COMMUNIQUE #1

Well, the war is proceeding here on the front, (a small little out of the way East Texas saw mill town.) The other day a woman drove by the outside mail box with a load of lumber in the back of her pick-up. (Remember, I said we were a saw-mill town.)

Anyway, she took out the mail-box. Ripped it clear off its foundation and dragged it away. A day later I was in the Post Office, a place of congenial conversation, here in Pineland. This will be hard for you Moabites to understand. I mean the Post Office being a place of friendly conversation. As I remember the Post Office in Moab has been manned by the Talley Bone for years.

Anyway, I was drawn into a conversation about what had happened. I knew that information because Miss Judy (Pastor Don's lovely bride) works for the Talley Bone, ie. Post Office, in Hemphill, a neighboring sawmill town.

But I didn't volunteer what I knew because we are at war and loose lips sink ships. Anyway, the good folks I was talking to had decided that this missing mail box had something to do with the Amtrax attack. (Now I understand that you folks in Moab are being attacked with Anthrax, but here in Sabine County, Texas, it's the damn Amtrax that's after us.)

Anyway, the way they figured it, it seems that for some reason the outside mail box had been removed so that the Talley Bone would have to come inside the Post Office to mail their Amtrax to New Jersey. After awhile of listening to this I started to tell my good neighbors that it was a woman in a pick-up with a load of lumber in the back that had demolished the mail-box, but then I began to remember the scenes I had seen on T.V. of those Talley Bone ridin' around in those red Toyotas pick-ups with scarves on their heads and I realized that Pineland, Texas, like New York, had been attacked by a suicide Talley Bone Truck Driver. We just thought he was a woman because he had a scarf on his head, and a lot of our women folks down here wear scarves on their heads.

Now we are stopping all red Toyota pick-up trucks driven by men (and women) with scarves on their heads at the county line.

And that's the way it is here on the front lines--until my next report, God bless you--- and God bless America.

COMMUNIQUE #2

Well I hate to give you all the news from the home front at once but Jim said my report was too short, and he hinted that it was not serious enough. Well, whose report is this anyways? This is just the second piece that I have written for the Zephyr and I already have editor trouble. I guess Jim wanted more opinion and less on the spot reporting. The facts of the mailbox attack are not enough, it is inciteful (sic) analysis that Jim wants. (Editor's note: I am not sure if Pastor Don meant to write "inciteful" and was being clever, or "insightful" and can't spell. The reader may decide...JS)

Well, here it goes. The fact is we are thinking about joining up with the Tally Bone down here. For one, their policy on women sounds pretty darn (Miss Judy said I couldn't use damn anymore) good to us. I mean finally there is a group of people who knows a woman's place and are willing to put her there. Now remember I'm just reporting here. I am not saying that I agree with it all so don't report me to the FBI.

But we Fundamentalists have always held that women are equal but different, with the main difference being that they ought to stay at home and out of men stuff. We have also been trying to get them to wear more clothes. You got to admire the Tally Bone that has the women running around in sheets.

Now that I think of it, wearing sheets has been in vogue down here for a while now. Remember I'm just reporting.

The other day I was down at the coffee shop getting the latest briefing and one of the bubbas was assessing the war damage. "Let's see," he says, "so far the Tally Bone have kilt a bunch of yankees, and infected New Jersey, (the worst kind of yankees) with Amtrax and they are threatening to kill a bunch of Californians." He left it there but I must admit I was not too comfortable with the smiles that slowly came across the tobacco stained lips of my fellow East Texans.

Word is out and I may be putting myself in danger by reporting it, but word is out that we have been contacted by the Tally Bone in hope that we will form a kind of Southern Alliance to fight the darn yankees and set up an interim government.

How can right wing Christians align themselves with right wing Muslims, you may ask. So I did ask one of the more intelligent rednecks and he replied, "Well sure good buddy, we are thankin about it."

"But how can you do it?" I asked. They are Fundamentalist Muslims and we are Fundamentalist Christians. He smiled and said "Fundamentalists are Fundamentalists are Fundamentalists."

It's pretty scary, Jim.

Reporting from the front lines in Pineland, Texas...Pastor Don

Former Moabite Don Falke is pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pineland, Texas. His email address is:fbcpineland@yahoo.com