The other day, I had the most awesome idea.  Oh man.  It was a great one.  It was such a great idea that it pains me to tell you about it.  But I’m going to.  My book, “When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder:  Tales from A Mennonite Childhood” turns one year old this month, and I thought we should celebrate, somehow.  Somehow that does not involve me jumping up and down, trying clever new tricks to get you to buy my book without realizing that it was a clever trick.  Something that might feel like a celebration.

So, I decided to read to you.  How awesome is that?  Man, I am smart.  I decided to video myself reading from my book–the best and funniest parts–and post it right here.  One, each week through the remaining weeks of August.

I picked passages from the book, divide them into 4, and sat down to video myself reading.  It’s really cute.  I make funny faces when I read that I don’t generally make in the mirror, so it kind of cracked me up to watch it, myself.

Too bad you’ll never see it.  Wordpress won’t upload it.  It says it doesn’t upload that kind of file.

I’m smart enough to get good ideas, but I’m not smart enough to trouble-shoot their technical problems.  There’s probably a way to make it work.  But I don’t know what it is.  So–sorry about that.  I guess I get to keep the birthday present I made you.

As a consolation prize, the following is the short segment from which the title is taken, since everybody wants to know what a Pyonder is.  🙂  So do I!

I don’t know what a Pyonder is.  We have a song we sing in Church about When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder I’ll Be There.  A roll is sometimes called a bun but I never heard anyone call it a pyonder.  Or there are rolls like toilet paper rolls or rolls like rolling down the hill and I don’t know which one you’d call a Pyonder.  It’s kind of a funny song.  But I know it’s about Jesus coming back and I know we have to be ready for that any minute.

–from “When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder:  Tales From A Mennonite Childhood” by Diana R. Zimmerman, eLectio Publishing, 2014

Adults who read my memoir, “When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder: Tales from a Mennonite Childhood,” often have questions:

Are you still Mennonite?  (click to read my answer) 
Do you attend church?
Do you consider yourself a Christian?
Are your sisters still Mennonite?
What was your purpose for writing this book?
What do your parents think about it?
Why did you change all the names?

Last week I had the opportunity to answer a different set of questions related to “When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder.” A friend of mine teaches 3rd grade at a local elementary school, and, skipping over unmentionables like the day I found out how Baby Michelle got into Mommy’s belly, and how it is that boys get to pee standing up, she has been reading my book to them out loud. On Thursday afternoon, we arranged for me pay a surprise visit to her class. She warned me that I should be prepared for lots of enthusiasm when I walk in the door, but I hadn’t exactly pictured getting mobbed by 23 bouncing, miniature people who are shouting out all of my secrets.

I knocked on the door, nervously, to be honest, and a little boy opened it to let me in. Mrs. Wytko looked up from their math lesson and smiled. “Look!” she said to them. “We have a special visitor today. Guess who this is…”

Somebody gasped, “Diana…??”

I said, “It’s me!”

They jumped out of their chairs and took two running steps toward me, then remembered that I’m actually sort of still a stranger, and stopped.

I sat down on one of the little desks, feeling entirely oversized, held out my arms, and said something like, “So I heard you guys like my book?”

That’s when I got mobbed—group-hugged by an entire 3rd grade class, everybody squealing, and jumping, and saying, “Remember when…?” and, “Why did you…?” then dashing to get their journals to show me the pictures they’ve drawn of my childhood escapades. They showed me their scars, and asked me if chocolate pudding still makes me throw up.

Eventually, Mrs. Wytko herded everyone back to their seats. I read a few pages from “When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder” to them, while they wrote in their little journals about what I was reading, or drew pictures of what it made them think of.

After that, we had Question Time. I sat in the front of the room, and each child had a turn to come to me to tell me something, or ask a question. There isn’t a Mennonite gene in one of their little bodies, but they didn’t seem to notice. Here in the Wild West, everyone is a recent decedent of an outlaw, an immigrant, or both. Forget whether or not I go to church, or what my mother thinks about it. This is what 3rd graders want to know:

Did you ever your mom about the money you took?
Why were the geese so mean?
Did you really kill all the ducks?
Why were the eggs rotten?
Why were you drowning the kitties?
How could you run faster than that truck?
Why is your dad scared of thunder?
Did you pet the snake?
Is there still a hole in your floor?
Why do you hate potato soup?
Remember that mean teacher you had?
Why did you want to kill your sister?
Why did you think you could fly?

I left with a pocket full of love notes, knowing that my book succeeded in communicating the innocence of childhood that hasn’t got anything at all to do with adult problems like religion. And I agree that whether or not chocolate pudding still makes me throw up is much more critical than whether or not I’m still Mennonite.