The Mysterious Ways of Frugal Father Jamison

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Hello Groovy Freedomists! Just one more week until Mrs. Groovy and I start getting our blogging mojo back after selling our home and moving. And do we have stories for you!

In the meantime, we’ve got an awesome post for you from one of our favorite bloggers, Brent Truitt. Not only is Brent a fabulous blogger, but he’s a newly published Amazon author! His very first book, Heroes and Villains of a Bankrupt Bullsh*tter is now available in the Amazon bookstore. Heroes and Villains is a collection of Brent’s best short stories, and it’s my pleasure today to feature one of the stories here on Freedom Is Groovy.

Take it away, Brent.

Father Jamison

He was a saint in the eyes of the local womanhood.

Granted, the bar for sainthood in our small logging town wasn’t much higher than a dirty snow bank in late spring.

But in all relative terms, Father J (as the kids all called him) really stood out.

Father Daniel Jamison was a handsome figure at six feet plus, steel blue eyes, and with his unique jawbone features he looked like the identical twin of a young William Devane of the Bad News Bears fame.

He was a smart dresser too.

In a town filled with loggers and mill workers where anything better than dirty jeans and a red flannel plaid shirt was considered showing off he was without a doubt the best dressed man in northern British Columbia.

But my father never liked him.

He referred to him as the “dapper dink” when my mother wasn’t around, and he used to make jokes about Father J being cheap; “After funerals he doggie bags the egg salad sandwiches, and he doesn’t have a pet”, I heard my dad say to one of the assistant coaches on our hockey team.

Another time I heard him joke, “He breathes through his nose to keep from wearing out his teeth”.

Father J couldn’t tolerate waste. He even did a full sermon on the subject of wastefulness. Like it was a bigger sin to change your tires prematurely than to use the Lord’s name in vain.

But I knew the real reason my dad didn’t like him.

Whenever Father Jamison came up in conversation my mother would practically giggle and blush like a school girl. It was so obvious, and my mom was NOT alone.

Fancy Philandering Phonies

Anglican vicars can marry, and Father J was the most eligible bachelor in town—by a long shot.

I remember going to church on Sunday seeing the women in town dressed up prettier than anytime I had seen them in the past, with lipstick, high heels, shiny dresses…..and everything.

It used to make my father cringe and my mother preen.

I used to pretend I was sleeping in the backseat of the family car so I could listen to their private conversations. One Sunday morning on our way home from church I heard my father quip, “What a bunch of fancy philandering phonies.”

No one could out do my dad when it came to firing off of accurate alliterations.

But there was some truth in his criticism.

Father Jamison WAS frugal and everybody knew it.

The church WAS littered with hypocrites and everybody knew it.

Well…almost everybody.

Regardless of my father’s opinion, the church membership grew exponentially since Father J moved to our small town.

I heard my mother talking about the Father at one of her smoke filled Tupperware parties; “Did you know that in the two years since Danny (that’s what most of the women called him) has been at the church, membership has grown over 300%!”

So had donations…

The Miracle Worker

Donations were pouring in alright, and Father Jamison decided he was going to do something miraculous. He announced that he was raising money for a new indoor hockey rink (A.K.A.—arena).

This was BIG news in the community. Our town rink was old, dank, and depressing. The Zamboni was a wreck, the stands were rickety, and its capacity was woefully inadequate.

Apparently Father J was blessed with more gifts than just good looks and a talent for public speaking. He was a brilliant politician too.

Spearheading the construction of a new hockey rink would elevate his social status so much that he might even get the men swooning over him on Sundays.

It was a brilliant move by the young vicar. He knew there was only one building in town more holy than his house of God, and he was going be instrumental in building it.

The local newspaper had a picture of Father J smiling and shaking hands with the mayor—and the reporter suggested the town name the building, “Father Jamison Holy Arena”.

My dad almost threw up when he read the paper that day.

The young vicar went on a full force publicity drive to get donations from local businesses.

His success was guaranteed. Business owners couldn’t afford to be singled out for not supporting the cause. Millions of dollars were pouring into the church coffers, and not just for the building of the new arena.

The pews of his church were jammed now to the point that some men didn’t even bother making a short appearance in the back rows anymore. They just waited outside for their families, smoking cigarettes, drinking stale church coffee out of Styrofoam cups, and talking about Saturday’s game on “Hockey Night in Canada”.

They had no complaints about the over-capacity problem.

No question about it. Father J was a man of miracles.

God’s Business & The Widow Perri

Father J never seemed to relish his popularity. At least nothing came out of his mouth to suggest it, and his body language would never lead anyone to believe that his ego was swelling the brim of his hat.

There wasn’t a whiff in the air of anything that could bring him down off his holy pulpit. But there was some town gossip about his private life.

The vicar was rumored to have greeted Mrs. Perri at the airport.

She lost her husband in a logging accident three years prior, and was extremely popular in her own right. She was twenty-nine years old, and the drama teacher at our only high school.

