Marvin's Story

We had not been aware of the existence of Marvin until recently but we imagine that he is probably just as obnoxious as his horribly irritating and pathetically ignorant parents and grandparents, persons we would rather not hear from in this lifetime. Just because our great-grandfathers were brothers and shared a surname, that does not mean that their family has any right or justification in trying to tell us what's what. I have at least four sets of great-grandparents (and eight sets of great-great-grandparents) that I know of and none of them represent all of everything. Besides, the Barth contribution is highly overrated in our opinion. I do not recall their family ever doing us any favors. It was Miss Marken who taught us the German pronunciation of "O Tannenbaum" for our high school Christmas program, not the Barths. Also, it is fairly clear that Marvin is Episcopalian, a notoriously delinquent brand of Christianity. Those people doubtless have no shame about swilling booze and puffing on tobacco sticks among other things. One would think that their scruples, if they had any, would be screaming and shouting, but no, they continuously fail to give us our due credit because obviously to do so would be to acknowledge the shamefully degraded condition of their own brand of Christian religiosity. If your conscience has been deadened because for many years you continuously ignored that still small voice telling you not to proceed, to say no, to decline the dubious invitation, then you will not even feel the slightest pang of guilt at terrorizing your distant relatives on a continual basis. Yes, Episcopalians can be categorized as Christian but if they fail to understand the value of their cousins' Pentecostalism then basically that just provides further proof of their lack of spiritual understanding and insight. They are spiritual babes still lapping the milk of Episcopalian churchianity but unable to ingest solid foods. In other words, people who live in glass houses should not be throwing stones. Caroline should not be so eager to smugly bash other people's families when her own sons' worthless German butts could doubtless be easily kicked to the curb. After all, many a Ph.D. has culminated an illustrious career digging holes for posts or similar construction acitvity.