Tea & Crackers Campaign: insane antics in a Florida election, 2014. Chapter 12

I listened in to Cricket’s radio show for the next few evenings. Most of the callers were Tugg supporters, saying what a fine man he was with a trustworthy moral compass, representing the best values of the tea party. A few people wondered if Veda even had a chance. Most preferred to gripe and moan, saying our government was the source of everything wrong: taxes, wars, abortions and the economy. And the Obama haters called in, sounding rabid and snake-bit.

Occasionally a teacher or young mother would comment on Veda, saying things like we have to work together to keep our communities strong and get our children educated. But I doubted Veda’s support was running higher than ten percent. Women did seem to like her though.

Some of the men weren’t ready to let the topless event rest. I got the feeling that some were sorry they’d missed it. It gave me an idea about how we might get a better turn-out at some of Veda’s events, but I didn’t mention it to her. Dante laughed out loud when I showed him my bumper sticker design: Flash for Veda.

Aunt Veda spent more time on the phone, with her note cards spread out on the kitchen table. She was lining up campaign managers for each city in the cracker north. And she was having long chats with Dr. Spector about campaign issues. It kept her cheered and her spirits up.

Aubrey came by one evening, all sweated up from digging out the swimming pool for Mrs. Cornfree. I made him take a shower and shampoo before I’d let him kiss me. He then got to talking about what a character Mrs. Cornfree was, standing on a soap box in the back yard practicing her sermons and Born Again testimony amid the dust, dirt and hauling of the construction equipment. Aubrey said she was a strict Biblical historian, swearing mankind was only five thousand years old. Even I knew human DNA was older than that, but it set me to thinking.

Aubrey invited me over to watch him work the next day. I brought sandwiches. Mrs. Cornfree joined us with a pitcher of lemonade. She had a white streak in her hair like Veda and I do, though she must be sixty at least. She was wearing a pink Unity Church t-shirt, cut off blue jean shorts and flip-flops. She had a habit of wanting to connect with people when she talked, and kept reaching out to grasp my arm. It made me look into her eyes, a bright blue, and nod and smile. She asked after Gramm and the volleyball team, so I think she knew who I was. I asked about her ministry.

“Despite what the history department at the university teaches, they’ve got it all wrong. I get my history from a Bible college up north of us. Adam and Eve began five thousand one hundred years ago. We had three thousand years of sin before Lord Jesus was born. And the End Time is almost upon us. You really want to get yourself saved before that happens, Henna.” Aubrey saw me roll my eyes, but in the noonday glare Mrs. Cornfree missed it.

“What about the evolution of history and the march of mankind from the Stone Age and all that, Mrs. Cornfree?”

“Oh, I’m not saying it didn’t happen, especially if there’s scientific proof, or artifacts,” Mrs. Cornfree explained. “It’s just that you got to make it all fit within five thousand one hundred years if you want to be a strict Biblical historian, which is what I am.”

“I do lots of research for Aunt Veda’s campaign. You know about her run for Congress?”

“Indeed I do,” Mrs. Cornfree said while swirling the ice cubes in her tea. “Your aunt is running against Earl Tugg, who is a God-fearing man so he has my vote. Nothing personal, Henna, but I’d need to see a sign from God before I could support Veda.”

“That’s a tall order, Mrs. Cornfree. Maybe God just lays out our choices for us and lets us decide and learn as we go.”

“Not for me, Veda. I’m always looking for signs as to what God’s plan for me is. Then I build it into my ministry. You know I have a following in the Pentecostal churches up north of here. People like to hear my testimony because I have an active mind and the Lord reveals Himself to me.”

“That must be very exciting for you,” I said.

“We have an obligation to seek out every opportunity to be imbued with the Holy Spirit.”

“So you can speak in tongues?”

“I can and I have, but I prefer English. It makes the message easier for others to understand.” Mrs. Cornfree patted my hand, stood and cleared the lunch dishes. I looked at Aubrey. He thought she was crazy, but Mrs. Cornfree challenged me. I wondered if there was a simple way to update her on some of the doings on planet earth.

I wandered back to Veda’s, thinking and waiting for Aubrey to come by. After his shower, I suggested he might want to prove Mrs. Cornfree wrong. He asked how and I suggested he bury one of his alligator skull fossils in the dirt hole where her swimming pool was being dug. Then he could discover it and she’d have proof the world was older than she thought.

