Wesleyan Methodists Have More Fun

(Originally posted July 14, 2011; minor edits.)

I knew Jerry Beers for a number of years growing up in Erie, PA. We went to Bethel Christian School together for 2-3 years. We were cut from the same cloth, pubescent rebels with a conscience, finding every possible opportunity to upset teachers and administrators, then briefly guilt-stricken afterwards until we confessed. Wash, rinse, repeat.

His father was a Wesleyan Methodist minister. They lived in the parsonage on Liberty Street, and the church was kitty-corner to them. The family ran a small bakery near the same corner. I don't recall the name exactly, I think it was very simple, The Beers Family Bakery or something like that.

The Beers family was a large family. Every child's name began with the letter J. I don't remember them all, but they included John, Jim, Jerry, Jenny and Julie.

Jerry told me a story about his father that I remember well. Apparently his father was preaching on humility one Sunday, and at the end of the sermon, to demonstrate, he got down from the pulpit and crawled on his hands and knees to the back of the church. It is the most vivid memory of a religious event I have, and I never actually witnessed it.

(I told that to a boss once, at a company I worked for years ago and is now defunct, and my boss smirked at the ridiculousness of that lesson in humility. He just didn't get it, and that's too bad. I've only told that story 2 or 3 times since, for fear of the same response.)

It would strain my memory to recall all the things we did as juvenile rebels, but to recount a few...

• We played dice in the boy's bathroom for real money. We called it craps because that's what we heard on TV, but we didn't know how to play, we just made up rules as we went along. Gambling was my idea and dice were easy to hide. I think I took them from a Yahtzee game, since it had plenty to spare.

• Jerry stole Between the Acts Little Cigars from the corner variety and put money on the counter to pay for them. We smoked them together and called them "barber-ans", which was a corruption of the Beach Boys' "Ba ba ba, ba Barbara Anne." Don't ask why, we were 13 years old, it meant something to us and nothing to adults.

• I took a bus to Millcreek Mall, met Jerry and we saw Coma at the theater. Neither of us were permitted to go to movies. This was a considerable offense, and I lived with the guilt for years. Wasn't until my 20's that I could tell my parents without fear of reprisal, though it was by then trivial even to them.

• We invented a clandestine group, the BS, which we inked on our hands and told everyone if asked that it meant "Bethel School," but it actually meant "Black Sheep," after the WWII pilots in he Pacific popularized in a TV show at the time of the same name.

(The show stands up well after all these years if you get a chance to watch it). We were eventually discovered and forced to disband, and told by the principal, Mr Meeker (whom I admire now) that we should not admire those men. But how can 13 year olds not admire a bunch of drunken brawling womanizers? (Sorry, Mr Meeker, I still admire them, and I'm nearing 50.)

• Bethel Christian School was held in Bethel Baptist Church, located at that time at 737 E. 26th Street. One Sunday after evening service we poured black ink into Miss Emerson's plant in her 8th grade English classroom. The plant was deathly black by Monday morning, and by Tuesday had expired.

 

The small Beers Family Bakery is boarded up now. The parsonage and church have long since become home and flock to a different family and minister. And the variety store next to the parsonage that supplied us with smokes is now a battery store. But memories remain, and one in particular is the reason for this post:

Jerry's family did not have TV. They were very traditional Wesleyans. Women wore dresses, didn't cut their hair or wear makeup. I suppose there were restrictions for men, among them prohibitions against long hair (especially problematic in a day when it was the style), but other than that, I don't remember.

Jerry's one private joy was radio. Without TV, it was his window into the world outside a home, church and school suspicious of popular media. He knew many classic and modern songs by heart, sang them out loud in class at times, understood which ones were funny or fun, which ones were serious. He didn't need images, he created them in his mind, and so they were always what he expected them to be.

He told me about "The Chicken Heart" radio play. I didn't actually hear it until a couple years ago when I put a large random collection of OTR episodes on my mp3 player and that happened to be in it. When I was a boy, it was probably aired as a nostalgic offering for Halloween.

Listen to Arch Oboler's 1937 classic
"The Chicken Heart," from Lights Out [1]

(Each Halloween for a number of years, local station WCCK, which promoted itself as “K104,” played Orson Welles' radio version of "War of the Worlds," along with the appropriate precautions that it was not real, which made it all the more exciting, for in those days radio still informed and motivated millions; we shared exaggerated stories about the mass hysteria and how frightened listeners cast themselves from tall buildings rather than be taken alive by invading aliens.)

For the search engines, I am...

Charles Cairns
Bethel Christian School 1978
Erie, PA

I've tried to hook up with folks from those days; had a little luck some years ago, but not much. I found Jerry and lost him again. If you know me and are interested, you can find me here .

I have the fondest memories of Jerry and his family, and the deepest respect for their convictions, an ability to maintain decency and decorum in an upside-down world, the fine examples they were to me, and the fine people and spiritual leaders they became.

[1]
When I first posted this, I was hosting and streaming my own audio content. It was important for me to know how to code this and do it for free, but it’s tedious, so I am just linking to archive.org in these reposts.