VBS memory
Good Morning......this is a story time ramble, if you're up for it, if not gentle hugs and TLC to you this beautiful Thursday...........xoxoxo
Memories of childhood slip in between the cobwebs and morning rays. As young children we would walk into church for Vacation Bible School. Well we were instructed to walk like ladies and gentlemen, but we preferred skipping and marching and half running........any time you could practice sliding into home that was good too.
We were lively, felt summer time with every fiber of our being. We couldn't wait to be released from the confines of any building. We reluctantly, semi-secretly also liked being among friends for VBS every June. Everybody carried a rumpled brown lunch bag. The church ladies always had an endless supply of kool-ade for us..........good ol' bug juice. Bugs love to fly in and around the sweet stuff and hopefully get the chance to take a short dip, do the backstroke from one side of the cup to the other.
We all filed in.......single file (can you hear a teacher's voice ringing out instructions? If I listen real quietly I can. Girls had hair in pigtails, ponytails, braids........we also had these headbands that were all the rage, some were stretchy, some were molded hard plastic with mean little teeth).
Among the littler ones seemed like there was always one kid who had gotten a hold of a pair of scissors and created some crazy short stick up in the air hair or some 1/2 inch bangs. We heard adults murmur "Oh dear God" or "Thank God it will grow"......as kids it wasn't a disaster, being your own barber was FUN!
Boys had their cowlicks slicked down momentarily, but they too would spring up by the end of the half day of Vacation Bible School. Brylcream, butchwax or plain old tap water could not tame or corral boy hair!
We would make beautiful glorious art out of macaroni, twigs.......leaves, buttons.......bits of lace, paint and paste. (Paste had two purposes, making things stick and bets made to get other kids to eat it.)........I can vaguely remember the taste of white school paste. And dirt too.......sigh, we made a lot of homemade dirt pies topped with dandelions. If somebody dared ya to try something you might could slide, but if they double dog dared ya it was ON!
Mason jars always figured in to the mix somehow. They held paintbrushes, made great vases for wild flowers brought in by a shy child with a big crush on teacher...........they were eventually seen on every Momma's windowsill as they became treasured gifts. The Mommas in our little town would weep when given a long strand of glitter covered macaroni beads on a string.
I was trying to remember what we wore on our feet.......keds mostly. Keds had a telltale little rectangle on the back (was it blue?) Keds & Converse All Stars were primary. We weren't rich kids, so if one didn't have sneakers you might see their Sunday shoes covered in dust from playing. Lots of families were a one pair of shoes per child bunch. Out of school we wore thongs from Halls Five & Dime. Thongs were for the feet......really cheap, colorful flip flops. Dirt cheap, like 25 cents a pair and you could count on having the tender skin between your big and second toe rubbed raw. We used to experiment with toe protection......first aid tape, band-aids and cotton balls. Ya had to do what ya had to do until you broke in your tougher summer feet. (one could not/would not wear thongs inside a church. no way, never never, not.)
Speaking of tape, there was always a couple of kids with tape on their glasses. Money had stopped growing on trees in our community so children had to wait until something could be done. That's how my parents explained it to us anyway. Black Clark Kent frames were prevalent for the boys and the girls wore these amazing winged glasses.......reminiscent of the sweeping tail fins on caddies. My first pair was pink & my second pair was blue. I loved wearing glasses. It was a sign of status in elementary school. Everyone would gather round to ooh and ahhh over the frames, how they looked on you ........ everyone wanted to try them on........parents made us pledge not to allow that, but sigh......we did. We wanted to fit in and pray God that they not get broken in the tentative dance of small town social structure.
When I started writing this there was a song we used to sing that had suddenly come to mind. One of those saved memories that has been stored for years and years.........and now I can't remember. Trying hard to think.........I know it had to do with sunshine........God's love........it was a really happy song.
Sitting in that simple white church with the red door and red carpeting without our parents. All the homes back then had boring old hardwood floors, wall to wall carpeting was very ooh la la --- so exotic. Makes me laugh, the way our decorating thinking goes round and returns full circle. We sat on the wooden pew in our shorts & t-shirts.......legs swinging in the air. Can you remember back to when your feet didn't reach the ground?
