Church and Kids

I remember my momma dragging me off to church every Sunday. My great grandfather was a Baptist circuit rider, so naturally we went to the Baptist church. I remember the church as if it was yesterday. We had what we called "Specials" where the women would try their hand at caterwauling or singing. To me it was almost always caterwauling. We had one large boned woman that would climb up to the pulpit every Sunday and sing "How Great Thou Art". I hated it but at the same time her bright red lipstick hypnotized me. There would be a red oval, a screech, and oblong oval, then a screech and her large bosoms would lift and she would let out another screech strong enough to pull the suspenders off of a two hundred pound man. Mom always squirmed during this torment but tried to look interested. I would occasionally become bored and do the unthinkable. I would mock the preacher. Mom hated this. The wooden pews were hard on my skinny rear end and I would squirm. Mom would start out by giving me juicy fruit gum. When that failed, she would give me a pen and paper. After that failed I would began to mock the preacher. I would look up at the pulpit and the preacher would be yelling about those godless communists or something similar and begin waving his hands. I would watch his face and do the motions and wave my hands. Then came the dreaded pinch to the leg. My mother would look siideways through gritted teeth. "Don't you be mockin' the preacher." Of course I would start to cry and then I would be threatened with going outside for a moment. No one wanted to go outside with mom. That was not a thing you wanted to do. When I went to sunday school we usually had a rancher teaching us until things got carried away and the boys started wrestling or "wrastling" as it is called in West Texas. Then the bible lesson ended with the rancher throwing up his hands and letting the riot take place. Of course, he was always going to tell our parents. The girls and boys were separated so their were no girls at our bible lessons. I remember one time an old rancher was speaking about the bible and I had the first run in with a real live booger eater The kid's name was Jerry. He was sitting next to me when he pulled out the biggest long bloody booger I had ever seen in my life. Then he opened his mouth and swallowed it down. Believe me, I was no longer hungry for the Sunday pot roast my momma made when we got home. Jerry had a freckeled face and light brown hair. I could never look at a kid with a frecked face the same way again.
We lived in the oil fields of West Texas and my Dad was a roustabout, truck driver and finally later in life, a welder. He was only off on Sundays so he didn't attend church as much. We had a Lottie Moon offering at the church every Sunday. When I was little I always thought that Miss Lottie must be a very rich lady since she was always asking for money.
A new Baptist preacher came into town one day and was very gung ho on the Baptist religion. He was against women wearing pants and shorts. My mother just thought he was deviant. He was continually asking people for church donations. Dad was almost broke at the time due to not enough oil field work and finally had to be laid off. He became a butcher at the small town grocery store. The new preacher harassed him continually about donations. One day he came by the grocery store and asked again for a donation. Dad had enough. He got in the preacher's face and said "What is more important brother_______, feeding my family or giving to your damned church. I believe it is feeding my family." The preacher blushed turned around and left. Dad came in angry, telling about this and I thought "That away to go. Lottie doesn't need money, she has enough.
We had one black man in town that worked for a rancher. He lived to be over a hundred and was buried in the rancher's family plot beside the rancher and his wife.
People in town called him n______ Paul but not to his face. One day he wanted to attend the Baptist church. The preacher said that he would ask the church deacons.
The deacons said that he could but only if he sat in the back row.
My aunt and my mother attended the church. They were sisters. My mother was mild mannered and my aunt was just the opposite. The first time they went to church and noticed that Paul was sitting in the back row my aunt was livid. She told my mother she was sitting with him. My mother told her not to cause trouble. Afterwards my mother and aunt stopped going to church for quite awhile because of the way Paul was treated. This was before Martin Luther King became famous.