November 4, 2002  

THE MEANDERINGS OF SMIDGE SAMUELSON
(Episode 1 of an occasional series)

Some of us earn our nicknames. Smidge was just born into his. The name on his birth certificate was Sandford Leland Samuelson. He and his twin sister, Sandra Leilani, were preemies, weighing under five pounds each. The parents were being more romantic than practical when they chose those names; what would their nicknames be, Sandy One and Sandy Two? He-Sandy and She-Sandy?

No-nonsense Uncle Rudy solved the problem when he looked at the two mini-babies in hospital incubators and said: "The girl's Midge and the boy's Smidge. Midge and Smidge—cool!" So Smidge's childhood was destined to be a little eccentric by the strange sense of humor of his weird uncle.

Smidge was a good baby and a happy toddler. Though he was always overshadowed a bit by his quicker, sharper sister, Smidge seemed to do OK.

He laughed about his nickname. When Uncle Rudy teased him—"Hey, Smidge, how's the weather down there?"—he took it like a good sport. But in time, as his sister (and the other kids his age) outgrew him, the joke got old. Inside, he was beginning to feel like a Smidge, not quite a full person.

And more and more he began to "settle," rather than to try his best. In games, other kids would compete hard to win. Smidge would be satisfied just to finish the game, giving only a smidge of effort. "After all," he reasoned in his mind, "if I don't try hard, it won't be so bad if I don't win; I can say I wasn't really trying."

Smidge lived up to his name in his studies, investing a smidge of mental energy and getting a smidge of a grade on his report card. It didn't help that Midge was beginning to outlive her nickname. She loved school and became a straight–A student. In eighth grade she took on her middle name, Leilani, and shortened it to Lani. Lani became the most popular girl at school. "You mean that dweeb Smidge is Lani's brother? No way!" "Way!"

Church had always been a big part of the Samuelson family's life. The twins were entered into the Sunday School's "cradle roll" before they left the hospital. After graduating from the church nursery, they attended grade-level classes, hardly missing a Sunday.

The little twins were, of course, kind of like church pets. Everybody knew Midge and Smidge, and all the older ladies liked to give them little love-pats or tickle-pinches. Midge ate it up; Smidge hated it.

At Christmas, the Sunday School program was central to the seasonal celebration. The kids fought over choice parts. Midge usually had her hand up first and invariably became Mary. Smidge had to be forced to be a sheep, but he refused to Baa.

As they grew older, Lani graduated from Mary to be the narrator, unless she was singing a solo. Smidge? He hung out in the back with a couple of other unenthusiastic boys and waited for an opportunity to escape to the church parking lot.

You see, two things were changing in his life. First, he was pulling away from the church, coming to the conclusion that this was the main source of his not-OK feelings. The church was supposed to make him feel good, wasn't it? Why did it make him feel so bad?

The second change was that our hero was beginning to fool around with a lot of things the church people didn't approve of. Why did the church label all the fun-stuff as sins? Were they trying to keep him from enjoying everything that made life worth living?

Smidge began to experiment with a lot of the no-nos. And you know what? He didn't die. In fact, it was a blast. He did so many things he wasn't supposed to that his new gang of friends began to think of him as a kind of leader. They jokingly gave him a new, more fitting nickname—Smudge!

But that's another story.

–Pastor George VanAlstine