Mickey/ Mom and the Jehovah Witnesses
Daddy called her a “metaphysical tire kicker”
Welcome to the third installment of “That Mystic Road.” Today is a short anecdote that begins to introduce the unique character of Mickey/Mom. I also recorded it as a podcast, if you’d rather listen: the link is directly below.
Thank you for all your support!
A short introduction to my Mom.
My grandfather, Frank Kalles, was what was called a hell-raiser during his logging years. He smoked, drank, womanized, and had neither church nor faith.
In his mid-30s, he was visiting a friend in Port Angeles when he had an experience of electrical insight: he got the big idea that the quality of love was the essence of God, so he quit cutting old growth and became a Pentecostal minister.
Mickey/Mom says she got sick of four-square religion and pews and was delighted when she married a man who thought camping up the Little Wenatchee a more profitable use of a beautiful weekend weather than church-going. It’s not that her faith in the Almighty was shaken as she grew older, but that her inquiry into the nature of the divine became more adventurous.
For example, one evening when I was about eight years old, I sat at the top of the stairs just out of sight on the landing, peeping down into the dining room. Mickey/Mom, my Uncle Fred, Uncle Ernie, Aunt Lori, Aunt Nan, and Aunt Kelly sat around the massive oak, claw-footed table with their little fingers linked and their eyes closed.
“Rise, table, rise!” they intoned in unison.
Then they began asking the table to answer questions. “Tap once if for yes, two if for no.” Expressions of brow-furrowing concentration ensued, then abruptly one end of the table rose, sending the green jug of Famiglia Cribari wine flying into my mother’s lap.
“Frederick Lawrence Kalles!” she shrieked at her brother and caught the bottle while the table crashed to the floor. Uncle Kal/ Fred looked innocent and the assembled would-be seancers screamed like the 10:15 train coming through.
Another time, when I was young enough to still be home on a school day, Mom answered an unexpected knock on the door; unexpected because we lived at the end of a long, private drive out in the country. Sometimes a hobo stopped to ask for water, but this time our visitors were a well-dressed threesome here to convert Mom to the Jehovah Witness light.
Mom eagerly invited them in, served coffee, and looked with interest at the pamphlets they gave her. The three spoke alternately. From where I was playing behind the couch, I could hear the ebb and flow of comforting voices.
“Jesus Christ is already in heaven, waiting to begin the battle of Armageddon, ”I heard.
“That’s the final, decisive battle between good and evil. Satan will be defeated in the battle and cast into an abyss for a thousand years, a millennium. Only 144,000 people are the remnant….” This seemed quite graphic, so I began lining up dolls in front of me, preparing for the battle.
Then I heard Mom’s voice rising into an intensity of interest I knew; it meant she was excitedly exploring a new idea with people she thought would share her passion for new ideas. This was circa 1955.
“What if,” she said, and I knew she was leaning forward on the couch, ”the world, the Earth, the physical planet, is a living, breathing entity?”
“Yes,” said one of the Witnesses encouragingly, “God is in all the plants and animals.”
Mom surely was nodding in agreement, ”So perhaps the planet is a free-floating, sentient being fully conscious of itself!”
The Witnesses got quickly to their feet, one man half hauling his head-nodding companion toward the door.
“You don’t have to leave yet: there’s so much more to talk about! What if with one deliberate shrug, the planet could actually choose to eliminate humanity or reduce our population?”
The man scooped up all copies of Jehovah Witness literature in sight and hiked his partner out through the screen door. “Thanks so much for your hospitality,” a voice trailed vaguely as they climbed into their vehicle and checked Mom’s name off the Book of Remnants.
Mom stood on the stoop, eyes afire, calling after them: “What if we could actually learn to communicate with the planet itself? Have you considered lately that dreaming may be a way to talk to the earth?” A cloud of dust boiled up behind the departing car.
Mom turned to me, ”Have you ever seen a flying saucer?” she asked.
“No, but I dreamed about one last night.”
She drew me into the kitchen where her ironing board was set up: ”Tell me about it.”
She was ahead of her time.
What a delightful read and mom you had. I love the story and the wonderful pictures. She told me about her father but not about his habits. She did tell me a memorable dream she had where she was running around in diapers, not quite able to stand. She was an unforgetable presence.