GOD'S COUNTY

Greg and I are at the Tannery bar just down the road. Mark, Sparkle, and Rob are there with Ruth behind the bar. They are adding up DUIs between them. They have 11 between the four of them. We've been working hard on the album and deserve a little afternoon break. Potter County, PA is famous for deer hunting, logging, and drinking. There's a prison song lyric: "Potter County USA, come on vacation. Leave on probation." Everybody's really friendly. I know if I stayed a week I'd be either married or in jail...or both. Rob's got one snaggle tooth and is inviting me along to this Saturday's "game dinner" out in a field somewhere in the hills. "No women. No guns. No utensils. No napkins. No tent. If it rains you're gonna get wet. May snow. Gonna be cold. Gonna have muskrat and beaver and bear and maybe some coyote. Wanta go Mike?" Have I died and gone to heaven?
I go to the car and get some Holy lgm hats for my new friends and everybody starts buying rounds. Ruth the barkeep is a Sunday school teacher who checked out my front license plate: JESUS HELPS ME TRICK PEOPLE, and instead of being insulted, writes it down as the inspiration for her Sunday class. My brothers would love this town. Luckily Greg only lives a couple hundred yards down the road. By the time we get home we've passed the point no return for laying down tracks. Greg puts on a DVD for me- Masaki Kobayashi's KWAIDAN. This is the deal. Greg and I are country boys who went to the big city, then came back home. So we can spend the afternoon drinking with locals, then come home and watch obscure Japanese art films. That's not gay is it? Cut me off a slice of that beaver Rob.