Blog on the Lillypad
Thursday, December 04, 2003
 | Breakfast of Champions
In spite of a sore throat that had returned on the last day of the convention, I felt pretty good, physically, on Monday morning. A lot of gargling with hot green tea helped. I had an appointment that I'd been looking forward to and wanted to be in good shape for it. |
| The hotel was still silent and sleepy when I left in the cold, windy darkness. I drove for an hour down to Hammond Indiana and found the Cracker Barrel that I had picked out from the internet web site. After a wait of about ten minutes in my warm car, "Smellin Coffee" from the FFF pulled in, followed shortly after by "Speed Racer", and then "Stephan Peters." The place opened up, and we entered. Stephan Peters told me I didn't look at all the way he had imagined, but I never got a chance to ask him what he had supposed I would look like. |  |
 | As for what I expected, my biggest surprise was that Smellin Coffee was not a foot taller than he actually was. And he's not short. But somehow I had a towering football player in mind. I don't even know why. And his moustache surprised me. He wears a style that I would call a Fu Manchu, and I had imagined him (and all the men) to be clean shaven. |
We told our server that we expected three more people, and so she gave us the largest table in the place. Shortly thereafter, browsing and his wife Mrs. browsing came.
The meeting was odd because on one hand I felt that I'd known these people for years. On the other hand, all the tiny formal considerations and carefulness that comes with meeting total strangers were still in place as well. We talked about the Hyles situation, of course, and updated each other on what we knew. Browsing told me a little about the Brent Stevens case that I had not known, but I will not print it here.
Yet in spite of the heavy subject matter, I was amazed at how funny everybody was. Especially browsing and Speed Racer when they played off each other. On the FFF, we are usually serious, careful, and intense. It was odd (and yet very welcome) to see browsing tease Stephan for forgetting his hearing aid and then see Speedy tease browsing for being in the way of the picture taking. Stephan Peters' wife came about thirty minutes later, and our party was complete. I also told them about my trip to the hospital and the doctor's orders.
The other thing that surprised me, and I had not expected to be surprised, was their kindness. I have dealt with the cutting comments (and dealt out many of my own), the snide remarks, and the accusations of the FFF for so long that overall I have forgotten that Christians are supposed to be kind. My own kindness comes by effort and hard work (when I succeed). And so the easy, kindly, good natured kindness of all of them surprised me. And I was surprised at how surprised I was.
 | And the final big surprise was the easy partnership style of both the Peters and the browsings. Both women behaved with a relaxed, happy contentment, as though being out with their husbands on a cold windy morning before dawn was a lovely thing to do, and they really ought to have done it sooner. That subtle happiness and solidarity between the partners of both couples was obvious but not overdone, as natural to them as my sense of humor is to me. Submission gets pounded into Fundamentalist women so much, and adultery is so rampant in Fundamentalism that I forget that there are Christian men who truly love and respect their wives. The calm and happy deportment of Mrs. browsing and Mrs. Peters showed me a world that I have not known (and is largely ignored by Fundamentalist preaching) of being a woman who is treated with respect and kindness all the time. |