We would try to remember to be good, to mind, to be quiet........looking at the sun sparkling in through the stained glass windows.........the pulpit was huge, the big wooden board the hymn page numbers were posted on. It was so hard not to wiggle or slouch and do what the teacher's said. I don't know about you but it seems that for all of childhood someone was always telling us to straighten up......guess I should be grateful.........by the time I was 18 I had really nice posture......LOL!
Back to VBS.......
I remember singing about Zaccheus, (he climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see) and this little song:
Oh the Lord is good to me
And so I thank the Lord
For giving me the things I need
The sun and the rain and the appleseed
The Lord is good to me Amen.
We would start off singing, but it quickly became a shout sing out with GUSTO on our parts.........the amen at the end was hollered out like an exclamation point.......ahhhhhhhhh-men!!!!!!!! We were so PROUD of ourselves.......the teachers not so much. They had the lousy job of turning excited little heathens in to proper ladies and gentlemen.
The other song will come back one of these days. In my family we pretty much had one of two sandwiches during the week in the summer. Bologna or peanut butter w/jelly. My Mom loved.........let me emphasize LOVED MIRACLE WHIP. It is a tangy sandwich spread, a relative to mayonnaise and I didn't like it. Not eating it was NEVER an option. Us kids simply did what most kids did then, we found ways to cover it up as much as possible. Scrape the excess off, add chiddo chips crushed by small fists. (chiddo chips was a family nickname for the mighty potato chip) The goal was to put as many chiddo chips on that bologna sandwich as possible. Bragging rights were earned based on how much crunchy salty goodness we could get on the soft white Sunbeam bread.
The better sandwiches were reserved for summer meals eaten at the picnic table or by the lake when we went camping. For lunch.........we would have egg salad or ham salad (which was pink and kind of creeped me out, lol), and of course tuna salad. There was nothing in our town even vaguely resembling a deli, a subway shop..................nothing like that. Tuna salad was very in vogue..........laugh all you want but it was. Homemade pickle recipes praised, debated and coveted. I hate pickles to this day. Roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over a campfire was a big treat. We had these long metal forks..........by long I mean they could be extended to a couple of feet. They had a red wooden handle........we thought they were just great, really neato.......yes we said neato. We also said whoopie ding as we twirled our fingers high up in the air to express moments of wahoo or woot woot or whatever word fits your part of the world.
I don't know if this will stir up any memories for ya'll...............it does for me. I don't want to live in the past.......I do want to remember it. Claim the happy times, remember throwing shoes by the door so we could race out onto the soft spring grass.........white winter feet would turn to tougher brown feet......long days spent playing in the summer sun...........hope you have some good memories that light you up when you look back on sum sum summertime...........hugs.
P.S. One of my favorite moments of this week? A female contestant on Jeopardy was talking about how she became a physician at the very hospital she was born in. She said that the bill for her birth was $29.00. Ummmmmmmm, can I get a wow on that deal? Can you imagine getting out of a hospital door for anything at that price today...................? me neither...that's the cost of a couple of hospital aspirin.
Memories of childhood slip in between the cobwebs and morning rays. As young children we would walk into church for Vacation Bible School. Well we were instructed to walk like ladies and gentlemen, but we preferred skipping and marching and half running........any time you could practice sliding into home that was good too.
We were lively, felt summer time with every fiber of our being. We couldn't wait to be released from the confines of any building. We reluctantly, semi-secretly also liked being among friends for VBS every June. Everybody carried a rumpled brown lunch bag. The church ladies always had an endless supply of kool-ade for us..........good ol' bug juice. Bugs love to fly in and around the sweet stuff and hopefully get the chance to take a short dip, do the backstroke from one side of the cup to the other.
We all filed in.......single file (can you hear a teacher's voice ringing out instructions? If I listen real quietly I can. Girls had hair in pigtails, ponytails, braids........we also had these headbands that were all the rage, some were stretchy, some were molded hard plastic with mean little teeth).
