Sweet Home Alabama

An Alabama convenience store owner has encouraged his customers to read the Bible by offering them a free soft drink or cup of coffee if they can recite the Bible passage he's selected. He's been doing this for the last six years, and gives away an average of 2 and 12 drinks per day.

Outstanding. I know when Jesus said that the “blessed be the meek for they shall inherit the earth,” someone must have stopped transcribing because I’m confident his next line was surely “blessed be those that can mindlessly recite Bible versus, for they shall receive free beverages.”

Now while I would be far more inclined to recite my top 10 list of biblically-based porn movie titles, I also know that I would stoop pretty low for free caffeine. I probably could mutter "Jesus wept" or some other brief verse if it meant I could get a gingerbread latte out of it.

This all reminds me of my single visit to Alabama years ago. As I was driving through what appeared to be the movie set for "Deliverance," I was amazed -- in addition to the amount of road kill -- at the number of roadside stands selling crap. Roadside stands selling fireworks, food products, Southern souvenirs, you name it, were every mile or so.

Hard as it is to imagine, I actually resisted the urge to purchase the “critter jerky” from the guy sitting in his fold out aluminum chair. But as I was speeding to return to civilization, I saw something being offered for sale that to this day remains etched in my memory over a decade later.

In an effort to capitalize on Southerner’s love of region and the good ol’ days, some savvy entrepreneur was selling a Confederate flag with Jesus’ picture in the middle of it. Holy shit!

The flag, which was huge, accurately captured what I think Jesus stood for -- slavery and forced segregation -- and not “the Lord Jesus Christ and his twelve disciples.”

It was outstanding. I still deeply regret not purchasing that flag. But maybe, just maybe, that dude giving away drinks for Bible versus has one I can purchase from him.