Virginia City Archives - From a Rocky Hillside

November 8, 2023

Virginia City’s Mucker’s presents Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”

The year before I left my job with the Boy Scouts and headed to seminary, I wrote out five-year goals. One goal was to be act in a play. I have always enjoyed the theater and wanted to experience acting firsthand. I got my chance when I moved to Virginia City in September 1988. A week or two after arriving on the Comstock, I saw an advertisement for tryouts for a play which would include students and adults.

I asked some of the church folks about the Mucker’s Theater Group and received mixed feelings. For years, they had used the church for their performances. But there had been some bad blood between the two organizations. They were supposed to clean up the church on Saturday nigh, returning the sanctuary to a state where worship could be held the next day. A few years before, when the theater group left the church chancel looking like a bar after a fright on Sunday morning, the church threw the group out.

In the hope of removing some of the bad blood between the theater and the church, as well as meeting a personal goals, I showed up at the tryouts. I was offered the role of Joe Stoddard, the town’s undertaker. My presence in the play brought many of the church members back to the theater.

We began practicing in September. It was still warm and daylight when practice began, but as they continued, the weather became cooler, and daylight decreased. Our production ran from Thursday through Saturday evenings, November 10-12. By then, the zephyrs blew and we experienced a few snow flurries.

For a town with only 700 residents, we played to pack houses. Almost everyone attended, not just from the town but from down in the valley. By the third night, we were feeling pretty good about the attendance and the play itself. This set the scene for one of my favorite memories of my time in Virginia City which occurred on the last night of the play.

“You know, we’re missing the Flapper tonight,” I confided to Penny and Christy as we waited backstage for the curtain to rise for the closing night.” I hoped someone might be interested after the play and cast party. Since this play had a cast that included elementary school students, the planned party only involved cake and punch.

“We don’t have to miss it,” Christy said as she lowered her voice. “Let’s slip out after our scene in Act 1. We don’t have to be back until the 3rd Act.

“Should we?” Penny asked.

Christy and I smiled.

The three of us had minor parts in the play that involved the entire community. With a high school that fourteen graduates in its senior class, everyone had to be involved. Penny and Christy were both teachers. The school janitor had the leading role as the stage manager. Emily and George Gibbs, two other leading characters, were high school students. Bill, the director was a halftime teacher and a halftime state employee for the purpose of fostering the arts in rural parts of the state.

Twenty minutes after the play began, we slipped out from behind the gym that also served as the auditorium for the Virginia City School on D Street. The night was cold. As we climbed the steep steps up to C Street, we giggled as we began to breathe heavily. Our warm breath appeared as smoke that filled the air. We crossed an abandoned C Street on the south end of the business district this time at night, and headed north up the boardwalk. After we crossed Dayton Street, where there were still bars opened, a few cars were parked along the road. When we arrived at the Silver Stope, the bar which hosted the party, Christy took hold of one of my arms, Penny grabbed the other.

“We’ve come all the way from Grover’s Corner,” we shouted, making a grand entrance. All three of us had minor parts in the play, but we enjoyed hamming it up for the bar patrons. Most of the patrons dressed as if they were visiting a New York Speakeasy during the 1920s. Almost all of them had seen the play earlier in the week warmly welcomed us to the party.

Of course, we weren’t dressed as flappers. New Englanders didn’t have time for such nonsense. Christy and Penny played the wives of farmers and wore calico dresses. As Joe Stoddard, the town undertaker, I sported black jacket and a stovepipe hat, which had probably been left-over from some school play about Abraham Lincoln. With my costume, I could have just as easily played the role of a well-to-do 19th Century Mormon polygamist taking my wives out for a drink.

While most of the bar’s patrons dressed like flappers, one person stood out. Murray Mack was on the piano, wearing his usual evening attire for a night on the Comstock, a rather loud 1970s era polyester leisure suit. Murray, who repaired glass during the daytime, would dress up at night and was well-known for his gift of pounding out ragtime on the piano. Tonight, he had moved up a decade to play jazz.

On the floor in the middle of the bar sat an antique claw-footed bathtub filled with a pink liquid. We were handed three clear-glass cups which must have come from someone’s punch bowl set and were encouraged to imbibe. We all scooped a cupful of the concoction. It was awful. I didn’t ask for the recipe, but I assumed it consisted of 190 proof Everclear, or maybe it was kerosene, mixed with powdered Kool-Aid. After my first sip, I looked to find a place to ditch my drink. Seeing no plants in need of watering, I excused myself and took my cup into the bathroom.

