Wednesday, October 14, 2015

What's He Saving For?

I think I may have told this story from my childhood before. If so, forgive me for telling it again. I've  got some new data.

When I was a boy living outside New York City in (or as we said, on) suburban Long Island, I remember riding in my father's car as we headed to Arcadian Gardens, The City of Glass, a large greenhouse nursery where my mother would get her regular green-thumb gardening fixes.

Or maybe we were driving to Walt Whitman Mall, a shopping center on Route 110 in the town of Huntington Station. We would pass what I remember as a low brick savings bank — although that was probably simply my interpretation of the building given its rooftop billboard.

In huge, white, block letters on a red background, the billboard read...


I thought it was a bank advertisement, like:

Jesus Saves. So Should You.
Open A Savings Account Today!

It wasn't until years (and years) later that I realized the error of my ways.

But yesterday, as I walked along the paseo in the beautiful Mediterranean sunshine, I discovered I was right in the first place.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

Jesus was saving for a sailboat!


28 comments:

  1. Thank you for solving this mystery of the ages!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is hilarious - I am sure a lot of little kids now are thinking the same thing. Apparently Jesus teaches sailing too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheapchick:
      I can't imagine I was (or am) the only one that read it that way.

      Delete
  3. We used to respond to the "Jesus Saves" signs by answering "Green Stamps!" Did you have green stamps when you were growing up? They gave them out at our grocery store and then you could redeem them for various things after you "saved" enough and pasted them into your booklets. I wonder if that is how he got his boat? That is a hell of a lot of green stamps!

    Love the music video. Perhaps Lennon's best song.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wilma:
      I LOVED S&H Green Stamps. My mother used to let me stick them in the books. But I don't remember seeing that boat in the catalog.

      Delete
  4. Well, he managed to get a nice one, didn't he.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stephen:
      Well, if he's been saving since I was a kid, I should hope so!

      Delete
  5. I would like to swim with Jesus

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gosia:
      Well, you can sail "for" him. I'm not sure about swimming. He DID walk on water.

      Delete
  6. I guess Jesus was a regular guy after all!....having to save like the rest of us!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jim:
      Back to that other song, "What if God was one of us?" He didn't want to be a stranger on the bus.

      Delete
  7. There used to be (and maybe still is) a recycling/junk yard place about 15 mile from us in Ohio that had a huge piece of machinery that compacted automobiles and various other junk... and on the side it had is huge letters "Crushing Cars for Christ". I always kinda wondered if the operator said a prayer or two when he smashed a full-size automobile into a piece about the size of a yard ornament. "Bless me Father, for I have sinned... may this job of mine atone a tiny bit for all the misdeeds I've done in this world".... or some such ....... Anyway, I kinda worried (a bit) that my prayers didn't have the impact that one of those huge suckers had.... I mean, really... a huge ship sailing for Jesus... a car compactor... and a measly nothing like me?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sharon:
      I figure you're greater than any of them.

      Delete
  8. Replies
    1. Michelle:
      All those years of study and all you needed was to ask me.

      Delete
  9. I didn't think Jesus would need a boat...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Walt the Fourth:
      That's what I thought, but then I realised they're sailing FOR him, not WITH him.

      Delete
  10. Or, as my sweetheart says: Jesus saves, the Holy Ghost spirits it away.

    Me? I say 'Jesus, what a nice boat!'

    I absolutely love (LOVE) the video.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jacqueline:
      That video brought tears to my eyes. And that's what I say about the boat. (I guess the Great Scot is more subtle.)

      Delete
  11. I'm still trying to find out what the middle name in 'Jesus H. Christ!' is - Hermione? Harriet? Hepzibah?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ray:
      Oh, don't get me started. What am I talking about? Don't get YOU started!

      Delete
  12. Your interpretation of the sign when you were young is funny. I always knew the hipster looking Jesus would end up being materialistic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andrew:
      I'm sure there must have been other kids who read that they way I did. At least I HOPE there were other kids.

      Delete
  13. this is one of my favorite songs. whenever I feel despair I play it and it comfort me; it stiffens my spine. thank you for playing it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Spo:
      It's an exceptional song. I had never heard this version before. It brought tears to my eyes.

      Delete

Please visit www.movingwithmitchell.com if you would like to comment or stay up to date. I stopped posting here and reproduced all previous posts, as well, 25 September 2018. Thanks!!!