There was a British comedy sketch in the ’60s (when British comedy was in full flower) in which a group of believers gathered atop a mountain to wait for “the end” that, their leader said, would be accomplished by a mighty wind.

One of his followers asked, “Will this wind be so mighty as to lay low the mountains of the earth?”

“No, you ninny,” the prophet answered. “That’s why we are up on this bloody mountain.”

Recently, I have been wondering where I can find myself a mountain because the signs seem to be lining up for some sort of apocalypse.

We’ve had another Virgin Mary sighting, this time in a tree in New Jersey. No, not up in the tree; the idea of Our Blessed Lady sitting among the branches is a vision that even my vivid imagination has difficulty processing. Instead, it was in a place where the bark was cut back and the wood was allowed to dry.

Now, I find nothing particularly odd about seeing images in places you would not expect them. I like to watch clouds take the shape of dogs and horses and such. I once saw John Travolta — I swear. And images of the Virgin Mary are seen around the world, even in a grilled-cheese sandwich. But New Jersey?

It is not just the Garden State where signs are appearing.

Over in Georgia, which likes to call itself “The Empire State of the South,” a man approached a woman in a west Augusta Wal-Mart, told her he was from a TV reality series, and swore that if she would let him kiss her foot for the camera, she would get that day’s shopping free. Intrigued by the offer (and probably calculating how much she could buy), she doffed her shoe (assuming she was wearing shoes) and offered her foot to him.

Instead of kissing, he began sucking her toes.

That apparently crossed the line, even for a west Georgia Wal-Mart shopper. She screamed and the man, after telling her “it tasted so good,” fled the store.

Online comments on the occurrence exceeded the number of comments that followed the latest revelation about Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, but they were far fewer than the number devoted to the latest story about our cross-state football rivals — which reveals that even in these trying times, some folks keep their priorities in order.

Speaking of priorities, the lovely Janet from my hometown sent me a link to an article about a lady in Michigan who was so distraught at the death of her housemate/lover/friend that she cleaned him up, dressed him up, put him in his favorite chair and together for the next seven months (19 months according to the police) they watched NASCAR races while he slowly mummified. She also cashed his benefit checks for him, which was the least a bereaved housemate/lover/friend could do for “the only guy who was ever nice to me.”

Ah, the love of a good woman.

Speaking of my hometown, I got a report last week from Dan, another friend down there, as to how Stan, one of his fellow members of the Hebron United Methodist Church, was bringing the new preacher out to pick some vegetables when they rounded a curve and there in the middle of the road was “a blond-haired, barefooted lady with her arms raised high dancing.”

Dan lives out from town aways, out on Mill Pond Road, which is unpaved and where traffic is generally light even on a Friday, which this was, but still …

The blond stayed in the road and kept dancing, so Stan had to “put two wheels in the ditch” to get around her. As he did, the preacher, being a gentleman, rolled down his window and asked if she needed any help.

“I’m not crazy,” she assured them, though they remained un-assured because she proceeded to tell how she was driving along when she had a “spiritual moment,” so she pulled over, got out and the gyrations began.

The preacher, being a Methodist, was not unfamiliar with “spiritual moments,” but when she added that the spirit would shortly inspire her to dance naked, Stan and the preacher decided that “corn picking was a better place for them to be.” As they pulled away, the preacher looked in the rear-view mirror and announced, “there goes the dress.”

Fortunately, the Lord God of Hosts had already used the pillar-of-salt punishment on Lot’s wife when she looked back so the preacher escaped, but in the future …

Meanwhile, my buddy John tells me that an auction house in New Orleans is advertising a Victorian-era vampire-killing kit.

Considering all that is going on, I wonder if I should put in a bid?

Harvey H. (“Hardy”) Jackson is Eminent Scholar in History at Jacksonville State University and a columnist and editorial writer for The Star. Email: hjackson@jsu.edu.