Clem and Jeb's Traveling Circus Church

Clem and Jeb sat down on the couch with their customary Wednesday night corn dog dinner.  It was Wednesday night and Wednesday night meant one thing:  Billy Bob's Church of the Moving Wind.  Every Wednesday night, like clockwork, Clem and Jeb would microwave their corn dogs and spicy curly fries and eat in the living room while watching "the church."
This particular evening would be a life changing evening, a night like no other.  Clem and Jeb would laugh with the funny, stand up sermons, they would cry with the many sick and handicapped people who came for healing, they would cheer as so many people were healed and they would earnestly pray for the people, the pastor, and the world.  But tonight was different.  The sermon was not the typical light and funny vignette.  Instead, Pastor Billy Bob looked right into the camera, right into Clem's close-set eyes and spoke to his heart.  "Now is the time for action.  Now is the time to get out there and change the world for Jesus," he shouted from the tv.  "There may not be a tomorrow.  Are you willing to risk that you may die tomorrow and have to attend before the judgment seat of God and say, well, I was going to do it tomorrow?  Get out there and reach the world for God!"

Clem was moved.  His heart was touched.  His little mind was whirring with ideas.  "Jeb," he said, "I've got an idea." "Yeah, what's that?" Jeb responded, the tail of a curly fry poking from the left corner of his mouth.  The standard listener would not have heard that response but something more of a grunt, mixed with a German exclamation.

"Hold onto your hat, Jeb, this is a doozy, one of my best."  Clem paused for effect, but the effect was lost on Jeb, who was seriously focused on his third corn dog.  "Do you remember last fall when that circus came into town?" he asked.  "Yep," Jeb responded.  "Do you remember how many people showed up each night?" he asked again. "Yep," Jeb responded with just as much enthusiasm, "it was packed out each night."  "What does that mean, Jeb?"  Jeb paused, his brow furrowed in concentration.  "Uhhhh, there were lots of people?"  He replied with more of a question than an answer. "Well, that is true," Clem replied, "but I'm thinking that what that means is that people like a circus, right?"  Jeb nodded his head vigorously, clearly tracking with Clem's thought process.  "Okay, good, now, think of how many people go to and watch Pastor Billy Bob's church service each week.  Lots, right?"  "Uhhhh, yeah, but what does a circus have to do with church?"  Clem had clearly lost Jeb on this last step.  "That's my idea, Jeb.  Let's start out own church and we'll make it like a circus.  We can't lose.  It'll be huge.  It'll be popular.  Lots of people will come.  And then we won't have to work at the farm store anymore.  "Ohhh, I get it.  Wow, that's a great idea, Clem.  But we're not pastors and we don't know all that stuff like Pastor Billy Bob does."  "I knows, Jeb.  But remember how Pastor Billy Bob started out.  He was working at a burger place when God called him.  He just did it and God blessed him.  We can do it too."

So a week later, Clem sold the big screen TV and bought a giant tent.  Jeb found some folding chairs at a garage sale and the made some flyers, "Clem and Jeb's Traveling Circus Church."

Several weeks later, a teenage boy was out jogging early one morning when he stumbled across the body.  A panicked phone call to the police revealed the details of the grim scene.  Clem and Jeb's bodies were found on the edge of a marshy area, just outside of town.  Some very large, distorted footprints were uncovered near the scene as well as a whoopie cushion and three rubber chickens.  The police wouldn't comment, but there were rumors of white face paint and an empty pie pan also.

The case remains unsolved.