Noah's Ark by Ernie

On a warm summer evening of my twelfth year, my mother and father and their five children finished their farm chores earlier than usual. The cows were milked and the chickens and pigs were fed. My mother prepared supper. We ate. Bathed and dressed and got into the mule drawn wagon to attend the third night of a revival series at Wampoo Baptist Church in England, Arkansas. The minister, whose name I have long since for gotten, chose Noah and his Ark for his sermon.

The minister had come to us from Little Rock, Arkansas. He was appropriately dressed in a dark suit with a white shirt and a blue tie. During the worship and praise part of the service, he seemed preoccupied with the congregation. Our preacher occasionally took a large white handkerchief from his suit pocket and dabbed his forehead.


The sermon began with God telling Noah to build the Ark. God gave him measurements for an ark large enough to hold Noah’s family, his sons and their wives and children and male and female of every kind of animal. God instructed Noah that the ark was to be built of “goofy wood”. The minister continued with a question: Do you know what “goofy wood” is? He looked expectantly at the audience but did not wait for an answer. “Goof wood is cypress” he stated as a generous explosion of saliva sprayed from his mouth. As he turned his head from one side to the other to address everybody in church, all could see that he had four front upper teeth but none on either side. At this point, my brother George, the family Comedian, said to Flora and me, his sisters, “I think you could put a bridle on him”. The statement sent my sister and me into peals of pent up laughter. We were sitting directly behind our mother which meant we had to be on our best behavior.

“When the rains started, Noah called the cattle from a thousand hills”. The comedian then said, “Noah’s math is all messed up”. My sister and I, not recovered from the last commentary, are now flooded by tears of laughter instead of laughing out loud. The ushers proceeded in our direction and while we were crying they fanned us with their funeral parlor fans until the sermon was finished. My mother had a strained look on her face. By now I am sure she knew we were not crying in the spirit.

As we rode home that night in the wagon, ( the truck needed repairs) we were then able to laugh but it was too painful. About sixty-five years later, I noticed a painting on the wall of a dentist’s office of Noah and his sons building the ark. The sermon played again. Even today, when we gather as a family, we still remember about Noah and the his ark.