Aunt Cindy's Bizarre World

My name was Jim Rogers Jr. at one time. I was born and raised in a small town in a rural county in Oklahoma. My father James had been the pastor of the local Pentecostal Assembly of Jesus. Dad was what was known an ultra conservative hell fire and brimstone preacher. My mother's name was Allison. She was born and raised in suburban Connecticut. Mother was also a very religious woman who had decided to attend Oral Roberts University in Tulsa after she had graduated High School. My mom felt that the liberal northeast was no place for a proper Christian and settled in Oklahoma after her Graduation from O.R.U. She met my father at a church fundraiser and was soon Mrs. James Rogers.

As I am sure you can imagine my upbringing was quite strict. I attended a religious school and at home my father started me in on Bible training by the time I was just 6 years old. There was no television or magazines that could influence me into Satan's world. I spent all my Sundays at my fathers church listening to his sermons about all the ways a person could get a one way ticket to eternal torment in Hades, "where the worm dieth not in the eternal flames of Gehenna."

At least at school I was able to make friends with a few kids who had far more liberal parents. When I would visit their homes I was able to watch television, read magazines and learn that there was a world where not everyone spent the day groveling before God begging for the forgiveness of wicked thoughts.

As I grew older I started to notice girls. Considering my home situation my being a bit sexually precocious was far from a good thing. I was just ten at the time when my dad saw me looking at a girl with what he would call thoughts of sin. That night he managed to purge my mind of all such thoughts for a while at least with a birch stick. As the Bible says, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." I certainly wasn't spoiled then by any means. Now when I look back on it I fully understand exactly what the term,"fundy nut" means.