Moments later, I returned with an empty cup. The bartender came from behind the bar to snap of photo of us with a Polaroid camera. This photo enshrined us on the bulletin board by the door. Having just emptied my cup, I felt bad dipping it back into the drink. But they insisted I have some of the so-called gin in my cup, so I reluctantly dipped it back into the tub. It was more of the thought of dipping a used cup into the juice that bothered me for that tub contained enough alcohol to have killed any depictable germ residing on my cup.

With my cup nearly pouring over, the three of us stood behind the tub and raised our cups for a toast to the Virginia City Mucker’s production of “Our Town.” He snapped a photo. We asked the bartender if he would snap another, so we could present the director evidence of what some of his adult cast were doing between their scenes. He did. After visiting with folks for a few minutes, we placed our cups on the bar and headed back to the high school. I noticed, like me, neither Penny nor Christy had finished their drinks.

We were back in time for the final act. As undertaker, I had to see to it that Emily Gibbs was buried one final time. Penny, who played her mother, sobbed throughout the scene. Christy, ignoring her blocking instructions and her lines, stepped in front of Penny to console her grieving friend.

“It’ll be okay,” Christy whispered, patting Penny on the back. “We can go to my house afterwards and have a decent drink.”

This was the Mucker’s second time producing “Our Town.” The first production was 31 years earlier, in 1957, in which Bob Del Carlo, who was sheriff for Storey County when I was on the Comstock, played the lead as the Stage Manager.

For much of the church’s history, the theater and the saloon would have been off-limits for Presbyterian ministers serving the Comstock. In the 19^th Century, the church was often at odds with the theater and alcohol was a terrible social problem. Church members were discouraged from frequenting the theater or inbibing. Yet, the theater and saloon thrived during the days of bonanza.

Other writings of my time in Virginia City:

Sunday afternoon drive to Gerlach

Arriving in Virginia City

David Henry Palmer arrives in Virginia City, 1863

Doug and Elvira

Matt and Virginia City

Riding in the cab of a locomotive on the V&T

Christmas Eve

January 15, 2023January 15, 2023

The Opening of First Peter

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Presbyterian Churches
January 15, 2023
First Peter 1:1-12

Sermon recorded at Mayberry Church on Friday, January 13, 2022

At the beginning of worship:

This week I finished reading Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Seve the Common Good. It’s a short but a deep book that deals with the paradox we have as Christians, living in a world but not being of the world.^[1] Volf spends a whole chapter on the topic, “human flourishing,” which he begins, “Hope, in a Christian sense, is love stretching itself into the future.”^[2] I like that.

For the next three months, I will work through in my sermons First Peter, a beautiful letter written to marginalized Christians in the first century. We may think, at times, we have it bad. But consider being a follower of Jesus in a time when the world truly hates you? How would we live? Where do we place our hope? Peter encourages his readers to have a living hope in the future.^[3] Sounds a lot like Volf’s thesis, doesn’t it?

Before reading the Scripture:

Addressed to a group of churches in what we now know as the country of Turkey, First Peter was penned in the last quarter of the first century. The letter encourages these churches as they strive to live as followers of Jesus in a hostile world. For this reason, we find applications that apply to our lives as we strive to follow Jesus in a world that is often indifferent.

The return address on the letter is Peter’s. There is debate among scholars as to whether it was written by Peter the fisherman (if so, he most likely had some help with his Greek grammar). Or, as was often done in the ancient world, was the letter written by one who admired Peter and therefore attached the apostle’s name.

Confusing things even more, the letter doesn’t go into details of Peter’s life other than to say he’s an Apostle. Instead, it focuses on the life within the recipient community,^[4] so whether Peter pinned these words or dictated them, doesn’t much matter. Finally, let me say that this letter follows a familiar correspondence format, as does many of Paul’s letters. Today we’ll look at the introduction and opening.

Read 1^st Peter 1:1-12.

I woke precisely at 6 A.M. The radio came to life with the Star-Spangled Banner. KIKX returned to the airways with its whooping 58 watts of power dedicated to covering the Wood River Valley. It was the only station that I could pick up in the valley. During the summer of 1988, I depended on it as an alarm clock. I went to sleep with the radio on at night, as the station went off at midnight. In the morning, I’d be rousted out of bed with patriotic furor.

