Anchor Struck

When Jude and I trained for providing emergency services during a disaster on our island, we were told that the most likely scenario would be a fire started by a careless camper. Thus enlightened, we greet every warm weather holiday with vigilance as tourists pack our campgrounds. Today is Victoria Day, honouring Queen Victoria, who mothered Canada in 1867. It’s the unofficial first day of summer. A group of sightseers are viewing the Lucky Jim Mine near our farm even as I type.

Vickie is known for her prudery, but she had nine children and liked to zone out on opium tinctures and cocaine-laced chewing gum. For pure priggishness, allow me to turn your attention to Fred Phelps and a run-in I had with him.

About 30 years ago my parents and I attended the graduation of my niece Danielle from Washburn Law School in Topeka, Kansas. Phelps, a disbarred lawyer, was a fundamentalist preacher there. His Westboro Baptist Church congregation is infamous for protesting against gay rights. They were at Danielle’s graduation because several faculty members were openly gay.

The sun was shining as my folks and I were walking to the auditorium where the commencement would commence. I noticed Fred and his fanatics — maybe 25, mostly family — gathered nearby. Many had signs, most of them with Westboro’s trademark motto “God Hates Fags”. I had my old school VCR camcorder with me, so I started memorializing this clown show.

As I zoomed in on the group, I spotted a sign that read “Hate Is a Family Value”. “Cool,” I thought, “a counter protester in the belly of the beast.” As I moved toward the woman holding the sign, she started hissing at me. The fear and hatred from these buffoons radiated like heat. A burly man ran up to me and said “If you take one more step, this is a confrontation.” Fred himself called me a “faggot”. When my dad came over to support me, Fred called him a “white-haired faggot”. Dad shot back “God must be proud of you, Fred!”

As an agnostic, I’m open to evidence of divine intervention. What happened next may be the closest thing I’ll ever get to it.

The sunny spring Topeka day turned on a dime, as Kansas weather is wont to do. Lightning struck nearby and it started pouring rain. Buckets. Cats and dogs. Biblical proportions.

I shut off my camcorder, yelled “What does that tell you, Fred?” and ran inside, laughing all the way. After the graduation, the family went out to celebrate at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant. There was a tinge of irony to that. The restaurant chain was in the midst of a controversy caused when an intra-company memo called for the dismissal of employees if they did not display “normal heterosexual values”.