Among the littler ones seemed like there was always one kid who had gotten a hold of a pair of scissors and created some crazy short stick up in the air hair or some 1/2 inch bangs. We heard adults murmur "Oh dear God" or "Thank God it will grow"......as kids it wasn't a disaster, being your own barber was FUN!
Boys had their cowlicks slicked down momentarily, but they too would spring up by the end of the half day of Vacation Bible School. Brylcream, butchwax or plain old tap water could not tame or corral boy hair!
We would make beautiful glorious art out of macaroni, twigs.......leaves, buttons.......bits of lace, paint and paste. (Paste had two purposes, making things stick and bets made to get other kids to eat it.)........I can vaguely remember the taste of white school paste. And dirt too.......sigh, we made a lot of homemade dirt pies topped with dandelions. If somebody dared ya to try something you might could slide, but if they double dog dared ya it was ON!
Mason jars always figured in to the mix somehow. They held paintbrushes, made great vases for wild flowers brought in by a shy child with a big crush on teacher...........they were eventually seen on every Momma's windowsill as they became treasured gifts. The Mommas in our little town would weep when given a long strand of glitter covered macaroni beads on a string.
I was trying to remember what we wore on our feet.......keds mostly. Keds had a telltale little rectangle on the back (was it blue?) Keds & Converse All Stars were primary. We weren't rich kids, so if one didn't have sneakers you might see their Sunday shoes covered in dust from playing. Lots of families were a one pair of shoes per child bunch. Out of school we wore thongs from Halls Five & Dime. Thongs were for the feet......really cheap, colorful flip flops. Dirt cheap, like 25 cents a pair and you could count on having the tender skin between your big and second toe rubbed raw. We used to experiment with toe protection......first aid tape, band-aids and cotton balls. Ya had to do what ya had to do until you broke in your tougher summer feet. (one could not/would not wear thongs inside a church. no way, never never, not.)
Speaking of tape, there was always a couple of kids with tape on their glasses. Money had stopped growing on trees in our community so children had to wait until something could be done. That's how my parents explained it to us anyway. Black Clark Kent frames were prevalent for the boys and the girls wore these amazing winged glasses.......reminiscent of the sweeping tail fins on caddies. My first pair was pink & my second pair was blue. I loved wearing glasses. It was a sign of status in elementary school. Everyone would gather round to ooh and ahhh over the frames, how they looked on you ........ everyone wanted to try them on........parents made us pledge not to allow that, but sigh......we did. We wanted to fit in and pray God that they not get broken in the tentative dance of small town social structure.
When I started writing this there was a song we used to sing that had suddenly come to mind. One of those saved memories that has been stored for years and years.........and now I can't remember. Trying hard to think.........I know it had to do with sunshine........God's love........it was a really happy song.
Sitting in that simple white church with the red door and red carpeting without our parents. All the homes back then had boring old hardwood floors, wall to wall carpeting was very ooh la la --- so exotic. Makes me laugh, the way our decorating thinking goes round and returns full circle. We sat on the wooden pew in our shorts & t-shirts.......legs swinging in the air. Can you remember back to when your feet didn't reach the ground?
We would try to remember to be good, to mind, to be quiet........looking at the sun sparkling in through the stained glass windows.........the pulpit was huge, the big wooden board the hymn page numbers were posted on. It was so hard not to wiggle or slouch and do what the teacher's said. I don't know about you but it seems that for all of childhood someone was always telling us to straighten up......guess I should be grateful.........by the time I was 18 I had really nice posture......LOL!
Back to VBS.......
I remember singing about Zaccheus, (he climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see) and this little song:
Oh the Lord is good to me
And so I thank the Lord
For giving me the things I need
The sun and the rain and the appleseed
The Lord is good to me Amen.