Normally, I jumped out of bed, dressed quickly, and headed down to the lodge. There I started a fire in the potbellied stove to knock the chill out of the air. In the Idaho mountains, it could be quite chilly in the early morning hours, even during the summer. But on this day, I was not too quick to jump out of bed. I was fearful of what was ahead. I laid there, warm under the covers, listening to the national anthem, and then the news and the weather. Although it was in the mid-30s at camp, the temperature in the desert to the south would spike above 100 that afternoon.

It was Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, my last day for the season at camp. In the kitchen, the cooks prepared the last meal of the season for the few of us who were still on site. Over a cup of coffee, we talked and laughed about the summer. But inside, my stomach churned. I thought about leaving the familiar setting of camp and heading for the unknowns of Nevada.

I’d taken a break from seminary to devote a year serving as a student pastor for small church in Virginia City, Nevada. I wasn’t sure what to expect. As a naive seminarian, Nevada appeared a den of iniquity. Saloons and casinos never closed. Gambling and prostitution were readily available. What was I getting myself into.?

The following afternoon I made it up the windy road to Virginia City. I told you a month ago about the nail in my tire as I drove across the desert.^[5] But I made it without any other issues. I parked in front of the rickety white wooden church C Street. The doors were locked. For a few moments I stood on the porch, looking down Six-mile Canyon toward a rock formation known as Sugarloaf.^[6] There were plenty of people on the streets, but no one seemed to notice me. Everyone assumed I was just another tourist.

A couple minutes later, I headed down the boardwalk to the Bucket of Blood, a saloon where I had been instructed to pick up the keys for the church and for the little house where I would live. It seemed a little odd for my first task to call on a place named the Bucket of Blood. The sun warmed the air. Although the peak of the tourist season was over, sightseers on C Street still vied for the slot machines standing just inside the establishments adjacent to the boardwalk. The noise of the electronic bandits and the smell of the sausage dogs and spilt beer overwhelmed me. What was I getting myself into?

It’s hard for me now to think about how I felt when I first went to Virginia City. I was nervous. I didn’t gamble. I’d never been in a casino. The idea of legalized prostitution seemed barbaric. It still does. While I’ll occasionally have a drink, the thought of having alcohol available 24 hours a day was unsettling. Furthermore, I’d never lived in a place where, on any given Sunday, only a handful of folks would be in church. I was nervous as to what I’d signed up for.

Living there forced me to think hard about what it means to follow Jesus. Many times, there and even here, being faithful to Jesus means we must live differently than the society in which we find ourselves.

In the first sentence of Peter’s letter, we learn that its intended recipients are “exiles from the Dispersion.” Now the Dispersion refers to those Jews who lived, at this time in history, throughout the Mediterranean region. After Babylon, Jewish enclaves were established through that part of the world and, as we know from early church history, Paul and Peter and other Apostles were often able to find a receptive ear in these communities.

Think about Paul’s travels in Acts, his first place to visit in a new city was often the synagogue.^[7] But Peter isn’t writing to those in the synagogue, instead he’s writing to those who have been exiled or booted out of the synagogue. In a religious sense, these are marginalized people. Because they are followers of Jesus, they find themselves exiled even from the synagogue community that was, in a sense, exiled.^[8]

Now think about the world in which they lived. Most of their neighbors worshipped the ancient gods as well as Caesar. For them, God in the flesh was the emperor in Rome. If you lived in this world, you were expected to pay homage to the gods and to Caesar, the one loophole being that you were a Jew. Then, provided you weren’t causing trouble, you could worship the God of Israel. As the early Christians found themselves no longer a part of the Jewish minority, they had nowhere to go. Shunned, they were considered atheist as they worshipped an unseen God.

But there is good news to these “twice-shunned” believers. Peter, with language that carries overtones of predestination, reminds them that they have been chosen and destined by God. So even though they may feel like out-casts, and are persecuted, God is with them. Furthermore, they’re sanctified by the Spirit and have been sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, the one to whom they are obedient. Peter, in the first sentence, packs in the theology. He mentions all three members of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit. He speaks of God’s gracious sovereignty, Jesus’ atonement, and our need for sanctification by the Spirit. Peter wants them to understand that they haven’t saved themselves; their salvation is grounded in God.

