“Boomer” Winfrey

Varmint County Correspondent

I want to give everyone a quick update on the boys leading the Occupy Barstool Movement down at the Dead Rat Tavern.    

Their fundraising effort to support Toys for Tots and various other charities had unprecedented success, but not necessarily from the drunks that hang out at the Dead Rat.

The tavern regulars gave generously, but usually only after getting deep in their cups and short on cash. Still, the local citizenry managed to fill the tavern’s dance floor with toys ranging from Barbie dolls to bicycles, and the cash jug on the bar collected over two-thousand dollars in the two weeks leading up to Christmas.

Then Deacon Herbie Pennywell from the Church of Heavenly Glory in His Holy Name stopped by the bar on Christmas Eve and handed the boys a check for $100,000, explaining that the congregation wasn’t about to be outdone by a bunch of drunken sinners.

Varmint County’s poor families enjoyed a Christmas to remember, thanks to that gift, along with generous support in paying utility bills, rent and mortgage payments.

The church could afford it, thanks to the generosity of a member of the congregation who is no longer with us, and a heavy dose of Lady Luck.
Silas McSwine, known hereabouts as Grandpa McSwine, was a cantankerous loner who lived in an old coal company shack up on the outskirts of Upper Primroy. Silas was the granddad of lawyer Philbert McSwine, but you would never know it, as the two had little communication once Philbert grew up and became a lawyer.

“I always hated lawyers, they’s the curse of the world,” Silas proclaimed on the day that his grandson returned to Varmint County to open a practice. “And that goes for my grandson. I allus told his daddy that he boy would come to a bad end.”

Obviously this was not the kind of support and encouragement that Philbert expected from blood kin, so he avoided the old man whenever possible. After Philbert’s father passed on, the grandson (and attorney) did pay a little bit of attention to his aging grandpappy, filing a petition with the court to have the old man committed, with Philbert gaining power of attorney.

“What, exactly, leads you to believe that old Silas needs to be committed for psychiatric observation?” Judge Hard Time Harwell asked.

“He’s no longer capable of taking care of himself, your honor. He lives in an old tarpaper shack up on the mountain without running water or decent sanitation, refuses to associate with family or neighbors, goes out shooting at squirrels with an ancient black powder muzzle loader, and it’s a miracle he hasn’t shot somebody or himself,” Philbert argued. “And he can’t be trusted to handle his own affairs. He spends most of his social security check on lottery tickets.”

Silas, however, showed that Philbert must have inherited his legal skills and gift of gab from his grandpa. “Yer honor, I ’preciate the boy’s concern fer me, but he’s way out of line. I like living up there on the mountain. The house don’t look like much, but it’s warm in the winter and keeps the rain out, and that’s all I need.

“I been using an outdoor privy since I was a kid and carrying water from the well, and it ain’t hurt me none. I grow my own food in a garden and hunt my own meat, and it must agree with me, since I’ll be 93 next month.”

“Do you really hunt with a 200-year-old muzzle loader?” the Judge asked.

“Yep. Belonged to my granddaddy, Philbert’s great-great granddaddy. It ain’t easy hitting a squirrel with one of them, and I like to give the squirrels a sporting chance.”

“What about Mr. McSwine’s contention that you spend most of your social security check on lottery tickets?”

“Well, I don’t drink nor smoke. Philbert’s grandma, Maybelle, has been gone now for near 30 years and I ain’t got no interest in other women. I grow or hunt most of my meals. What do you think I ought’a do with that check, put it all in the bank so my shyster grandson can inherit it when I croak?”

Predictably, the judge denied Philbert’s petition and left old Silas to his own resources.

Other than pure contrariness, Silas had one vice. Every week, he went down to Smiley’s Tobacco Mercantile, bought a pound of boiled peanuts and twenty $1 lottery tickets. In fourteen years, he managed to win a grand total of $64 while spending somewhere around fifteen grand on tickets.

Then last year the inevitable happened when the old man began feeling some sharp pains in his gut.

