The Little River Diaries: Chapter One

Scenes from and inspired by the adventures of an aging homo in the Deep South

LITTLE RIVER, South Carolina — The week I moved back to my home state turned out to be Pastor And Wife Appreciation Week at the Evangelical church on Possum Trot Road, which is a thing I remember because (a) I drove by the little white-board building on the way into town and I saw it on the sign out front, where they usually put the Bible verses and the dates for the church-social potlucks.

Also (b) my mama has been going to Sunday services at that church for about 45 years, and the first words out her mouth when I walked into her kitchen one afternoon toward the end of that first week I was in town were, “You will not believe who the pastor got caught messin’ around with.”

You will perhaps have guessed already, Gentle Reader, that the answer to this not-question had nothing whatsoever to do with the pastor’s underappreciated wife.