Then, in verse 3, Peter lays out the hope they have in Jesus Christ. In the Greek, this is all one long run-on sentence, going all the way to verse 12.^[9] Luckily, for us, most translators break the sentence into smaller chunks. In this super-sentence, Peter acknowledges the trouble his readers face, the trials they endure, but reminds them that their inheritance. Hold on, be obedient to Jesus, for it is in him that we have hope. Even though it may not always seem like it, God’s with them, and their future is bright.

Now, let’s face it, whatever tribulations we face today are nothing when compared to what Christians in the first three centuries faced. Furthermore, we in America have no idea what Christians in other parts of the world must endure today. Think of Christian in Pakistan, China, India, North Korea, Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia.

But even if we do face persecution, we must remember that our first loyalty as a disciple of Jesus is to him, the one in whom we have our hope. And what does Jesus call us to do? We’re called to be the salt of the earth, to love God and to love our neighbor, and to love even our enemies.^[10] Are we doing that?

In the last three verses of this section, Peter recalls the work of the Old Testament prophets, those who foretold what God was doing and the Messiah to come. Peter notes that they did not serve themselves, but were in a sense serving those, like Peter’s audience, who experienced such grace. It pleased the prophets to do God’s work for the benefit for future generations. And in a way those suffering for Jesus, to whom this letter was addressed, worked on our behalf. We are their beneficiaries, and we’re to benefit those who follow us.

So, what does Jesus call us to do? Like those who received this letter, he calls us to be faithful and obedient. We’ll all face challenges. Sometimes the pressure of society will try to lure us away from Jesus. Or we may be lured away from the Jesus of scripture to another form of Jesus, one who is more our image and doesn’t look like the Jesus of the Bible.^[11] When this happens, Peter reminds us of what’s important.

Going back to my fears when I moved to Nevada, I quickly learned that just because bars and casinos remained open 24 hours a day, I didn’t need to take advantage of it. And when I did go inside such a place, moderation was the key. Too much of a good thing can also be bad. And there were places where I shouldn’t’ be seen, and I stayed away. And on Sunday morning, when I put on a suit and walked down the boardwalk to the church, people knew where I was going. Hopefully, by my witness, I planted a few seeds.

When we are obedient to Christ, we witness to the world a gentle faith that God is in charge, and we’ve placed our hope in his hands. Amen.

^[1] John 15:19.

^[2] Miroslav Volf, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (Grand Rapids, MI: Bravos Press, 2011), 55.

^[3] Peter H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter (Grand Rapids: Eerdman, 1990), 52.

^[4] Donald Senior, “First Peter Introduction” in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 2181-2182.

^[5] https://fromarockyhillside.com/2022/12/hope-in-the-desert/

^[6] This view, which I so enjoyed, is no longer available as new construction was built across from the church. During the Bonanza era of the 1870s, the view wasn’t available either, as the Baptist Church (that closed in the 1880s), sat across the street.

^[7] See Acts 13:5, 13:14, 14:1, 17:1, 17:10, 18:4, and 19:8.

^[8] For insight into this community to whom Peter writes, see Joel B. Green, 1 Peter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 14-18. Green notes that most of those first reading this letter probably were not Jews, but gentiles.

^[9] Green, 22.

^[10] Matthew 5:13, Luke 10:27, and Matthew 5:44.

^[11] Those who want to promote a masculine Jesus (aka, Rambo Jesus) or make Jesus into a nationalistic symbol risk creating a Jesus in their own image and not in the image of scripture.

Virginia City at night during the winter of 1988/1989

August 17, 2022August 17, 2022

Matt, Virginia City, 1988

That’s me, standing before the church built in 1866-7

Recently I have posted memoir pieces of my years in seminary:

I took the school year 1988-89 off in order to be a student pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Virginia City, Nevada. Over the years since, I devoted much time researching and writing the history of that congregation on the Comstock Lode. This is a short memoir piece of my time there.

###

“Matt, why do you want to join this church?” I asked as I slipped tea.

We had just finished eating and were sitting on the floor on mats, like Jesus and the disciples at the last supper. A low table stood between us. On it was a Chinese hot pot, a ceramic teapot, a bowl of rice, plates, cups, and chop sticks. It had been an interesting meal. Matt told me he once had a Chinese girlfriend who taught him how to cook. I wondered if she used frozen vegetables. There was no crunch to the vegetables in the stir fry. The dish was soggy. It wasn’t terrible, just not very appealing. I kept my thoughts to myself. I was curious as to his interest in joining a church that was a 30 minute drive away.

