Knoxville

by Ilene Pattie

The bus thumped over a speed bump. Going home from the senior center, the old ladies held tightly to plastic bags full of goodies won playing bingo. The bag on my lap held an almond coffee cake, chocolate cookies, and a loaf of "country French bread."

I turned my head. Behind me an old black lady, thin, with skin dry and wrinkled, looked out the bus window as we passed the First Baptist Church. Her hands, folded placidly, held nothing.

"Didn't you play bingo?"

"I don't play bingo," she said firmly, not looking at me.

I turned to face the front of the bus. The driver, Danny, sang "Oh Danny Boy" in a dreadful, off-key whine. That's his idea of entertaining us as he drives the meandering route, taking each old lady to her own doorstep. We ride his bus every day and laugh indulgently at his antics.

Bingo is a silly game, but I play twice a week. Tom Thumb Supermarket sends all its out-of-date bread and pastries to the senior center. Bread is on a table in the front hall for anyone to pick up and take home, but the "sweets" are reserved for bingo prizes.

As bingo numbers are called, old people creep to the front of the social hall and choose goodies
from tables piled high with cakes, pies, and other pastries. Everyone wins at least two prizes. I like that.

I don't have much luck. In two years once I won a $16.00 chocolate cake, which I put in the freezer, and which my son David devoured when he came from California to visit. Several times I won a cherry pie, which I took to my brother Don. Usually I am thrilled to take home a box of apple-pecan muffins. That's breakfast for four days.

I wondered why the old lady sitting behind me on the bus denied herself the simple pleasure of playing bingo and taking home a pineapple jellyroll or an angel food cake. I turned and asked, "Why don't you play bingo?"

"I obey the Lord."

"There's nothing in the Bible about bingo."

"I follow the Lord's rules," she said. "I don't play bingo. And I don't eat pork."

It was useless to explain to her that the ancient Hebrews were wise to avoid eating pork because in those days pigs carried a disease which could be fatal to men. American swine do not carry this disease.

"I follow the Lord's rules," the black woman repeated, then added happily, "I am going to Heaven."

The implication was that the rest of us, with pies and coffee cakes on our laps, were going to Hell.

That old woman was poor, black, uneducated, and probably had a hard life. It comforts her to look forward to Heaven, where she will enjoy all the things denied her in this life. She also enjoys thinking the rest of us fools are surely going to Hell. Everyone needs to feel superior to others in some way.

Why do I tell her story? She is harmless. But she is also an ignorant bigot, and ignorance and bigotry can lead to tragic results. That's why this article is titled, "Knoxville."

That man in Tennessee. His neighbors thought it was all harmless talk, his harangues about "liberals." Then he carried his rifle into a church and started shooting.

Many people hide bigotry by saying we should base our actions on "fundamental" beliefs. We call them "fundamentalists." Muslim fundamentalists. Christian fundamentalists.

In support of their beliefs, people argue, "The Bible says . . . ." The Bible says lots of things; a person can find somewhere in the Bible a verse to "prove" any cockeyed idea. Before the Civil War, fine, upstanding Southerners quoted the Book of Philemon to "prove" that the Bible approves of slavery. Does anyone today believe that slavery is justified anywhere at any time? Think about that when you hear someone railing against "pot heads", "peacenics". "tree-huggers", "feminists", and homosexuals.

Misguided beliefs lead to hatred of anyone who does not conform to a particular, narrow view. In Tennessee that man walked into a church where he never had been before. He heard Unitarians were "liberals", so he felt justified in killing them. Uniterians! Their "sin" was being broad-minded, accepting people with many different points of view. Yes, they admit Jews, Muslims, and all religious people into their fellowship.

Fundamentalists are evil. The young men who attacked the World Trade Center and who blow up other Muslims in Baghdad markets have the same goal as the old black lady who won't play bingo. They think they are going to Heaven. The only difference is that the fundamentalist terrorists have the ability to carry out their beliefs in a violent and destructive manner which shocks us all.