By Scott Beveridge
Sometime during eighth-grade in 1969 I heard students saying the world was supposed to come to an end the approaching summer.
I was a gullible 13 year old kid from a poor neighborhood when the rumor circulated at Rostraver (Pa.) Junior High School, and the story probably had something to do with the crazy musings of serial killer Charles Manson. He had predicted to his followers that Helter Skelter would begin Aug. 8, 1969, and ordered his followers to carry out the Tate-LaBianca murders that day to get the end-of-the-world ball rolling.
So after hearing the prediction in school I went home to warn my family.
"Oh don't worry about that. The sky has been falling since the beginning of time," my mother said. "The world was supposed to end when I was in high school, too, and we're still here," she added.
Thank God some of us had intelligent, rational thinking mothers.
I say this on the day of the rapture proclaimed by a California minister, when some folks have been praying for forgiveness as a spate of earthquakes were to begin at 6 p.m. and bring with them doomsday. According to the 89-year-old prophet who started this apocalyptic nonsense, Harold Camping, nonbelievers were to survive for a few days longer to suffer any number of plagues.
Well as I write this, the Associated Press reported it's beyond 6 p.m. in New Zealand and the world isn't ending.
Thank God, too, for clever journalists.
3 comments:
My kids say the same thing: we'll know the world is going to end a day before it happens because New Zealand is a day ahead of us. Also as Jerry pointed out, the rapture prediction timeline is based on Eastern Standard time in the US...because God was all "American" and whatnot.
Still doesn't stop me from having some fun at the rapture believers expense!
Good thing some parents have clever kids, too.
Awesome narrative, Scooterlicious! Loved it! :)
Post a Comment