{Estimated reading time: Six minutes or so}
Preacher Bateman's Life Work
© 2001 James D. and Rebecca P. Pearce
A little way back in time ~ back, that is, before Elmo received his summons to move Up There ~ he and Clem had become engaged in conversation about things metaphysical. Metaphysical, of course, meaning things on a higher plane than just every-day earthly existence ~ such as the situation Up There.
They were discussing things that might or might not be, as well as some things that might have or might not have been.
"Elmo," said Clem, "sometimes I think I've spent my whole life traveling down the wrong side of the road. Sometimes I look back ~ and thinking about one or two of those crossroads I ran into ~ 'round Potecasi and Creeksville ~ I get the feeling that I might have turned left when I probably should have taken a turn to the right. Sometimes I even get a notion that once or twice there where I voted Democrat, I really should have voted Republican.
"Sometimes I feel like if I had done like my daddy did ~ while skipping the part about the Great Depression of course ~ I might have been much more of a financial success in my life than it has been my lot to be."
"Clem," offered Elmo, "don't you tax your minuscule brain with that kind of thinking. Now you know I'm a Meherrin Baptist Church regular ~ I'm certainly not one of these Presbyterians ~ but we all have to face the plain fact some time in our lives that What Was, Was ~ What Is, Is ~ and What Will Be, Will Be.
"And the choices we tried to make ~ however well-intentioned we were ~ probably wouldn't have changed anything much over the long haul.
"And speaking of wrong turns, let me tell you the story about Preacher Bateman ~ you'll remember him I'm sure ~ couple of preachers back at Meherrin ~ died suddenly one day, you know, right in the pulpit."
And this is the story Elmo told about Preacher Bateman, late of the Meherrin Baptist pulpit.
He'd been a farm boy ~ didn't like farming much, but didn't like the penalties for talking back to his old man much, either. So when his daddy told him to go plow cotton, Young Bateman tended toward picking up the reins and the plow handles.
(Here this story takes a kind of dumb turn ~ and it's been told so many times and in so many versions I'm almost loath to repeat it here ~ but then, again, it's the way things were ~ and it's definitely the way Elmo told it. ~ JDP.)
Young Bateman (this was his pre-preacher era) was wrestling the plow handles and pushing the old mule through the field one day when his full six-foot stature and his lion's mane of dark wavy hair were suddenly brought up short.
Up in the sky ~ way Up There ~ off to the Northwest ~ Young Bateman saw three little clouds forming and re-forming, and finally settling into a shape he could easily recognize.
The three little clouds formed three large letters ~ GPC.
Their forms were so distinct that Young Bateman could even recognize the TYPEFACE ~ "Franklin Gothic."
"Zounds," exclaimed Young Bateman. "A sign from Heaven.
"GPC ~ now that only could mean 'Go Preach Christ.'
"O Lord, thank you," exclaimed Young Bateman, falling on his knees in the dust of what should have been a budding cotton patch.
"I have learned my calling ~ the message has been sent to me from On High.
"And it certainly means that I was not put here to be a poor plowboy. I have a mission in life."
And he tossed away the reins, unshackled the old mule from the plow ~ urging it away with one swift well-placed kick ~ and ground his plowshares into the dirt with his big yellow brogans.
Suffice it to say that ~ thus inspired ~ Young Bateman became Preacher Bateman, of the long, flowing locks and the leonine-thrust jaw and one of the stars of the missionary field for the Southern Baptist Church, Hertford County Division.
He traveled and preached and saved the souls of innumerable heretofore-unchurched Africans.
And when he had completed that continent, he sailed the far seas to Asia where he succeeded in bringing at least twenty-seven of the numberless heathen Chinee into the sanctuary of the One True Church ~ with the help of collections taken by the Lottie Moon Missionary Society.
And when he tired of all that far-flung activity and good works, he came back to his native Hertford County and moved into the parsonage at his Old Meherrin Baptist Church ~ which opening the Good Lord had mercifully provided with the quick removal of the prior occupant who had been discovered en dishabille with one of the choir ladies.