Matt had been waiting for the question. He pulled a Bible off a bookcase behind him. I took the Bible to be a good sign. Then he opened it and read a passage from 24^th Chapter of Matthew’s gospel, about stars falling from the sky. Now I wasn’t so sure the Bible was a good sign. I had no idea where this was going. Setting the Good Book down on the table, Matt began telling me how the earth was going to soon shift on its axis. This would make it appear as if the stars are falling from the heavens.

My mind was spinning. This was not anything I had been taught in seminary. When he paused to catch his breath, I asked, “What does this have to do with you joining our church?”

“I’ll get there,” he assured me.

I poured myself another cup of tea as Matt continued his discourse.

“You know, the Carson Valley used to be under the ocean. There are places you can find shells embedded in rock.” He pulled a fossilized rock from his bookcase to show me.

“Yeah, it may have once been under the sea,” I quipped, “but that was a few years before our time.”

“It’s going to happen again,” he said.

“What’s going to happen?”

“This is going to be the ocean again.”

Matt went on explain how, when the earth shifts 15 degrees on its axis, the sea would rise. The coastlines would be wiped out with tsunamis. The valley would fill with water.

As he continued on with his monologue, I looked out the window. The Sierras were silhouetted by the setting sun. Looking at those magnificent mountains while listening to Matt ramble on, I visualized what he was saying. It could have been a scene from a bad horror movie. A large tidal wave, at least nine thousand feet high, breaking over the top of those peaks. The thought of it was ludicrous. I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from laughing. But then, I understood.

“I get it! You’re telling me that you want to join our church because Virginia City is soon going to be an island amidst a vast inland sea.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling as if he had finally broken through. “Carson City will be under a thousand feet of water.” He started giving me the layout of areas of the country that would be above water or below it. It didn’t seem to make sense that places like Carson City, at an elevation of 4000 feet would be below water and other places a lot lower would remain dry, but none of this made sense.

Yet, in a smug way, I was glad to know I’d be safe in Virginia City. Come summer, I could sun myself out by the mine tailings, as waves lapped at my feet. There might be still a few nice days this fall. Would I have time to pick up some sunscreen on my way home, I thought to myself, in case I don’t make it back to Carson City before the flood. I began to make a mental list of things I’d need: a lounge chair, beer, flip-flops, some more beer…

I had to force myself to focus back on what Matt was telling me.

“Where did you get all these ideas?” I asked.

“The Bible.”

“Really?”

“Mostly, but also Nostradamus and from talking to a friend.”

I didn’t want to meet this friend.

Next, he pulled a book of Nostradamus from the shelf behind him, turned to a marked page and handed it to me to read. Whoever thought Revelation was hard to understand had obviously not read Nostradamus.

Unable to make any sense out of what Matt was saying, my mind began to drift into survival mood. I needed a strategy to escape from this apartment. I wanted to be back in the real world. Into what time warp had I moved? I’ve yet to been in Nevada a month and discovered it to be a state where people think it’s a good idea to put rabid bat in a pitcher of beer and then drink it. And there was the woman at K-Mart who believes Ronald Reagan is the Antichrist. According to the news, the bubonic plague is making a comeback. And now there are those (or at least two of them), who think the earth is going to tilt in a new direction.

Matt had first worshipped with us the previous Sunday. He came into church a little late. My first impression was that he’s middle-aged, a little overweigh, a little disheveled, but a nice guy. After worship, when all were enjoying coffee and catching up with one another, Matt stayed back from the crowd. I went over to introduce myself. He told me his name and said he wanted to join the church. It seemed a little strange, this being a small church, to learn he wanted to join the fellowship in the same breath that I learned his name.

“Great,” I said, “let’s get some coffee and meet some people.” I introduced him to several members. He was polite, but standoffish and appeared uncomfortable. It was when I suggested we get together and talk about the church membership that he invited me to dinner

Matt was a special case. But then, Virginia City had plenty of special cases. He did join the church, although he never moved to town. Nor did the impending flood occur. Everyone in the congregation thought his ideas were a little weird, but welcomed him. For the rest of my time on the Comstock, Matt taught me an important lesson: “there are those who need the church more than the church needs them.”

At the beginning of worship:

Before reading the Scripture:

Read 1st Peter 1:1-12.

Read 1^st Peter 1:1-12.