Bertha and Harvey

Bertha and Harvey always went to church together. But this particular Sunday Bertha was a little "under the weather" and so she stayed home. Harvey went on alone. Bertha began to worry when Harvey had not returned from church at the expected time. Then around 4:00 PM she heard a scratching at the door. She opened it, and there stood Harvey with his right arm in a cast, his left arm in a sling, his eyes swollen shut, black and blue. His shirt was ripped almost off of his body. He had knots on his head, and bruises and contusions all over his body.
Bertha cried out, "My goodness, Harvy! What happened to you?"
Harvey said, "Do you remember last week at church when we sat behind sister Anabell, the church fat lady? Do you remember when we stood up to sing hymn no 139, do your remember how the back of her dress was stuck in the crack of her butt? Do you remember how bro Elmer reached over there and pulled it out? Do you remember how she beat the living tar out of him when he did that? Well, today I sat behind siter Anabell again, and when we stood up to sing the hymn, sure enough, her dress was stuck in the crack of her butt again, and bro Hubert reached over there and pulled it out. Well, I remember how she beat the living daylights out of bro Elmer for doing that. So I just reached over and put it back!

clean, white, unsalted peanuts

Pastor Boonelevel visited Sister Beulah. She was about 85 or 90 years old and was unable to get to church except on rare occasions. He sat on the sofa in front of the coffee table on which sat a bowl of beautiful, clean, white, unsalted peanuts. They were tempting but he did not bother them. Sister Beulah interrupted the conversattion to go to the bathroom. She was in there a long time because she had forgotten to take her metamucil the night before. So as Bro Boonelevel waited for her, he began to eat from the bowl of peanuts. After a while he had eaten every peanut in the bowl. He apologized to Sister Beulah when she returned to her seat. "I am sorry, but I have eaten all your peanuts." She replied, "Oh, thaths okay. Sinth, I losth my teeth, all I can do is suck the chocolate off of them."

Boonelevel's Flat Top haircut

Throughout elementary school and into junior high, LeRoy kept his hair cut in a crew-cut or butch. It was shaved very short to his head. This was the style for many of the boys of his age, and for the average boy it attracted relatively little attention. But LeRoy had a pointed head. The top of his head was not flat like most people. There was a ridge that ran down the middle of the top of his head. He would never have known it except that some girl on the way to school felt compelled to announce it to everyone. The girl's comment was no big deal to LeRoy. He ignored it because he tried not to care and mostly because he couldn't quite figure out what she meant by it. It was a change in hair styles during the following year that enlightened him.

All of the boys, as kids usually do, went with the latest trend. That year it was the flat-top. In this style the hair on top of the head is cut to a length of about one-quarter to three-quarters of an inch and with the help of some sort of wax was made to stand straight up. In this manner the head resembled a field in which all the crops were standing upright, stiff, and completely uniform with the bristled ends forming a flat plane across the top of the head. This worked fine for the average boy whose head was relatively flat on top, but LeRoy's pointed head complicated his "flat-top". Since the top of his head formed a ridge down the center of the top of his head, the hair on the sides of the top of his head was almost an inch long, becoming progessively shorter toward the center until he was completely bald along the center peak . It had to be cut bald in the center in order to be level with the hair on the outer edges of the top of his head. It was a lake of hair with a narrow island of bald head sticking up and running down the middle.

LeRoy was one of those people that nature simply did not equip physically nor mentally with the means nor desire to keep up with the latest style whatever it might be. Life's procession of "bandwagons" carrying the latest trends rarely made it into his world of limited experience; and when they did, he usually just watched them pass. He did not feel deprived. To the contrary, he stood by in his own inner contentment and satisfaction bordering on pride and waved good riddance to the passing conveyences of fashion and fad. LeRoy did not "miss the boat," he "drove his own wagon." He was a trend-setter for his world. When the other boys saw his bald spot, they all wanted one. Consequently, a number of boys shaved down the center of their own flat-tops. The difference was that their heads as a general rule were relatively flat on top. While LeRoy's bald spot stood out as a peak, that of the other boys, being forced unnaturally onto a level head, lay as a valley between taller rows of hair.

LeRoy did not follow the crowd, but he was glad for them to follow him. When it came to fashion and the latest trends LeRoy Boonelevel's motto was Exodus 23: 2: "You shall not follow a crowd to do evil." It's amazing that a man can be so level-headed in spiritual things while having such a pointed head in the natural.