The Bible Belt

This evening our local television station showed us another painfully familiar, and all too frequent, one-minute broadcast from the studio of our electronic spook and God connection, Pastor Dwayne Sherriff, proprietor of the Faith Christian School. Faith Christian is a small, private, non-denominational church-school (an "academy" according to Pastor Dwayne); a part of the sprawling Dwayne Sherriff Ministries.

"We offer classes for pre-kindergarten to the eighth grade. After students graduate from our eighth grade they may attend a school of their own choosing or they may stay at Victory Life Academy through high school."

Pastor Dwayne, who has bangs and wears white suits that look to be of his own design, told us this evening that abortion and homosexuality were sins against God. He quoted a few lines from the Scriptures as proof of his claim and then told us that the lines he had just quoted were PRO-found.

We have a fondness in these parts for emphasizing the first syllables of multi-syllable words. We complain about government BEW-rocracies and the HEW-midity, we call a nearby town DOO-rant and pastor Sheriff is affectionately known by all in his congregation as DEE-wayne.

That may sound tacky to you Harvard grads but our citizens have made a contribution to English pronunciation that has gained national acceptance. That's the countrified word "DEE-fense" used by sportscasters, players and coaches all over America.

I have only lived in this county for thirty-one years so have not yet been afflicted by the misplaced emphasis bug; to my PRO-found DEE-light.

West of Ahloso
11/11/06 (rev. 11/17/08)
Alex Coyle