“What a beautiful little church!” Sherry said.
“This bronze plaque says it was built in 1773,” I told her. “Let’s sit here on the bench and rest for awhile.”
We were in a small town outside of Merida, Mexico for my doctor’s visit. As we sat in the shade in the churchyard the doors of the church were thrown open by an old padre. He nodded to us as a young girl came in from the street to talk to him.
“Hello, Father Lopez,” she said.
“Ah, Estrella Benevidez,” the priest said. “Young lady, I haven’t seen you for two years. Where have you been?”
“I have been away at college,” she said. “I studied gymnastics and I just came back from the Olympics in Brazil. I won a medal.”
“Oh, a medal is great,” he said, “but what is this gymnastics? I have never seen it.”
“Father! You have never seen gymnastics?” the girl asked the priest. “Even on TV?”
“I have lived a very sheltered life, my dear,” the old man said. “A good monk has no television.”
“I”ll give you a demonstration,” she said.
At this point two little old ladies stopped next to us.
“Yes, Isabella,” one of them said. “It’s a good day for confession. There is only one person ahead of us.”
“We can wait on this bench in the shade,” the other old lady said.
Just then the young gymnast took off across the churchyard in a series of cartwheels and back flips. When she finished I heard one of the old ladies say, “Oh, Isabella! I don’t do confession today.”
“Why not, Lupe?” the other woman said.
Isabella said, “Well you can see the kind of penance the padre is giving and I don’t even have my drawers on.”
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