The attendance in her class was impressive, and being that she was a striking Italian-American woman with the figure of Sophia Loren and the smile of Doris Day, the male teachers in our school were the most impressed of all.

All the men in town were green with envy upon hearing the rumors that the vicar was possibly dating the beautiful widow Perri. They never came right out and said it, but I knew it to be true.

I was too. All the teenage boys had a crush on her. So much that I mentioned her at our family dinner table. “Do you think Father J is dating the widow Perri?” I asked out of the blue, between bites of tuna noodle casserole.

My mother’s eyes widened as she put her hand to her mouth as if to conceal laughter. ”That’s God’s business son….none of ours”, my father said, without raising his head from his plate.

I didn’t dare press further, but my question was surely being asked at all the other dinner tables in town.

After all, the vicar was a local celebrity now.

Mysterious Ways

As the months pressed on into the full depths of winter the donation drive for the arena was gaining momentum. Not only were the local business owners feeling the pressure to donate substantial sums of money, the pressure was now on every household.

I heard the parents of my hockey teammates bragging about how much money they were donating. It became a badge of honor to be known as a contributor to the cause, and it was inevitable that my father would feel the pressure too.

My mother was starting to practice her masterful art of persuasion on him.

He stayed silent on the subject whenever he was around my brother and me but I knew it was a crushing dilemma for him.

On one hand he felt like he had no choice but to give up some of his hard earned money towards the cause, and on the other he was perturbed to be pulled along in Father Jamison’s wake.

But in the end, he finally caved and gave my mother what she wanted. She could now tell everyone in the community how our family had donated generously.

I remember hearing her brag at one of her coffee sessions with the other moms on our block; “We decided to donate $5000 towards the new rink….we just felt it was the right thing to do.”

To this day, I still don’t know how much they actually donated.

Not long after my father had capitulated, there was news going around that Father J was going to be making a special announcement during Sunday’s sermon.

The rumor going around was that the church had raised more than enough money for the hockey rink and that contractors were actively bidding for work.

When that Sunday came I remember my mother being so excited she insisted that my dad wear a tie. Even worse, she insisted that my brother I wear slacks instead of jeans.

Truly horrific.

My dad once again obeyed her wishes and put on his one and only tie.

I’ll never forget that day as we drove to church. It was packed, and we had to park on the street.

The snow was falling slowly in massive flakes, covering the eager congregation as we waited in line to get in the church.

“Stand up straight boys! No slouching!” my mother scolded as we were walking in.

We were early enough that my mother, brother, and I got seats but my dad gave up his seat and congregated with the other men smoking cigarettes outside the entrance.

The anticipation was immense, and I remember feeling the energy building inside the church.

The chatter was getting louder and louder. It was amazing to me how noisy a room full of excited people could be. But as we waited for Father J to come out and begin services, the noise began to die down. Almost half an hour later is was getting really quiet. Father J had never been late to start services before.

Another fifteen minutes later the congregation’s tone changed again dramatically, and what used to be the noise of excited voices, became a hushed murmur.

People started leaving the building.

Eventually my mother took my brother and I outside to be reunited with my father, who appeared to be struck with an uncharacteristic look of doubt.

My mother was silent too. It was like something had sucked the life out of her.

On the drive home my parents never said a word to each other, and they didn’t even bat an eye when my brother and I were fighting over something in the backseat.

Something wasn’t right.

Shame of the Innocents

“As the thief is shamed when he is discovered, so the house of Israel is shamed. They, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets.” – Jeremiah 2:26

Monday morning was perfect.

The fresh snow blanketed our northern town into silence, and my brother and I couldn’t wait to get out and play in it—just like every other kid down the block.

But the adults had no interest in enjoying that perfect winter day.

The phone was ringing off the hook that morning. I remember my mother gasping on the first call, and then crying on the second.

Father J was nowhere to be found. The R.C.M.P (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) were involved and they began investigating the disappearance of the vicar.

Witnesses reported seeing Father J at a gas station a couple hundred miles south two days before he didn’t show up at that fateful Sunday service.

All of the church coffers had been emptied, including the 4.8 million dollars in donations raised for the arena. And to devastate the township even further, the beautiful widow Perri was gone too.

As the investigation grew over the coming months and years, they never did find Father Jamison or the young widow. What the R.C.M.P did learn was that Father J’s real name was Burton James, and he wasn’t a vicar at all. He was suspected in multiple different frauds perpetrated in Nova Scotia and Quebec years before, and had done prison time in the Collins Bay Institution in Kingston Ontario.

When all of this information was made public the snow wasn’t the only thing causing a hush in the streets.

It was the quietest winter I’ve ever known.

My parents never spoke of Father J and the widow Perri again, and that was the last time I ever went to church.

A few years later we got a new arena, thanks to generous donations from across Canada, and a substantial chip-in from the Federal and Provincial governments.

All I remember regretting was not seeing Mrs. Perri again.

Strange how sometimes we only think of ourselves.

Brent Truitt is a personal finance blogger and coder for the WFL project. You can find more of his work at DebtFiles.com or at Rockstar Finance.