STORY OF ELIJAH

The Sunday school teacher was carefully explaining the story of Elijah,
the Prophet and the false prophets of Baal. She explained how Elijah
built the altar, put wood upon it, cut the steer in pieces and laid it
upon the altar. And then Elijah commanded the people of God to fill
four barrels of water and pour it over the altar. He had them do this
four times - "Now," said the teacher, "can anyone in the class tell me
why the Lord would have Elijah pour water over the steer on the altar?"
A little girl in the back of the room started waving her hand, "I know,
I know!" she said, "to make the gravy!"

A friend e-mailed some cute Bible stories, and I plan to use them occasionally followed by my own commentary.

Gravy: What comes instantly to mind is the lack of gravy on menu of Piedmont Hospital. During my lifetime I've paid dearly for two one-month, expensive, vacations to the Piedmont resort. It costs like a resort, but it wasn't a whole lot of fun either time.
First was for a triple bypass followed by my first dialysis. If I think about it, there were a few other important events, such as the Saturday morning that apparently a lone doctor pulled out the big plastic cather out of my neck and replaced with a new one. He used his finger to plug the open vessel for a while before finishing the operation. No anesthesia. Possibly other people were in shouting distance, but I wondered that if he passed out, how long would it take to bleed to death.

There were eventful times during my second vacation when I got a kidney transplant. My doctors were very disappointed that I didn't properly rebound. They even considered the possibility of depression. A couple months later I was back in Piedmont, and they found I had stones and they removed my gall bladder. (That's what had been delaying my recovery. I recommend everybody have their gallbladders removed if there's the least chance it's causing a problem.)

All that said, back to the gravy. If Piedmont had served liberal amounts of gravy on the food I'd have been better quicker. They must have a thousand recipes for boneless, skinless chicken breast, all of which taste like dry pasteboard. Chicken breast has little flavor; it's dry as a bone; and about all you can do with it is to chop it up, boil it, add dumplings and lots of canned because chicken breast will not produce tasteful broth. They didn't have gravy on the beef or pork either. It's likely I will spend my final days at Piedmont, and I want to state right now, that they try gravy with me before they pull the plug.