It would be mighty helpful if my friend Jim Casy could talk to Haggard....

[Tom Joad]

Well, they'd have much in common. My friend Jim had sort of the same problems, even if he was straight, but he was once a preacher, and just done things he thought he shouldn't have, and felt himself a hypocrite.

I think Jim figgered it out though. He came to accept his humanness. In the end (I was there at the end, but sometimes i really feel he is still there with me), he was really filled with the spirit, a total acceptance of humanity, of full human solidarity. He was helpin folks make sure they got fair wages so they could raise their families in dignity. Maybe someday Haggard will except himself and his gay brothers and sisters and this nation will just let people be who they are.

Anyway, this is what Jim told me, when i met him while lookin for my folks... before we all got on that truck and went to California.

He used to hold one of those big revival meetings.
"I used to get people jumpin' and talkin in tounges, an glory-shoutin till they just fell down an passed out. An some i'd baptize to bring 'em to. and then- you know what i'd do? I'd take one of them girls out in the grass, a I'd lay with her. Done it every time. Come the next time, them and me full of the spirit, I'd do it again. I figgered there just wasn't no hope for me, and i was a damned ol' hypocrite. But i didn't mean to be."

He came to this conclusion:
"maybe it aint a sin. maybe it's just the way folks is. maybe we been whippin the hell out of ourselves for nothin'