As a boy, I went to a Presbyterian church regularly. I suspect that my mom sent her kids there so that she could do some godawful sex thing with my step-father. I have no proof, but there is evidence. She did have another kid when I was 4, and then again when I was 14. And 18. It was a small house and Sunday morning was about the only time they had the house to themselves. But that’s a story for another day.
When the family visited my grandparents in southern Illinois, we spent Sunday mornings at Ten Mile Baptist Church, where my grandparents were regulars. Most weeks, the only miles driven by Grandpa Carr in his rusty 1934 Chevy were the church’s round-trip miles. I think his speed on those gravel roads topped out at 23, but that’s a story for another day.
Whether it was the Baptists or the Presbys, I don’t know, but one of their hymnals contained a song called “I Will Make You Fishers of Men.” Not that anyone in those pews used a hymnal; everyone knew the tunes and the words, which are:
I will make you fishers of men,
Fishers of men,
Fishers of men,
I will make you fishers of men
If you follow me;
If you follow me,
If you follow me,
I will make you fishers of men,
If you follow me.
If I had heard the words clearly, I would have been confounded by “fishers of men” because that would not have made even the slightest sense to me. Fishers I got – had to be someone who fishes. For fish. I had done that. Men are not fish (or so I thought at the time), so fishers of men wouldn’t have made any sense.
In church, they made a big deal out of a virgin birth and I tried to understand what that meant. But without knowing what virgin meant (nobody, in 1952, would provide real insight into virginity to a 9-year-old), my confusion just increased. Not making any sense was indeed the prevailing atmosphere in church, but that’s a story for another day.
I misunderstood the words “fishers of men” – I thought I heard the congregants singing “fisher cement.” Which made no sense. Every time that song got sung, I went home wondering what the hell (and I did know the word hell back then, although saying it out loud was a punishable offense) fisher cement was. I thought I knew what fishers meant, and I thought I knew what cement was, but I couldn’t think of any, even oblique, connection between the two.
Maybe I asked my mother, or maybe I didn’t. She was fond of answers like “To make little boys ask questions.” Pressing her for a reasonable answer was generally not conducive to my health and safety, but that’s a story for another day.
Fisher cement. I wondered many times: What could that mean? I was born into this world. I didn’t design it, just tried to understand it. I didn't know what fisher cement was, but I knew I didn’t want to be any kind of cement. When church became optional for me, I quit going.