And then Preacher Bateman grew old and died.
"Well, of course," said Elmo, "Preacher Bateman shortly arrived in Heaven, where he was met by St. Peter, the Keeper of the Pearly Gates."
"Well, here I am," said Preacher Bateman to St. Peter.
"And so you are," said St. Peter. "And you, sir, are ~ ?"
"Why, Preacher Bateman," said Preacher Bateman. "I have arrived here for my Eternal Rest and Reward for services rendered.
"I have faithfully fulfilled the tasks set before me ~ since that day behind the mule in the cotton patch ~ when you put that big white sign up in the Northwest Sky ~ telling me to Go Preach Christ."
"Go Preach Christ?" pondered St. Peter. "Well, it takes a pretty big type-size to put one of those signs in the sky like that ~ usually something like 144-point type ~ and we here at the Pearly Gates never have been over-endowed with a lot of large-size typefaces.
"So sometimes we have to use abbreviations ~ like GPC, for instance ~ somewhat like the Roosevelt Administration you might say, with the AAA, the CCC, the WPA and the PWA ~
"And," continued St. Peter, "at times we've had to double up on the Big Signs in the Clouds ~ you know, sometimes GPC might mean one thing and sometimes it might mean another."
"Good Lord," exclaimed Preacher Bateman, "I hope you are not telling me that I might have misinterpreted my signal from On High, and followed a mistaken road all my life."
"Well, maybe not," said St. Peter. "I'll have to ask Michael (he's our Archangel, you know) to check the records back on this." He picked up the satellite phone from the pearly desk at his left.
"Michael," says St. Peter. "Check something for me ~ Big Signs in the Clouds ~ (aside to Preacher Bateman: 'What was the year, you say ~ 1901?')
"Oh," continued St. Peter, "and the typeface, too ~ that's important you know~"
Then, speaking again to Michael on the satellite phone ~ "Typeface 'Franklin Gothic' ~ one of those older ones ~ yes ~ 1901 ~ yes ~ Big Signs in the Clouds ~ yes ~ GPC ~ OK, I'll hold."
Then, aside to Preacher Bateman: "It'll only be a moment. Michael is very efficient. Got a brain like a Bill Gates operating system~"
Then, back to the phone again ~ "Oh, is that right? Well, OK, Michael. I'm afraid there is going to be a little disappointment here ~ well, thanks, anyway ~ cheerio ~ 10-4 ~ and out."
St. Peter turned and his heart slipped slightly at the sight of the stricken face of the poor creature before him.
"Yes," he said slowly and ponderously, "it does seem that there might have been a mis-reading. I always said that doubling up on these Alphabet Messages ~ even in cloudy 144 point ~ wasn't the brightest idea in the Heavens.
"It seems that back in 1901 there were several messages sent as GPCs. The difference was in the typeface."
"Oh, Good Lord," exclaimed Preacher Bateman. "Are you going to tell me that all my life's work ~ Go Preach Christ ~ has been One Big Mistake?"
"It seems so," said the saint.
"Well, for the Lord's sake ~ don't tell me that 'GPC' in the clouds meant for me to 'Go Plow Cotton' ~ I don't feel that my poor heart could take hearing that," pleaded Preacher Bateman.
"Go Plow Cotton?" queried St. Peter. "Well, tell the truth, I really hadn't thought of that one ~ Looking over the records here, I think Go Plow Cotton was put up in 'Times New Roman' typeface.
"Now, Go Preach Christ, that one went up in Ultra Bodoni ~"
"Oh, no," moaned Preacher Bateman. "Neither of those choices was meant for me.
"My 'GPC' sign was in 'Franklin Gothic'."
"Yes, I know," said St. Peter.
"That was the one for musicians.
"It meant Go Play Clarinet.
"You were supposed to get a job with Jimmy Dorsey.
"And you could have had at least three nights at the Copacabana."
~~~
Meherrin Baptist Church, Murfreesboro
~~~
Plowman ponders
the heavens
Library of Congress photo
American Memory Collection
Northeastern NC c. 1938
~~~~~~~~~
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