Diane Takes on Church Politics - or - The Battle for Bananas

Epicentre of church politics in the 60s

I've been reading about the politics being played out in some organizations in the modern world.

Even churches have their internal power struggles and vying for position.

It reminds me of our church suppers.

Maybe I should explain . . .

In the sixties, we had Church Socials.

Big pot luck dinners.

For any and all occasions.

Christmas.

Easter.

New Years.

Fall.

Thursday.

They were fun.

Everyone would show up with their large families and a huge dish – or dishes - of something delicious to share.

The food would be arranged on a long series of tables.

Everyone would load a plate.

And the visiting would begin.

Good food.

Good friends.

It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon or evening.

Invariably, there would be someone’s Grandma’s recipe for home-fried chicken.

And many, many incarnations of potato/meat casseroles.

Salads by the creative and colourful dozens.

Home-made rolls just begging for a large dollop of freshly churned butter.

And desserts of enough variety and inevitable tastiness, to make decision-making difficult to impossible.

But there was one draw back.

As with all pot lucks, the first in line got the most choices.

Made quickly to avoid ‘pot luck crush’.

What is ‘Pot Luck Crush’, you ask?

Imagine a river, dammed by a small obstruction.

Pressure builds.

Finally, the obstruction is forced out and shoved quickly downstream to oblivion.

Pot Luck Crush.

My cousin, Reed was usually the first in line.

He had made an art of choosing – and heaping - quickly.

His favourites were the salads.

I should mention here, that two of the most popular salad dishes were the green jello salad.

With shredded carrots.

And the yellow jello salad.

With sliced bananas.

The carrots in the carrot salad tended to be suspended throughout.

The bananas, however, inevitably rose to the top.

And that’s where Reed came in.

He would deftly and expertly – and quickly - scrape the entire layer of bananas from the salad.

Then move happily on to the rest of the offered dishes.

His actions weren’t popular.

Usually, from further back in the line, there would be a howl of protest.

Reed would just grin.

The you-should-have-tried-harder-to-be-first-in-line grin.

The rest of the assembly would be stuck with banana-less salad.

Or what amounted to plain lemon jello.

But the sheer volume of other dishes soon silenced any further protest.

And before long, everyone was happily munching.

Until the next time.

When Reed would again slip deftly and expertly to the front of the line.

Yes.

Even in the sixties, we had church politics.

The difference was that they were over bananas.

Maybe not so different after all.