Ear Worm

She was one of those simple harmless people so endeared to God that could be so very irritating. Like every little sister, you had to love her but sometimes just wish she would go away.

If you watched closely, the veneer of bubbly optimism would show thin spots and her sad silent inner self could be glimpsed. We’ll call her Sally.

Sally preferred to hang with the guys. The sisters were much to dull for her so she took to bugging the brothers. She became the Lamby Pies mascot for a time and her lasting legacy was a particular ear worm that she had created by herself. Of course she would say the Lord lead her. I’m sure He did.

An ear worm, according to the urban dictionary is a tune or melody that sticks in your head. They use; I hate to do this to you, the Jeopardy song. Now its there, in your head. Try to get rid of it.

The creative process was particularly painful for the guys who experienced every line of Sally’s ear worm coming to fruition. It evokes the Double-mint twins singing in the seventies. Syrupy sweet like eating a bowl of brown sugar with a spoon.

There was a revolution in music going on at the time. One of the musicians from Petra said, and I paraphrase, “Why should the un-believers have all the good music.” It was the death knell for Southern Gospel which dominated the Christian channel air waves.

Crummy

Almost no one in the van headed home from tree planting would have chosen Parsons Squire singing Sweet Beulah Land, or Reba Rambo and the Rambo’s, or the Gathers, but they became the dull background melody for the long ride home from work as we tried to nap in every conceivable position. Southern Gospel was all there was on the Christian stations and the Christian stations is all there was for Shilohites.
One day like an electric shock, up beat piano music sounding like bells with angelic crisp vocals;
Here the bells ringing
they’re singing
that we can be
born again
Then came the large sweeping electric rock chords of The Second Chapter of Acts. Annie Herring, Mathew and Nelly Ward woke us from the heavy perfumed powered monotony like a deep drink from the crashing clean streams refreshing a forestry worker on a hot and dusty August.

Refreshing Sharps Creek

Wow, it was great for about two minutes and twenty seconds.
Then a singer from a studio some where in the deep south returned. He no doubt earnestly pointed heavenward as he sang about God. Ten guys rustled around finding a new napping position.

We had some note worthy talent in Shiloh. After all our heritage was Calvary Chapel birth place of Love Song and Maranatha Music. The Lamby Pie jug band however never aspired to such heights. But man they were fun.

New Music

There was tall Peter Wertz on the wash tub bass, Rick Erickson on guitar, Pat, aka Patty me boy, Morado on the jug with an assortment of guest stars on the spoons, Jews harp and washboard. And of course Sally, doing her little sisters part was constantly promoting the virtues of her current ear worm. Oh that the jug band would incorporate it into the repertory along with the Ol southern favorites like I’ll Fly Away or Way Down.

There was some truly beautiful music goin’ on though. I remember a line from a Dan Horan original taken from the Old Testament where the prophet referenced a name for Israel calling them Jeshurun. The hauntingly sad and beautiful melody moistened eyes as we could all personalize the message.
“He found him in a desert place and in a waste howling wilderness…”
The song followed the story as God took the battered and bruised Jeshurun in, cleaned him up and restored him.
We all felt like Jeshurun at that point of the story.

Another minor toned melody written by one of the girls went:
“When storm clouds fill the darkened sky, prayer is in my heart. Thunder and lightning. But peace is in his name. Peace is in his name.”
I remember openly weeping with twenty or so others in the living room of The Oklahoma City house as a lovely young voice sang The Outlaw:

Some say he was an outlaw
That he roamed across the land
With a band of unschooled ruffians
And a few old fisher men

Some say he was a prophet…

Some say he was a sorcerer…

Some say he was a poet…

Some say he was the Son of God
A man above all men
That he came to be a servant
And to set us free from sin…

Sally’s tune was nothing like those. She must have been frustrated at the lack of play her creation was getting.

Somewhere along the line one of the older sisters or a patroness as the female pastors were called, must have laid down the law. We didn’t see Sally any more. She just disappeared possibly to another house, who knows. But her ear worm lived on.
It wasn’t uncommon during a prayer time for someone to spontaneously lead out in a worship song. I can’t ever remember that happening out on the slopes doing forestry work except on one particular occasion.

Reforest

Normally the van climbed gravel roads till we arrived at the appropriate moonscape of slash and broken trees twice burned. This day though our access to the tree planting unit was through a lush forest as only the Great Pacific North West can produce over the centuries of rain.
Our van stopped among trillium doted ferns under a canopy of green liken covered old growth Doug Firs. We were to bag up, cross a crystal flowing stream a couple of meters wide, and climb a hill where we would find the logged off area to, “reforest.”
While we were bagging up one brother went over to the stream and pulled out a clear orb about the size of a soft ball. The fresh clean mountain stream water dripping off this unadulterated clear gem left us in awe. We stood for a moment drinking in with every sense the life of the place. The life of the moment.

Theme Song

Dan Horan with his sparsely bearded cherub round face started. The other eight or ten Lamby Pies chimed in:

I’m a little child of Jesus
Saved by his grace
Just a little child of Jesus
Looking at his face
Every time I go through a trial
I have a smile
Every time I go through a trial I have a smile
Saved by his grace
Saved by his grace
Saved Saved Saved Saved
Saved by His Grace

Sally’s ear worm had become the Lamby Pie’s official theme song.

