Sunday Best
Yesterday I biked into the parking lots of many of Near-Flatville’s religious institutions and checked out bumper stickers and magnetic “ribbons.” I was once instructed that you can tell a lot about an individual from his or her refrigerator. So I’ll try the same trick with America and her parking lots.
At the old-line religious institutions, there were few explicitly political bumper stickers or ribbons, but I did find a few relating to community that illustrate a political bent. These were “Save the Chief” bumper stickers suggesting that Catholics and Presbyterians in Central Illinois hold God and Chief Illiniwek equally sacred. The automobiles were mostly expensive and those parishioners whom I saw older than the average Near-Flatviller. Parking lots were fairly empty.
At new-line religious institutions, parking lots were fuller, cars were older and smaller or they were big pickups, and parishioners younger – many with kids. Perhaps attendance was better because they could sleep in? Or perhaps it was because of the “rock” band inside? There were more stickers – of the magnetic “support the troops” kind but not overwhelmingly so.
At the African American churches, few cars were in evidence and none of these had political bumper stickers . . . or any bumper stickers at all. I did not see many parishioners and so cannot comment on age.
At the commercial and recreational religious institutions: Walmart and the local golf course featured far more cars in their parking lots than the other religious institutions (though if the two groups were added up, it would have been fairly even). Cars and pickups in these parking lots tended to feature a lot of political bumper stickers ranging from the nearly ubiquitous “support the troops” ribbons to the not-uncommon “Bush-Cheney” bumper stickers.
In sum, my expectations were only partly met, the evidence I have is anecdotal at best and liable to be very different in other places, on other Sundays…. Maybe we can’t understand America by checking out her parking lots.
At the old-line religious institutions, there were few explicitly political bumper stickers or ribbons, but I did find a few relating to community that illustrate a political bent. These were “Save the Chief” bumper stickers suggesting that Catholics and Presbyterians in Central Illinois hold God and Chief Illiniwek equally sacred. The automobiles were mostly expensive and those parishioners whom I saw older than the average Near-Flatviller. Parking lots were fairly empty.
At new-line religious institutions, parking lots were fuller, cars were older and smaller or they were big pickups, and parishioners younger – many with kids. Perhaps attendance was better because they could sleep in? Or perhaps it was because of the “rock” band inside? There were more stickers – of the magnetic “support the troops” kind but not overwhelmingly so.
At the African American churches, few cars were in evidence and none of these had political bumper stickers . . . or any bumper stickers at all. I did not see many parishioners and so cannot comment on age.
At the commercial and recreational religious institutions: Walmart and the local golf course featured far more cars in their parking lots than the other religious institutions (though if the two groups were added up, it would have been fairly even). Cars and pickups in these parking lots tended to feature a lot of political bumper stickers ranging from the nearly ubiquitous “support the troops” ribbons to the not-uncommon “Bush-Cheney” bumper stickers.
In sum, my expectations were only partly met, the evidence I have is anecdotal at best and liable to be very different in other places, on other Sundays…. Maybe we can’t understand America by checking out her parking lots.
posted by Definer at 5:04 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home