Dona E. Bowens

There are two types of people in my family: Those who go to church, and those who go to church hungover. I came up, most egregiously, on the stone cold sober side of the family. The only positive part about growing up sober is that my Mom had an on-again, off-again relationship with church. More Sundays than not, we ended up worshipping at the altar of the brunch buffet.

As for the family members who used communion wine as a kind of Sunday morning, hair-of-the-dog tonic, we mostly saw them at funerals. Between funerals, the sobers looked over our broad, snooty noses and bemoaned, with a sigh, the behavior of “The Borders.” Borders being the family name we carried forth from slavery. Believe it or not, it’s of German origin and, true to our German roots, you got your “we must have order” Germans doing battle with the Oktoberfest Germans…