We would start off singing, but it quickly became a shout sing out with GUSTO on our parts.........the amen at the end was hollered out like an exclamation point.......ahhhhhhhhh-men!!!!!!!! We were so PROUD of ourselves.......the teachers not so much. They had the lousy job of turning excited little heathens in to proper ladies and gentlemen.
The other song will come back one of these days. In my family we pretty much had one of two sandwiches during the week in the summer. Bologna or peanut butter w/jelly. My Mom loved.........let me emphasize LOVED MIRACLE WHIP. It is a tangy sandwich spread, a relative to mayonnaise and I didn't like it. Not eating it was NEVER an option. Us kids simply did what most kids did then, we found ways to cover it up as much as possible. Scrape the excess off, add chiddo chips crushed by small fists. (chiddo chips was a family nickname for the mighty potato chip) The goal was to put as many chiddo chips on that bologna sandwich as possible. Bragging rights were earned based on how much crunchy salty goodness we could get on the soft white Sunbeam bread.
The better sandwiches were reserved for summer meals eaten at the picnic table or by the lake when we went camping. For lunch.........we would have egg salad or ham salad (which was pink and kind of creeped me out, lol), and of course tuna salad. There was nothing in our town even vaguely resembling a deli, a subway shop..................nothing like that. Tuna salad was very in vogue..........laugh all you want but it was. Homemade pickle recipes praised, debated and coveted. I hate pickles to this day. Roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over a campfire was a big treat. We had these long metal forks..........by long I mean they could be extended to a couple of feet. They had a red wooden handle........we thought they were just great, really neato.......yes we said neato. We also said whoopie ding as we twirled our fingers high up in the air to express moments of wahoo or woot woot or whatever word fits your part of the world.
I don't know if this will stir up any memories for ya'll...............it does for me. I don't want to live in the past.......I do want to remember it. Claim the happy times, remember throwing shoes by the door so we could race out onto the soft spring grass.........white winter feet would turn to tougher brown feet......long days spent playing in the summer sun...........hope you have some good memories that light you up when you look back on sum sum summertime...........hugs.
P.S. One of my favorite moments of this week? A female contestant on Jeopardy was talking about how she became a physician at the very hospital she was born in. She said that the bill for her birth was $29.00. Ummmmmmmm, can I get a wow on that deal? Can you imagine getting out of a hospital door for anything at that price today...................? me neither...that's the cost of a couple of hospital aspirin.
Replies
Oh, yes, I remember VBS. Sometimes we would go to two different ones each summer - one Baptist & one Methodist.
Remember going to the one at the Methodist where we boys always wanted to sing - make that shout \"Praise Ye The Lord\" as it was sung in a round & we (the boys) would sing as loud as we could when it was our turn. Got to where the workers would cover their ears when we did.
Also loved to sing \"Deep & Wide\" with the hand signals, of course. I must have learned something from going as I served as the Bible School Principal at my church for 5 straight years in the late 70\'s & early 80\'s. We did two week schools for several years & would have around 200 or more in attendance. Even had an adult class.
Oh, those weekday sandwiches. Add Pimento Cheese or Grilled Cheese to our list - loved the Grilled not so much the Pimento. Of course, boloney was the main one & with mustard no less. Had an uncle who was a bread delivery man back then. He worked for the Merita Baking Company so we mainly bought Merita. Also had an uncle that was in the family bakery business - they made pies & cakes but they were about 100 miles from us but when we would go there we would always bring back so pies & cakes. Their house was next door to the bakery - a good smell.
Thanks for bringing up some pleasant memories.
I remember VBS coloring pictures with our lessons. Jesus Loves Me Yes I Know...For the Bible Tells Me So.... My Mom also taught Sunday School for years at our Presbyterian Church. I remember the Christmas plays when I was an Angel. My Mom in the kitchen ironing 3 angel costumes made from white sheets. The things we remember...the tuna, ham, sandwiches. Here\'s another cold mash potato sandwiches. (Actually I loved them.) I hated hot dogs back when I was a kid. At the dinner table my sisters and I would feed them to our dog under the table. The good old days...when you got a dime under your pillow from the tooth fairy.