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Texas Agriculture Archive

June 6, 2003

Growing up, one of the highlights of my summer was Vacation Bible School at the First Baptist Church in Kopperl. It was a chance to be reunited with friends who only weeks before sat by me in class, on the bus, or played with me on the playground at school (And I got to see the school lunchroom ladies, Mrs. Inez Carlisle and Mrs. Zenobia Ford, who were VBS teachers). It was always exciting that first day to see who would come.

I would usually don a short set Granny made for me, my new sandals and would stick a quarter in my pocket for the offering. That was it, other than my New Testament. After all, who needed a purse back then?

I recall, as if it were yesterday, saying the pledges to the U.S. flag and the Christian flag and singing songs like "Deep and Wide," "Do Lord," and "Jesus Loves the Little Children" with my friends. Our mornings were filled with Bible stories—David and Goliath, the story of Moses, Samuel, Jonah, Noah, and of course, the life and ministry of Jesus. We learned to do Sword drills with our Bibles and memorized scriptures. Then we would have prayer time, and an assembly where the pastor would preach and extend an invitation for children to accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, which I did in the summer of 1957.

Later, we would do crafts. Cigar boxes were common in those days, and sturdy. One summer, I made a jewelry box for my mother. I covered the inside of the cigar box with red felt, and glued a little mirror on the inside of the lid. Then I stuck elbow macaroni all over the tops and sides and spray painted it gold. She proudly displayed it on her dresser for years. Another time, we glued tiny little pieces of snipped linoleum in different colors on our "vases" to form mosaics and grouted them (The companies to have owned stock in back then were Elmer's glue and the manufacturers of plaster of Paris, glitter and spray paint).

Refreshment time usually meant red Kool-Aid and chocolate chip cookies. We would sit outside in the shade and afterwards, pluck crow's foot and dandelions from the church lawn.

One summer, my friend Vickie Satovich came in sporting a new duck's tail. I decided to trade in my fat pigtails for one of those. Mama tried to talk me out of it, but I insisted. No matter how hard Mama tried, she couldn't make my duck's tail stay curled like Vickie's. Within 30 minutes, gravity would take its toll and my duck's tail would droop (By fall, it required one of those torturous home perms with stinky ammonia and a jillion plastic rods. Afterwards, I would leave for school in the morning with a Shirley Temple coif and get off the bus that afternoon looking like Little Orphan Annie, with my hair frizzed out everywhere!)

Over the years, I played several piano solos at the VBS commencement and once sang a special, "Are You Satisfied with Jesus?" with my best friend, Kay Burns.

Vacation Bible School is a worthy endeavor, with lasting benefits and special memories for kids.