Tag: William Shelton

Speaking in Tongues

At the end of the first song the song leader said to me, “Would you like to join the singing class?

I had never been to William Shelton’s church, a Primitive Baptist Church up in the mountains near Walnut, North Carolina. I did not know that if you wanted to sing, you were supposed to go down front, up on the platform, and join the “singing class.”

I said “Yes” and I got up from my pew, went down there, and sang with the singing class, sad songs mostly, about toil and hardship and sin.

I’m a Baptist, too, but I had never been in a Baptist Church like this one.

  • In Sunday school the leader read a chapter from the New Testament while we listened. No one said anything. Everybody then took a turn reading a few verses until we had read the chapter again. Then the leader read it a third time. That was it.  Sunday school was over.  If you wanted to know what it all meant, ask the Holy Spirit.
  • When we went back into the sanctuary William and some other men were sitting together in chairs on the platform, off to one side of the preacher. They were the “Amen Corner,” something I’d heard about all my life but had never seen. When the pastor said something they really agreed with, one of the men, sometimes two or three, would say in a loud voice, “Amen!”
  • Just before the sermon the preacher and everybody else prayed in tongues. Everyone in church, it seemed like, was praying, loudly, at the same time.
  • The pastor preached in a sing-song voice, the kind I used to hear on country radio stations, slamming his open hand down on the lectern and stomping his foot to emphasize his points. And when he began to sweat, he wiped his forehead with a white handkerchief.
  • At the end of the sermon, the preacher stood in front of the congregation, about 100 people, and the men in the “Amen Corner” filed by, hugged him, and then took their place beside him, hugging each other as they formed a line. And then the whole congregation did the same thing. Before it was over everyone in the church, including me, had hugged everyone else in the church.

And then the church bells rang and it was time to go home.

When we got in William’s pickup truck I didn’t say a word. Neither did he, at first. The service was so unlike anything I had ever experienced I didn’t know what to say.

We rode a couple of miles and then he broke the silence.

“I’ve been to Mary’s church in Charlotte,” he said, referring to his daughter, Mary Sue Porter. Her church, First Baptist, is about as mainline as they come. “I know my church is different.”

That was all that was said.

Coming Friday: Blow In Their Ear, Carefully

The Wasp Nest

 

Wasps on their nest.
Wasps on their nest.

We were barning Burley tobacco on William Shelton’s farm near Walnut, 26 miles northwest of Asheville, N.C., when Herb Porter spotted a wasp nest hanging from the roof of the tobacco barn, a big nest, big as a man’s hand.

This isn't Herb Porter, but this is the way you hang Burley tobacco.
This isn’t Herb Porter, or me, but this is the way you hang Burley tobacco.

  Herb was standing spread eagle on two rows of logs, one boot on one log, one boot on the other. The logs were about three feet apart, wide enough to accommodate the sticks of tobacco stalks we were hanging.

He was way up there, at the top of barn.  Fall from there and you’re going to get hurt real bad.

I was standing spread eagle on logs further down, taking sticks of tobacco from Herb’s brother-in-law, Alfie Shelton, who was standing in the bed of the truck, and handing them on up to Herb. When I heard Herb say “wasp nest,” I scrambled down fast as I could. I went over the barn door, ready to run. But Herb just stood there, spread eagle, not three feet from a nest covered with those black and yellow devils.

Pat and Mark Stith, L to R, and Herbie and Herb Porter
Pat and Mark Stith, L to R, and Herbie and Herb Porter, on the wasp weekend.

“Alfie,” he said, “get me a cup of No. 2 fuel oil.”

Herb stayed right where he was while Alfie pumped No. 2 fuel oil out of a drum stored in the barn. They had done this before. When Alfie had enough he climbed up two or three tiers of logs, and handed the cup to Herb.

Without hesitating Herb threw the fuel oil all over that nest and wasps began raining down onto the barn’s dirt floor, dead.  He killed them all.

And then Herb dropped the empty cup and told me to hand him another stick of tobacco. Time to get back to work.

Coming Monday: It’s A Good Life