The Potato Chip Boy

                                               The Potato Chip Boy

Theology in the Trenches

by Kathleen Kjolhaug

Dusty streets run deep and wide along main in our small town. A few blocks long it spans while midsummer potted petunias blossom purple. A lemonade stand may be found in front of the grocery store now and again as passersby pass by, and the little fundraiser brings a smile or two along with a nickel or two for the worthy cause represented.

As well, there’s a bank on one corner, a gas station or two on another, lest we forget the laundry mat, a thrifty nifty drug store, a pizza place posted right up from the post office, and the local hardware store keeps us all equipped with the basics for home and garden. Not to mention, there’s a church or two or three or four…or more.

Yup, along main you will find these things and at first glance, excitement may not be our middle name in small-town U.S.A., but we do have something that big town U.S.A. does not have. We have our own.

Why just the other day, as I drove up to the gas pump and glanced into the window, I noted a silhouette peering back at me. It was the potato chip boy waving and munching as I entered. No, he does not deliver them; he was eating them all happy like right in the middle of his workday. I knew him. He knew me. I see him at school, church, and now at the local gas station, he is stationed.

He informs me that his year went well at school, but that his schedule for next year will be lighter, and he is pumped! He plans on spending a lot of time with the shop teacher; he’s excited about that. His new job at the station allows him to turn small talk into big talk.

Nope…the big town down the road doesn’t have the potato chip boy. He’s all ours.

The town down the road doesn’t have our pastor and his little family of four, and I’m glad they do not. For they are easy pleasers…excited to find wooden floors beneath the carpet pulled up; grateful they are and grateful we are that they are ours. Nor does that big town have the other churches just blocks away. This particular morning, one had just finished hosting a shower for a gal who grew up with my own. And as far as the young man she is marrying…that town down the road doesn’t have him either. Nope, they are all ours, too.

The table of teachers gathering at that shower once taught the young lady and her groom to be…while the ladies in the kitchen were a few of those who broke bread a few months back studying His Word.

Oh that bigger town down the road may have lots of store-bought stuff, but they don’t have our ice cream shop. Nope, that’s all ours too; we call it the Drive-In cause that’s what it is. The people within have trained many a solid worker to go into the workforce by launching them up and out with a few pennies in their pockets…not to mention teaching them the good old fashioned ethics of hard work.

The men gather just blocks away from where the potato chip boy was perched to pull out a bush or two around the grounds of the little white country church across from the Car Wash. That’s with a capital C and a capital W as that’s what we call them around town…we call them what they are.

Lord, I bet you see the whole world like it’s one big main street. For You know our comings and our goings. “You know when we sit and when we stand” (Psalm 139:2).

“You call us by name” (Isaiah 43:2). We are Yours.  Amen.