“Maybe she’ll take it as a sign from God, and you’d be doing a wonderful thing, Mr. Aubrey Tocaste,” I said.
I watched Aubrey’s mind whirl on that for a while as he rubbed his chin. All he’d say to me was, “Might could, might could.” But then he got kind of antsy and said he wanted to go discuss it with Dante. I raced downstairs to make him a gator tail sandwich before he flew out the door.

The next day, around noon, he called and invited me over to Mrs. Cornfree’s house. I walked up to the backyard and there Aubrey was with one foot resting on a petrified alligator skull at the bottom of the hole he was digging. Mrs. Cornfree ran around the hole like a headless chicken, her gray hair down and flying in the breeze, saying it was a gift from her Savior and talking on her cellphone.

First she insisted Aubrey pour a bottle of water over the skull to wash it, while she said prayers. “I’m doing a kind of baptism as it must have been a heathen creature,” she said. “And now that this heathen creature gets to see the light of day, I want it to know God’s glory.”

Aubrey cooperated with Mrs. Cornfree’s divine guidance by sprinkling the skull liberally. He wiped at the skull with a damp rag, brushing off dirt and polishing the petrified bone. “This is going to be a wonderful specimen, Mrs. Cornfree. I already called by buddy at the natural history museum to come take a look. He might be willing to pay you a premium.”

“Whatever the good Lord wants, Aubrey. I feel the Lord’s hand in this,” Mrs. Cornfree said as she snapped photos of the skull recovery with her cellphone.

Mrs. Cornfree’s neighbor, Betty Percel, came around to have a look-see. “Does the skull have horns? Maybe it’s the devil himself,” Betty asked.

“Nope. No horns,” Aubrey called up from the hole. “Sorry to disappoint you but I’m sure it’s a gigantic alligator skull turned to stone. I’ve seen a few of them before, but this is the best specimen I’ve ever dug up.”

“Betty, it’s a sign from God, I’m convinced. It’s a gift, to reward me for my faith. How exciting. Take more pictures. I have a story to tell.” Mrs. Cornfree called out to her friend Betty.

Aubrey helped Mrs. Cornfree down into the hole where her swimming pool was to be. He got her to pose with one foot up on the alligator skull and he used her phone to take several pictures of her like that. She bent over and examined the skull carefully, asking Aubrey a flood of questions.

Soon thereafter, a news van from Gainesville arrived, followed by a paleontologist from the Florida Museum of Natural History. Aubrey had excavated a little more and showed them a band of shell fossils where he’d discovered the skull.

The paleontologist climbed into the hole to take measurements. Carefully, he slid two straps under the chiseled rock that held the skull. Aubrey used the bucket from one of his earth movers to latch onto the straps, lift the skull and swing it wide of the hole. He set it on a pile of dirt for the TV camera. Mrs. Cornfree started praising the Lord when the paleontologist said this was a find of historical significance. He’d be pleased to make a donation and preserve the specimen at the museum.

For the TV camera, the paleontologist identified the petrified skull as coming from the Miocene Chipola Formation, and placed it at between five million and twenty-three million years old. Mrs. Cornfree stared at him wide-eyed. She turned to the TV camera and said, “This was the Lord’s gift to me and I intend to donate it to the museum. Surely, it is divine proof that the timeline of the Bible is maybe more allegorical than we think it is. I intend to make this the message of my new ministry. I insist this specimen of God’s creation go on display for all to see.”

Several of Mrs. Cornfree’s church lady friends arrived to celebrate her good fortune. They brought fresh pitchers of lemonade and iced tea and a coffee cake. I saw the paleontologist offer a check to Mrs. Cornfree for her ministry. She accepted it with a smile and a hug and folded it into her pocket. Aubrey used the straps to lift the skull into the paleontologist’s truck for the drive back to the museum.

Good to her word, Mrs. Cornfree began a new lecture series to the fundamentalist churches in the north district. She titled it: “The Allegory of Time in the History of the Bible.” It was really a slide show on the excavation of the skull from her backyard, with comments about reinterpreting the timeline of the Bible. I heard she got good attendance. She was also the first person outside Steinhatchee to request one of Veda’s lawn signs. It worked out for Aubrey too; he sold another swimming pool to one of Mrs. Cornfree’s church friends.