The Side Show vs. The Main Show

Snow Cones, Baloney Sandwiches, and Double Colas--------------------------------
Do you remember when snow cones first made their appearance in Carthage. The first I remember is when Mr. Dennis opened a snow cone stand out at the stock sale barn across the lot from where I lived. Boy were they good. You could get a cherry, grape, orange, strawberry, or Lime flavor, but mostly they all tasted pretty much the same – sweet!
The stock sale barn was the source of constant amusement for me growing up – well not the sale barn itself but the happenings attendant to the stock sales. There was the bowling alley with two lanes, five pins, and little bowling balls about the size of a really big grapefruit. They had no holes for thumb and fingers and several of us were able to get a small part time job setting pins by hand. There was a padded board behind the pins that was on hinges and the balls hit the backstop with force enough to knock out a mule when those old farmers let fly of the ball. Most of us who sat pens perched on top of the swinging board watching the projectile come cannon balling down the alley. We sat the pins, then returned the ball by placing it manually on the center runway.
The little long white building had not always been a five pin bowling alley of course, it was a feed store run by Mr. Stone, who was the father of Mrs. Minnie Francis Rankin originally and the farmers could come to sale and load their trucks with sacks of feed from out the many “load windows” on each side of the little long white building.
There was also a fair amount of “politicking” taking place at the stock sale and local candidates were easily spotted working various sections of the parking area, handing out bumper stickers and posters to be nailed up on the nearest telephone pole in your neighborhood.
On the side where the trucks lined up were the “pin hookers” who were anxious to buy your livestock right there in the truck and save you the time and anxiety required to send them through the auction ring. Their intent was to pay you a little less than they would be able to get in the ring and there by make a profit from doing nothing but betting on what the auction price would be. I suppose it was an early version of the futures market.
It was the big show in town on Tuesdays and Thursdays and everyone tried to get in on the act – even me. I remember that one year I prepared a sweet potato bed and raised sweet potato “slips” which I sold to farmers coming to sale day. I don’t recommend it as a way to make your first million.
A lot of the farmers would come early and leave late, using that day as an excuse to get away from the hum-drum of farm life. A reason to have a baloney sandwich which Daddy would slice by hand from the big stick of baloney and a can of pork-n-beans in one of the paper cups Daddy provided at the little table in the back of the store. That along with a Double Cola provided nourishment to see one through the day till a real meal was available for supper.
There were so many “side shows” going on at the sale barn, it was easy to miss the main purpose for the gathering. I am quite sure that many men came and spent the day without actually seeing a single head of livestock auctioned. Between snow cones, chairs for sale, bowling alleys, baloney sandwiches, knife trading, and lie swapping, the day was easily spent and the main event completely ignored.
It is easy to be like that in life, to become so consumed with the side shows that we forget the purpose of the gathering, the main event. For us in the church, the main event is to glorify God, but we often get so involved in the various social functions of the church that we forget to focus, to keep the main thing, the main thing. As to the world, well just drive by a golf course or a driving range on a sunny Sunday morning and look at the crowd. A friend noted that his six year old daughter observed the crush of cars at a golf course one Sunday morning and declared, “Those people must be Jewish.” It was beyond her comprehension that anyone would just not be going to be part of the main event, “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
Have a blessed day, Bob