Did you ever wonder why some Schuylkill County churches host
all you can eat breakfasts and dinners during Lent? I know I have.
Take a look at the calendar of events in the Republican Herald newspaper, you will find some church (or hose house) sponsoring an all you can eat
scrapple breakfast, an all you can eat chicken pot pie luncheon or an all you can
eat spaghetti dinner.
Some days I accept the challenge and go to all three.
Would you care to join me
one of these days?
I call it the Schuylkill County hat trick.
I may have been
mistaken but, at one time, I thought that gluttony was a vice. It ranked last
on the list of the seven deadly sins, way behind pride, envy, lust, fidgeting,
peeing in a swimming pool and nail clipping in public. Whatever happened to the stigma gluttony had over the centuries?
Maybe "gluttony" suffered the same fate as Pluto.
You remember
Pluto don’t you? I do. It used to be a planet but got voted out of our solar system. Sort
of like the Survivor TV show. Maybe
gluttony got voted off the list of vices. I know I didn’t vote. If I did I would have
voted off "lust" and replaced it with "nagging." That is just my opinion. Mammy repeatedly disagrees with me.
Maybe it’s chewing
food with one’s mouth open that is a vice and not the number of servings
consumed. It sounds fairer to me. What do you think?
With so many churches
over-feeding the local population, I believe that there may be some biblical
basis for church- sponsored gluttony that I missed when I read the bible over forty-five
years ago.
I can't imagine there
was over-eating at the last supper. I have
seen the da Vinci painting and it certainly does not depict any liter bottles of RC Cola on the table or large bowls of chicken wings or pierogies. The
platters all seemed fairly sparse; reminding me of Le Bec Fin Restaurant in Philadelphia. Sparse
and probably over-priced.
More likely it was when Jesus multiplied the loaves and
fishes. Perhaps that was the first "all you can eat" mackerel breakfast that
remains popular in our county to this day. Maybe archeologists will find some ancient
Sweet Arrow Lake scroll which will confirm that it is righteous and just to get
up in the morning and eat as much food as humanly possible before settling down
to watch cable TV.
I don’t know about you but I don’t care for fish sandwiches for
breakfast even though I have the name trout.
I prefer Lucky Charms cereal, left over city chicken and pickled eggs (not necessarily in that order).
Probably I
would have just eaten one fish sandwich if I was at Galilee. However, I
would hate to get back in line for a second, especially with that Palestinian
heat and the large crowd, so I probably would have taken two. With no doggie
bags back in those days. If I didn’t want to eat it, I’d put it in my pants
pocket. I don’t know about you but I hate to waste food.
I know that mackerel breakfasts remain popular in
Schuylkill County. If you can eat several large fish in the morning, then I say,
“Holy Mackerel! Go for it! It is in the Bible for Pete’s sake!”
Did you ever wonder
who this Pete is? I know I have.
I think "Pete" refers to Peter, the apostle, who
helped distribute the all you can eat loaves and fishes at Galilee. I am not sure who distributed the tartar
sauce. I know it wasn’t Peter. Maybe there wasn’t any back then.
I often wonder
who invented tartar sauce. Don’t you?
Probably two Tartars from Crimea.
In any event I say a prayer before I sit down to my “all you
can eat” bleenie brunch, large pepperoni pizza lunch or midnight halushki buffet. I bow my head and humbly ask the Lord that
our churches and hose houses continue to do his work, helping to keep our Schuylkill
County people remain forever in His image and likeness – pudgy, portly and plump.
Then
I begin to gorge myself, always remembering to chew my food with my mouth closed.
