JOE'S VISITOR

Joe stepped through the front door of his cabin onto his porch and walked right into a spider web, with a spider the size of a quarter running across his face. He noted how hot it was for September and cussed the abundance of spider webs. His old hound lay there on the porch scratching away. For some reason, Joe just had all he could take.  He looked toward the heavens and asked God if He had any idea just what he was doing when he made spiders and snakes and fleas and carp.

He sat down in his old rocking chair and nearly jumped out of his skin when he became aware that he was not alone. “Who the dickens are you and where did you come from?” he said with a start, although it was obvious who the visitor was… It was an angel, you could tell by the halo and the wings.

“God sent me to talk with you,” the stranger said with an angelic voice. “You complain constantly anymore Joe, and you once were so happy and cheery. What would it take to make you less grumpy, a little more satisfied with life?"

“Well, you just caught me at a bad time, is all…” Joe answered, “I’m sorta cranky this mornin’ because I didn’t sleep well last night with this sore back, and that thunderstorm yesterday washed all the gravel off my road and the handle is broke out of the shovel… an’ my old hound is full of fleas.”
“Maybe we can fix the flea problem,” the angel said, “I can send some snow in a week or so and get the temperature down in the twenties for awhile.”

“Now see, there’s what aggervates me,” Joe said.“Everything is so extreme. When it rains it just pours down in buckets, and when it don’t, it don’t for weeks at a time.  Now it’s been 85 degrees for a week and you’re fixin’ to give us a freeze-up and a snowstorm! Why can’t there be a happy medium?”

The angel just smiled… “You are thinking of heaven Joe. This is the earth you are living on. Men have made the weather what it is by activities that lacked much wisdom over the centuries. But since you have been a good man, to some extent, over the majority of your lifetime, maybe I can speak to the Creator in your behalf and have some things done to your liking. What are the things you would most like to see changed in your life besides the weather?”

Joe thought about that for a moment, as he glanced at the angel, trying to figure out how this could all come about.  He had assumed this visit meant he was about to be escorted to the pearly gates to explain a lot of things.  Now it appeared someone actually cared what he thought.

“Well,” he said as he rubbed his hands over his white beard. “There’s some little things I guess, like tomatoes. I’d like to see tomatoes get ripe about the first of June around here and keep growin’ ‘til about the first of October… I reckon that ain’t too much out of line.”

“I think it is a reasonable request,” the angel said, “because it would be a good thing for many, and I assume you are thinking a bit of your neighbors.”

Buoyed by that affirmation, Joe continued. “And it would be nice if we had a couple of years with no snakes nor mosquitoes or fleas and none of these dad-blamed spiders… excuse my language there.” The angel nodded, more unselfish things which would be good for everyone in the river valley. He bade Joe to go on.

“Well they’s other things,” the old man said. “Like that hole down there in the river where I fish. There’s carp in there that’ll go 10 pounds, lots of ‘em. But I only caught three walleyes last spring and there wasn’t a one of them bigger than 18 inches. Seems like if God was payin’ attention when he made that river he’d at least of made the walleyes outnumber the carp or made the walleyes big and the carp little.”

“But Joe,” the angel said, “If you had plenty of big walleye, catching them would not be the challenge you now enjoy, and you would be tired of eating them so much. Why there was a time long ago that men who lived along this river complained because there were so many fish and not enough chickens! And as for the carp, God didn’t put them here in your river, men did.”

Joe rubbed his beard again, and thought to himself that whoever brought those carp to the Ozarks ought to have been looked at awfully hard before they were let into heaven.  “Well, that may be,” he said, “but how come the chicken hawks outnumber the bobwhite quail, and there’s more coyotes any more than they is rabbits? Maybe you could do something about that… for the good of all mankind that is.”

“I understand, Joe,” the angel said, smiling, “and while I can’t promise anything, I certainly will make your feelings known.  It is commendable of you to think of others this way, but what would you have me do just for you?”
Joe thought hard about that, wondering if the angel wasn’t just having some fun with him. What was the puzzle? Surely that angel knew how he loved to hunt quail and rabbits. 

“I suppose I’d like to get me a good-sized buck this fall,” Joe said. “Them neighbors of mine spotlight the big ones ever year, why all I got the last year was a forkhorn and a six-pointer that had ears bigger than his antlers. An’ I’d just once like to sneak up over that pond bank of mine about Christmas time and see a big flock of greenhead mallards again…  instead of them darn coots. What made God create coots, I wonder?” 

“And I reckon it’d be a great Thanksgiving if I could get a wild gobbler instead of some little old scraggly hen turkey,” he continued. Then too, maybe we could have one mild winter, with no snow for a change. Last year I was out tryin’ to cut firewood with snow up to my… well… it’d be nice to see jonquils by the middle of February.”

“I understand Joe,” the angel said, as the heavenly guest rose and prepared to leave.  “It makes it hard for me sometimes. The little Thompson twins have been praying for a white Christmas, you know. But…if you are willing to leave with me, you can have all you wish for and much more in heaven. It’s a nice place.”

Joe became a little nervous… “I figured I was still a little young for that,” he said, “and besides I got grandkids and neighbors that’s gonna need me around here for a spell. I reckon I won’t need so much after all, if I stay around here. Things ain’t been so bad, if you get right down to it. Most of the time, I’m plumb happy.”

“It’s good to hear you say that Joe,” the angel said with an understanding nod and a smile. “It’s just that you complain so much I have been worried about you. And remember, only a few years ago you vowed that if God would let the Cardinals win the World Series you’d be so happy you’d never ask for another thing!”

Later that day, Joe headed for the river with his old hound alongside, and his fishing rod over his shoulder. He was whistling as he went, enjoying that beautiful September day, counting his blessings.

E-mail Joe and Larry, at lightninridge@windstream.net, or write to them at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613. The website is www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com