Cheer

At the Veterans Day parade on Wednesday, the collective conduct of the incoming and outgoing Butler County commissioners pointed to a smooth political transition ahead.

Majority commissioners Dale Pinkerton and Bill McCarrier, whose combined age rivals Methuselah’s, marched, straight-backed and smiling, with a group of veterans, leaving the review stand for their successors.

The commissioners-elect, Kimberly Geyer, Leslie Osche and Kevin Boozel, stood side-by-side with smiles on all three faces, all three appearing to be still savoring their Nov. 3 victories. McCarrier, Pinkerton and other dignitaries joined them on the review stand after completing the parade route.

And Commissioner Jim Eckstein, whose distribution of political literature at previous Veterans Day parades has rankled many, was nowhere to be seen.

Even the steady, misty rains of the previous 24 hours came to a halt just in time for the ceremonies. We’ll take that as a good omen, too.

Jeer

“Teenaged and wayward, a little confused and a little punk rock, Jesus of Nazareth journeys to the east with his friend, Abigail of Galilee, on the back of a camel. They cross the Hindu Kush to the Indo-Mathura, a region of spiritual innovation, new age music and really good weed.”

That’s the premise of the play, “Jesus in India,” by playwright Lloyd Suh.

Students at Clarion University of Pennsylvania were rehearsing to present the off-Broadway production, but Suh yanked away the script.

No great loss.

Suh’s agent told Clarion officials the playwright was uncomfortable with white students portraying the play’s three Indian characters. You know, for the sake and historical accuracy and all. Accuracy like the portrayal a hippie teenaged Jesus smoking dope and forming a Buddhist rock band in India. At least Mel Gibson knew Jesus spoke Aramaic.

Promotional literature for the play describes it as “a contemporary parable that looks at the world’s most famous rebel before he found his cause.”

But a New York Times critic saw it another way: “(T)he jokey irreverence grows tiresome, mostly because this Jesus never really seems like Jesus. He’s just another teenage rebel trying to burn brightly as adult responsibilities loom.”

Looks like the Clarion players will have to resort to a night at the improv. And if the posters for “Jesus in India” have already been put up around campus, nobody will know the difference.

Cheer

Cheers to Mark Boyer and his 17-year-old son, Logan. The father and son team from Dutilh United Methodist Church in Cranberry Township helped a thousand Africans to a brighter future this summer.

Logan, a Mars High School junior, and his dad spent three weeks in Zimbabwe in July volunteering at the Nyadire United Methodist Mission.

They took with them 2,000 pairs of used eyeglasses they had gathered from Western Pennsylvania churches. through Mission Vision, a Cranberry Township-based nonprofit that refurbishes used eyeglasses for distribution to the poor.

Mission Vision trained the Boyers to use an eye chart and optometrist’s paddles to match recipients with the eyeglasses that best improve their sight.

Mark Boyer said the most rewarding part of their work was “when you put glasses on people who couldn’t see correctly.”

That’s quite a gift, not to mention it’s reminiscent of a verse from a popular hymn: “Was blind but now I see.”