but I would, from time to time, drink other brands such as Coke and Sprite. These were the days when pop came packaged as eight returnable 16-ounce glass bottles. Many of my fellow baby boomers have memories, I’m sure, of collecting pop bottles for money or using pop bottles for ashtrays or emergency urinals The returnable bottles were sent by grocery stores to bottlers who would sanitize the bottles and refill them with the proper soft drink. One day, I decided to drink a bottle of Sprite. I grabbed the bottle opener, popped the cap off the bottle, put it to my lips, and tipped the bottle so the sugary drink would flow. Suddenly, I felt something hit my teeth. I quickly stop drinking, and upon investigating I found a barrette with hair still attached in the bottle. Gagging, I quickly put the bottle down. To this day, I find it hard to drink Sprite. Irrational as it might be, all I can think of when I think about drinking a Sprite is that barrette with hair attached hitting me in the teeth.

As a young adult, I did a good bit of walking and talking in my sleep. My brother and sister have all sorts of stories about my sleepwalking escapades, including walking through the living room brushing my teeth. Not long after Polly and I were married, she awoke to find me standing in the corner of the bedroom urinating. Sound asleep, I thought I was in the bathroom. The sleepwalking continued into my later life. One night, while living in New Lexington, we had gone to bed, and as had been the custom for the past 43 years, Polly quickly fell asleep and I fitfully tossed and turned before finally drifting off into that night’s dream world. Several hours into the night, Polly awoke to find me crouched over her — eyes wide open. I was sound asleep, but Polly thought I was a psychopath fixing to kill her. After a few moments, I rolled over, while Polly was left shaking, fearing for her life. Both of us wondered if I would someday do something hurtful and not know that I did it. Fortunately, Polly and our six children survived. These days, the only sleepwalking I do is the wide-awake kind as I make one of my nightly trips to the bathroom or the kitchen. I still talk in my sleep from time to time. Polly no longer fears becoming the next day’s headline, though she does enjoy retelling what I said to her in one of my sleep-talking moments. I can, in her words, still be quite entertaining.

A few days after Thanksgiving, we decided to move from Water Street to our newly-rented house in Glenford. We had very few possessions, so we were able to do all the moving with a pickup truck. Having just put up our Christmas tree several days before, we decided to leave all the decorations on the tree as we moved it to its new location. I still remember how hilarious it was to see that Christmas tree sitting in the back of the pickup truck, fully decorated. As you might imagine, by the time we got to our new house, all the tinsel had blown off the tree, as had some of the glass bulbs. I know– the stupid stuff kids do, right? We put the tree back together, in preparation for what we still call to this day the Christmas from Hell. But that’s a story for another day.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.