Pater: the “Holy Rock”...

Pater: the “Holy Rock”...  At right is a cherished artifact that sits on one of our bookshelves, one of the very few physical mementos of my dad that I have.  Every time I look at this rock and wallow in the memories it triggers, I laugh out loud – which will make no sense to you at all unless you know the backstory of the Holy Rock:

The “Holy Rock” of Gaviota State Park...

Sometime in the mid-'80s, in the summer, my parents came out to visit us.  At the time we lived in a tiny little house in Chula Vista, and my high school friend Nom L. was staying with us as well (he was trying to reboot himself from biology into a career as a programmer, but that didn't work out).  I was very busy those days trying to get my business going, but on one fine day, with beautiful weather, we took off for a day trip to the Santa Barbara area.  The main purpose of the trip was to locate a field where California poppies were grown for seed.  That was one of my dad's favorites, a fondness I shared.  We found the field and spent an hour or so just glorying in the eye-popping orangeness of a few hundred acres of Eschscholzi californica.  Unfortunately I don't have any electronic images from that field of orange...

Afterwards, we headed down to the shore to walk along the rock-edged sand beaches of Gaviota State Park.  My dad knew this area from his trip out here in the late '40s, and wanted to see it again.  The photo at right isn't mine, but it matches my memory exactly, except that the tide was lower at the time we visited.

My parents, my wife (Debbie), Nom and I walked for a half mile or so down the beach.  The day was picture-perfect: just a touch of a breeze, balmy, and very clear.  We could see the oil rigs and the Santa Cruz Islands on the horizon.  I don't recall any other people around.

At some point, my dad looked down at the ground and said “That makes me want to start a church!”  Not exactly what you'd expect to hear an irreligious man in his 60s say while walking down a beach, is it?

Now my mom, Debbie and I, knowing my dad very well, knew that we were expected to inquire as why this inclined him to start a church.  Nom knew my dad well, but not well enough – so he was the first one to ask.

“Look at that rock!” said my dad.  “Look how holey it is!  How could I be in the presence of such a holy rock and not want to start a church?”  The rock in question, of course, is the very rock you see at the top of this post.

Debbie then warned Nom: “Don’t ask!”   But Nom, intrigued, then gave my dad the perfect segue:  “What kind of a church?” asked Nom.  “A rock-worshiping church?”

Oh, no.  My dad could do much better than that!

For the next half-hour or so, my dad regaled the four of us with his vision of the church inspired by this rock.  It would be called The Church of the Chocolate-Covered Virgins, and it would feature the worship of chocolate (and other delicious food) and comely virgins (preferably naked).  He spun a tale of the church's many rituals, nearly all of which involved naked virgins.  There was the ceremony of virginal chocolate application, the ceremony of chocolate melting (supervised by the aforementioned comely naked virgins), the popular ceremony of chocolate removal, and of course, the ceremony of the virginity age limit.  The female church members, you see, were only allowed to be virgins until they were 20 – after that, they either had to leave the church or be de-virginized.  Obviously, there needed to be a means provided for them to end their sentence of virginity, and of course the church would oblige.  My dad was certain that enough male volunteers could be found to meet the need.

What inspired my dad to keep adding details to The Church of the Chocolate-Covered Virgins story was Nom's reaction, and to a much lesser extent, Debbie's.  Having grown up with this sort of story-telling, the only thing new to me were the slightly risque elements – we certainly didn't get that when I was a kid!  But to Nom, especially, my dad's story-telling was simply astonishing.  Nom's face – oh, how I wish I had a photo of him at that moment!

A few days later, after my parents had gone back home to New Jersey, Nom was at our table, holding the holy rock in his hands and remembering the story, laughing and still a little shocked.  He told me that he couldn't imagine his own father ever having fun with something like that rock, not even in his own mind, much less saying it out loud.  Nom said that prior to that walk on the beach, he didn't think there really were adults like that, who could think and say such things, and have such fun doing it.  He found the whole notion both disconcerting and fun – but he didn't think there could be many people like my dad, or the world would work differently than it did.

I think Nom was right on both counts.  There aren't many adults around with the playfulness that my dad had.  And if there were, the world would indeed be a different place – a much better place, and a hell of a lot more fun...

Update: when I first wrote this story, I remembered my mom being at the poppy fields with us, but I didn't remember her being at the beach – so I talked myself into thinking that my memory about the poppy fields must be mistaken.  I've since heard from my mom that she very clearly remembers being there at the beach with us.  Most especially, she remembers just how much we were all laughing at my dad's story!  So I've edited the story just a little to make it clear she was there as well, and I also fixed a grammatical error that Simon M. caught for me...