The day I made my way from the front of the church to the back, by way of crawling on the floor beneath the pews, was the day that ended with a spark of revival and righteous reprimand.
Before you get excited and think this incident occurred this past year, get your head on straight. I was not quite three years old and just the right size to wiggle my way past a startled Sister Donna Jean and under the legs of snoring Mr. Joe-Don who nearly jumped out of his skin and recovered by mumbling a half-hearted, “Amen!”
It was a Sunday night service at the First Baptist Church in Florala, Alabama where Daddy served as the Minister of Music. Mama thought it would be a good idea to spring me from the nursery and let me attend the big service so I could hear the older children’s production of “The Little Lost Lamb.”
After the boy playing the shepherd hollered and waved his staff around, I was scared, and decided to get out of there before he started whacking people. If I’d run up the aisle, my mother would have surely caught me and put me back in the line of fire, so my escape route had to be cleverly concealed.
I meant no harm and was only trying to protect myself, so taking a tip from watching Hogan’s Heroes with Daddy, the under-pew route looked like a safe tunnel passageway. Slipping away from Mama was the easy part. She was busy grinning at the lambs, which I had already figured out were just kids with cotton balls glued all over them.
Pew number one was no challenge at all, and pew number two was a breeze, but beneath the third pew, I accidentally knocked over Mrs. Crowder’s pocketbook and all her loose change rolled across the center aisle, along with a pack of Virginia Slims which made . . . click HERE to continue the story at al.com.