For Father's Day - #2 Adam was a gardener

Doral with Teague, Tonia and Marcia circa 1976
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Doral would tell stories as we would drive along in the car.

Raucous stories about his practical joke playing relatives, stories about jokes play by them on him, stories about jokes played on him by them.

We begged for the stories, naming them by incident: “Tell us about Frank shooting the white horse; tell us about Amanda hiding in the newly dug grave; tell us about the cow pie under the hat, and so he told them over and over again as we would drive.

When he was tired of storytelling he would sing to us:

Adam was a gardener, and Eve she was his souse.
They got the sack for stealing food and went to keeping house.
They lived a very quiet life, and peaceful in the main,
Until they had a baby and started raising Cain.

 And we joined in the chorus

Young folks, old folks, ev’ry body come,
Come and join our Sunday School and have a lot of fun.
Please to check your chewing gum and razor at the door,
And you’ll hear some Bible stories that you’ve never heard before.

Then dad would start on another of the 12 verses,

God made Satan, and Satan made sin,
God made a hot place to put Satan in.
Satan didn’t like it, so he said he wouldn’t stay.
He’s been acting like the devil ever since that sorry day.
And we would join in the chorus --

Doral created a love of religion in me with those songs.

That was the devil in him.

All of the verses of the songs were about transgressions.

I loved what seemed like the transgressive act of singing them.

(#2 of 15, to be continued)

Arta