Early Errol Morris documentary intersplices random chatter he captured on film of the genuinely eccentric residents of Vernon, Florida. A few examples? The preacher giving a sermon on the definition of the word "Therefore," and the obsessive turkey hunter who speaks reverentially of the "gobblers" he likes to track down and kill.

I love the discussion of the four-track mind, and I love the man who has the living opossum. But more than anything else, the "therefore" sermon is amazing -- he assumes Paul used that word, and then goes off on a weird series of connections that have nothing to do with anything. Capturing this on film is priceless.

What inspired this? I have no idea. Apparently originally it was supposed to focus on residents who purposely cut off their own limbs to collect insurance money. And is it representative of the city as a whole? I would certainly hope not. But with a population under 800, this film does show a big enough cross section to say something about the citizens.

I lived in Florida a good part of my life and traveled to areas like Vernon. I had "country boy" friends in these areas, people I truly enjoyed visiting. They had time for life and time for others. I once came into Perry, Florida to see a preacher friend, but did not know where he lived. I stopped in the first church I came to and asked if they knew him. I was motioned into the pastor's office, where the senior pastor was seated in camos sharpening hunting knives. He got on the phone to my friend (who pastored another church a few miles away) and said, "Boy! Got folks here lookin' for you."

After supper as we were getting into our van to go to Wednesday prayer meeting, one of his goats jumped in and sat proudly on my velour seat. My friend said, "Yep . . . She'll load up on ye."

So, this documentary is true to life in slower rural areas. The folks seem funny, only because we are used to our fast-paced and so called "intelligent" suburban lives. In the final analysis, who ends the game happier, he who took time to live, or he who lived wishing he had found time?