“You’ve got a cancer, Silas. It’s pretty far along, but with treatment we might slow it down and give you a year or two more,” Doc Filstrup explained. “Left alone, you might have a month or two at best.”

“Don’t need another year, Doc. Been here too danged long as it is. I think it’s time I joined Maybelle.”

So, Silas McSwine went down to Smiley’s Mercantile and spent his entire social security check on Powerball tickets and dropped them in the collection plate at the Church of Heavenly Glory in His Holy Name.

“I’ve had nothing but bad luck buying them dern things for years, so I figure it’ll be my luck to hit the jackpot now that I’m checking out. Might as well give it to a good cause,” Silas proclaimed.

You can guess the rest. Silas passed on a Thursday and the Church of Heavenly Glory in His Holy Name won half of a jackpot of $107 million on Friday night. Needless to say, Silas McSwine’s funeral on Sunday was well-attended.

Lawyer McSwine sued but to no avail. A gift to the church is a gift, and being given while Silas was still alive, could not be considered part of his estate.

The church, for its part, soon became known as the “Church that Swallowed Lower Primroy.” 

The Church of Heavenly Glory was a small wooden structure, pushing a hundred years old, with a small congregation of thirty souls, most of them well into their 70s and 80s. They only held services every other Sunday, sharing a pastor with the Mud Lake Church of God.

After winning the lottery, it was no time at all before a young minister from over in Burrville showed up, offering to give the congregation a full-time pastor for the first time in years.

“I want no salary,” the Reverend Paul Harold Pickerton announced. “I just feel strongly that your church deserves full-time ministering and I have a few ideas for reviving your membership.”

The old-timers in the church bit, and Reverend Paul soon had the pulpits filled with young folks from as far away as Burrville and Pleasant View.

“We’ll need a larger building,” Reverend Paul intoned at one crowded Sunday service, and the newcomers quickly voted to tear down the old building and erect a new home.

Before long, the Church of Heavenly Glory was meeting in what locals nicknamed “the Cathedral,” a lofty structure with room for a thousand worshipers and a video booth for filming services. The video booth came in handy when Reverend Paul started broadcasting his sermons on “God’s Love TV, Channel 43.”

Next came the theological seminary and the mission college to prepare the most loyal members for mission trips to such spiritually- impoverished places as Jamaica and the Virgin Islands, complete with a childcare center. The congregation also voted to spring for a thousand acres on Mud Lake for a summer church camp, along with a parsonage at the camp for Reverend Paul.

Alas, some things that are too good to be true are just that – too good to be true. Back in August, Reverend Paul announced “Biker Sunday,” and extended an invitation to members of motorcycle gangs from around the state to “come and wash their sins away.”

A good number of bikers did just that, and the good Reverend astounded everyone by riding his new Harley-Davidson through the front doors and down the aisle to park next to his pulpit. It was at this service that some church members began to have doubts, when they overheard a couple of members of the Roadkill Motorcycle Gang, from down in Georgia, refer to the Revered as “good old Slasher.”

A few well-placed inquiries uncovered the truth. The good Reverend was no reverend at all, but a former drug dealer on the lam from warrants in four states and the District of Columbia.

In a tense meeting, the board of deacons, still mostly old-timers of the original church, voted to relieve the Reverend Paul of his ministry, mere hours before Sheriff Hiram Potts showed up with a handful of warrants and extradition papers.

Realizing that they were guilty of the sins of pride, excess and conspicuous consumption, the congregation proceeded to give away what remained of the Powerball jackpot. The Church of Heavenly Glory helped the congregations of over a hundred churches in Varmint County and surrounding areas to build or remodel their buildings, endowed funds for perpetual maintenance of a few dozen cemeteries, and among other things, gave a hundred grand to the Occupy Barstool Christmas Fund.

Lawyer McSwine, ironically, finally did get a little bit of his grandpa’s money, when the church hired him in an attempt to recover the $40 million that Reverend Paul Harold Pickerton seems to have mislaid somewhere along the way.