Lamby Pies go South

Deliverance started long before the sun came up each morning. In numerous secluded corners, quiet alcoves where solitary young men sat or kneeled, muttering. Or they stood silently rocking back and forth in the shadows with their arms crossed, holding themselves like a comforting friend. They grasp at fleeting moments crying out, not even praying as the word is commonly known but crying out, pleading with the almighty for deliverance.

Saddle up

A half dozen, fifteen passenger Dodge vans are warming up. They whine like fighters on a flight deck behind the old mansion in the heart of Eugene's Fraternity House district. Bags are placed in coveted seats as stewards make last minute checks, tires, lights. Each van gets a cardboard box filled with PBJs or cream cheese and jelly. Pink panthers at the end of the month; beets and cream cheese between bread. A three gallon yellow igloo water cooler with red top sat in the back of each crummy.
The house is alive with the clank and murmur of sixty tree planters finishing breakfast. Their stainless steel trays rinsed, stacked and silverware tossed into a large metal bowl of soapy water. A few were going through heaps of clothes looking for a pair of sox or gloves.
Many hadn't worked a day in their lives before a few months ago. I was one of these. Now duty demanded we find our place in a designated van, buckle in and ride into the wilderness where a full day of demanding physical labor in all kinds of inclement weather would be exacted.
The weather could be fierce. Mud sucked moisture leaving hands cracked, thorny blackberry bushes ripped flesh and vine maple, a wispy rubbery plant worked like a whip raising welts.
There is a verse in the Bible about a certain demon possessed man who lived among the tombs slashing himself. We took it as our, tongue in cheek own.

Oh Lord Deliver My Soul

Reprieve started for me, I'm convinced, in one of these secluded corners, or in the van somewhere between sleep and prayer rushing into the dawn on twisty gravel switchbacks. It started with a prayer to God, Lord I don't know if I can do this today, deliver me, help me, be with me.
Planting turned to spraying in late spring. Teams in echelon formation; the one to the left just slightly back following the one before and the third one following to the left on the heels of the second and so on. When the whole line turned the guy on the end was left running over huge piles of broken trees and uneven ground to catch up like the end of a bull whip.
Every Lamby Pie had a pump-up canister holding six or eight gallons of goop on a back pack frame strapped to his back. Goop was a putrid pink latex based spray we used to treat the fresh lime green buds of last seasons seedlings just beginning to pop. The deer loved them till we covered them with goop.
Grouse thundered up with a start. The line melted out of its machine like tramping and quietly, very softly, formed a circle around a white spotted brown fawn shivering. Its feminine lashed eyes looked calmly up from fern lined under brush.
First day bright and warm, one guy ran up and over a particularly large slash pile only to trip at the top falling headfirst into the middle of the pile emptying the Pepto-Bismol like contents down his back . The others rushed to right this turtle that was unable to save himself.
In the good old days the shilohites used putrefied fish and diesel fuel. A tree spraying crew picked up a hitch hiker once, so the story goes. With the rank smell of the spilt goop, the unsuspecting hitchhiker finally decided the ride was wasn't worth it and asked to be let out early.

Don't Spray My Truck

"Be sure to pump up more than twenty feet from the crummys."
Our hard hatted inspector had a brand new shiny yellow company truck. Sure enough when it came time to fill and pump up, Greg filled his tank and pumped it up right next to the inspector’s truck.
On about the fifteenth pump the hose blew off the end of Greg’s tank shooting a geyser of pink goop straight up into the air and all over the inspector’s new truck. Mr. hard hat was beside himself with rage.
One quick thinking brother kicked the tank over away from the truck and blasted the rear van seat where Terry the crew foreman was sleeping with the back doors open.
In late summer it was off to Mallot WA and apple picking. Up Interstate Five to Seattle and across the cascades to the apple orchards of eastern Washington.
After forestry the lush orchards with all kinds of fruit was paradise. There was mint for making tea. Tender wild asparagus could be found in the irrigation ditches. Kinda like Adam and Eve in their little garden.
I remember running with Lenard, an Iniut Indian from Alaska. Lightning strikes from huge dark thunderheads across the high desserts vast expanse. Ahhh the majesty of God, but only a glimpse.
Running with Lenard was like running with a great dark cat, a panther or cougar, long flowing black hair, rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat. Truly one of Shiloh's mighty men of valor. His almost paternal friendship affected me more than I could possibly know at the time.
In a real way Tahoe started for me here also.
I told the Lord, I couldn't do tree planting for another season and that if he wanted me to stay in Shiloh, he would have to get me out of the fast approaching season. I never told anyone one but I had decided that if tree planting was to be my lot in the late fall early winter; I would leave "the ministry." I just couldn't do it again. I wasn't going to, period.

To the Office

“Hey! Perkins wants to see you in the office, now."
Ooh no. This couldn't be good. I'd heard of rebukes and wasn't interested in participating as the object of one.
I headed across the compound at the Johnny Appleseed orchard migrant camp. I noticed some other guys in my set, folks who had come into Shiloh about the same time as me, converging on the office also. The bearer of news had told me it was ok, not to worry. But I was still apprehensive.
The overseer of preparations, John Perkins wore a beard down his chest looking like one of the Luden brothers on the cough drop box. He informed the small group that we were going to open a new house in Lake Tahoe.
We'd be working in the food services division of Harrah's casino. All the coffee you could ever possibly want and food ala smorgasbord in the employee’s kitchen.
"You'll miss the tree planting season though so pray about it first and give me your answer in the morning."
Hey, I had already prayed about it. "Count me in. When do we leave?"