UNITED BY FRENCH FRIES: CHURCHES & BARS [Su, 11-15-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

UNITED BY FRENCH FRIES: CHURCHES & BARS  [Su, 11-15-20]

When we lived in Arcola, IL, there was a place called The Embassy. It was sold to a “French” chef from Belgium, who apparently, because it had a name like that, thought it was a high-end restaurant. When he got to the US, he found out it was a bowling alley with a snack bar that sold hot dogs! Undaunted, he turned the snack bar into a high-end French cuisine venue. We used to eat there, with Jan Faires’ harp music accompanied by the muffled rolls and thuds of bowling balls in the next room. We thought the food was excellent. The real locals said it was a pretty good place, except the portions were small, and the new chef didn’t use sausage gravy.

Also, he didn’t serve French fries. I mean, aren’t those the essence of French cooking? Well, more like the essence of Hoosier Baptist cooking, actually.

Helen’s family moved from Monon, Indiana to Gary when she was ten, because of her father’s job at US Steel. She never acclimated, even though she was the valedictorian of Tolleston High School. She was a small-town girl, always claiming Monon as her home. And even though she was a Presbyterian in Gary, and agreed to become a Methodist if I would marry her, in Monon, she was a Baptist.

[None of the names in the following story, except for Baptist and French and Monon, are real.]

In Monon, for funerals and fellowship meals, the Baptist ladies did French cooking, meaning they served French fries. Except one night they ran out. They needed a French fry machine, one that would cut big potatoes into little French strips, in a hurry. The only one anybody could think of was in Duffy’s Tavern, downtown. Thelma, the head Baptist lady, called Duffy and got permission to use their potato cutting machine. The only Baptist lady free from other duties, available to go downtown, was Ethel, the most righteously Baptist of all the ladies. Reluctantly, she agreed to go.

She could not, however, stand the thought of people in the tavern seeing her in such a disreputable place, and she certainly did not intend to mingle with them, so she marched through the bar and into the kitchen, carrying her sack of potatoes, saying nothing to anyone, including the folks in the kitchen, went up to the French fries machine, and silently fed each of her potatoes through its cutter, then marched out the same way.

When she got back to the church, Thelma asked her if she had any trouble finding the place. As Ethel described her adventure, Thelma suddenly realized that Ethel had gone to the wrong tavern. She hadn’t gone to Duffy’s; she’d gone to Moe’s! Having never been to either one, Ethel just didn’t know…

So, head Baptist lady Thelma called up Moe to apologize. “Oh, it’s okay,” said Moe. “Glad to help out, now that we know what it’s for. We just figured she was a deaf mute who really likes French fries.”

Taverns and churches have a lot more in common than is usually realized, and it’s not just a liking for French cooking. “I love this church…” [1]

John Robert McFarland

1] “I Love This Bar” is a song by Toby Keith. Look up the lyrics and you’ll see that churches and bars are so very much alike. In fact, in terms of inclusion, bars may be more churchly than churches are. As I look forward to going back to church in person some day, I sing with Toby: “I love this church, it’s my kind of place, just walkin’ through the door, puts a big smile on my face…we’ve got doubters, we’ve got shouters, silent pray-ers and Jesus shouters…” [Well, those lyrics are mine more than Toby’s.]