Tales of the Big Bamboo

Since most of them aren’t from the present, they tend to commit an occasional time related faux pas. Just last week, someone referred to the President as Powell, not Bush. When grilled on this detail, the individual became exceedingly flustered, blamed the potent potables and apologized too profusely.

Conversation is the only activity besides drinking and card playing permitted in the Big Bamboo. The talk tends to be the usual bar chatter of sports, TV and jobs, with an occasional reference to the opposite sex, as the clientele is on the older side. Monday we are closed, Wednesday is card night, euchre, cribbage or pinochle alternating as the preferred game. The weekends are for blowing off some steam and there’s always a pretty good crowd, but Tuesday night is my favorite. It is "story night" except that as usual, truth is stranger than fiction. Stories are told as fact, and facts are relayed as fiction, and it’s up to the careful listener to decide. This is where our time traveler clientele comes into play. On Tuesdays they can utter truthful facts disguised as conjecture and spliced with misinformation. To deduce the truth is near impossible. I will pass on some of the stories told to me solely for your entertainment. You decide the veracity of the tales. I’m just the bartender.

The first tale I’ll relay is one I heard long ago on a Tuesday night. I doubt it was the first time Rev Jim told his story and it sure wasn’t the last. Jim’s has to be the most interesting and complex man I’ve ever met. Hasn’t been a tourist come in here that he couldn’t converse in their native tongue. He’s a world class listener, makes whoever he is speaking with that he is totally focused on you and if you need it he gives some pretty sound advice. Sometimes I forget that he’s a man of the cloth because he doesn’t wear his piousness on his sleeve, he just lives his life as he professes and has become a moral compass for all that know him, always pointing in life’s right direction.. As to his tale’s authenticity, I believe him. You, like I said earlier, can decide for yourself.

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Hi. I’m Reverend Jim, friend of the poor and a soft touch for every panhandler and hard-luck story in town. I tend to my flock with a smile and a good word for all. If anyone needs a meal, a couple of bucks, someone to listen, or to lend a helping hand, then I’m their man. My ministry’s not affiliated with any organized group and its only agenda is to help every person in need and to spread the message of God. Just doin’ what the good Lord told me to.

Now being a reverend wasn’t always my profession. For many years I was a physicist, worshiping at the altar of Science. There was no time for anything but work. I tolerated no fools and ruled my staff with an iron fist and cutting verbal barbs. "First class jerk" was the only polite phrase I can tell you that was used to describe me behind my back and to my face, I could have cared less.

For 15 years my life was totally engaged by one of those covert projects funded by your tax dollars and buried in a multi trillion-dollar defense budget. At the Center we didn’t have any aliens or stealth technology, just the premise that time travel was possible. Someone had decided America ought to be able to do it and threw a couple of billion dollars in the pot. I was assigned project leader and I had no intention of failing.