Jehovah's Witnesses at my door – but not for long!

When I lived in Wilmington, Jehovah's Witnesses used to make the climb up our long, steep flight of steps from the street to my door. "Oh no, not again!" was the universal thought. They dressed all up in their Sunday best carrying black valises.

My grandmother used to entertain them when I was a child living in Milton. She was really into the Bible and had read it 17 times! A frustrated writer who could never generate original ideas, she was planning to copy the whole thing in her journal before she died.

I was planning to fashion a wooden Noah's Ark, and I needed something like their Watch Tower pamphlets to paper it with, so I let them into the house one day. Unbelievably, they loved the paintings of mine they saw, and a very pretty young woman commissioned one about her wedding anniversary, the one holiday they can celebrate.

This started a weird and short-lived alliance. Desperate for a babysitter, I let the woman have a chance, but one day I came home and she was sitting at the dining room table with my twin sons wearing a veil, like in a seance. She told one of my boys, who was very impressionable at the time (he would probably have joined the Moonies if they came rattling tambourines at him) not to salute the flag. She and her kind had to go!

When I told them it was over, I was looking out my window one day, and swarms of them circled the house, coming up the steps and peering in the windows. I snaked across the floor and up the stairs praying they wouldn't see me. They eventually departed! I finally had to place Halloween decorations on my porch to keep them away. So far, it's worked down here as well.

As an art major, I've seen my share of Renaissance-inspired religious paintings. I've even painted a few "Last Suppers" of my own, cutting out tiny clippings of Kentucky fried chicken buckets to place on the long table in front of Jesus and his disciples. Cherubs served pizza while hovering in the air above.

Accompanying this article is a photo of my painting, "Jesus Takes a Vacation in Rehoboth," a modern-day version of Hieronymus Bosch's painting titled "Garden of Earthly Delights." Lucifer tempts Jesus with a Grotto pizza. The Repent Man screams his message walking down the Boardwalk. Cars from Route 1 circle the border and park on top of Dolle’s. Pale beachgoers in need of a lot of sunscreen cavort on the beach and in the ocean. Jesus gives in to a slice of pizza. Sea creatures from the Mesozoic era fill the waters.

My grandmother had a book with an artist's depiction of the Second Coming showing an otherworldly, nightmarish procession in the sky with fire and brimstone that badly scared me, but not enough to "turn me around." There's both bad and good in me, I suppose.

With global warming being warned of, along with floods and heatwaves, who knows if they are really planning to march across the sky? But I hope to continue to paint and write things as a rebel and a shock jock who makes people think.

I used to find various items for my collages by searching the trash cans on the boardwalk for discarded popcorn boxes and french fry containers. I also found great treasures such as magnets depicting frumpy beachgoers and pennants of Rehoboth at Ryan's Gems and Junk. I fondly remember Mrs. Ryan, the owner, who said, "Treat her well at all times!" I would leave with a bag full of trinkets, paying homage to Zoltar on my way out, hoping that he would predict a painting sale in the future.

My version of "The Last Supper" even won an award a few years ago at a Rehoboth Art League show when I was a member, a relic of summers past.