Shall We Gather At The River

I suppose I shouldn't be so down on the Baptists. They're really into water sports. You could say it's almost a religious experience for them.

You know the hymn Shall We Gather At The River? We literally did that when I was a kid. I'll never forget seeing our minister wearing his Sunday black preachin' suit lead an old woman of maybe 75 in a floral print dress out into the river and then dunk her head under as if he intended to drown her. She came out proclaiming she was a new woman who had been born again, but she still looked 75 to me.  What did I know? I was four or five at the time.

The New River as seen from Grandview Park, WV. Grandview was a state park when I was young, but it's now operated by the National Park Service. Grandview is the home of Cliffside Amphitheater were every summer you can watch Theater West Virginia's productions of Honey In The Rock (a musical about how WV became a state) and Hatfields & McCoys (a musical about the famous family feud of the 19th century).