After we were done, the kids fell asleep in their car seats so we drove around looking at houses for a while. While we were in the Northwood subdivision of Royal Oak, he directed us to the childhood home of one of his friends, Jackie Fagg. It was a big ol' Craftsman-style that has been for sale so long, Karen and I had seen it many time online - we were surprised to find out that that house belonged to someone we semi-knew.
He then related the tale of how at one point, Jackie's uncle Skippy had moved in to live with her folks for a while and that he was bit of an eccentric. He had sold all of his possessions, bought a printing press, and created and distributed ranting religious pamphlets decrying the government, warning us about the Russians & rock music, and heralding the coming of the Anti-Christ. "Haaa ha ha", we all laughed, "poor fellow". I then asked if Skippy's surname was also Fagg, which would have been just too funny, but alas, he was from the maternal side of the family.
Two weeks pass, Paul has since returned to Baltimore, and I'm driving around when Black Sabbath's "666" comes on the radio. As it does, my mind goes back to the first time I became acquainted with the concept of 666 - it was from a crazy religious pamphlet that some weirdo used to leave in mailboxes around my neighborhood. They were so funny, I saved them all! For a whole summer these 'tracts' would appear every week or so and I saved as many of them as I could. "HEY!!", I said to my self, "you don't suppose... ?".
I called Paul as soon as I got home, told him about my collection of pamphlets, and he confirmed that they were the very ones Jackie's uncle had made! Paul then described one to me over the phone that he remembered and sure enough, it matched one I hadn't described to him yet!
So, here is the first installment in a series I'm going to call, Armageddon Ain't What It Used To Be. Enjoy.
