My grandmother came back with a packet of paperwork which indicated to me that this private school thing was going to happen. My grandmother and I then went out to purchase dresses, skirts and blouses, and Bibles. The terror began to return. I knew I had no more knowledge about a church than I did when I fled from the church daycare at the age of 5. What shame awaited me now? My fear was offset a little by the fact that since the school was so small, for the first time John would be in my class. I knew that John had attended church, not on a regular basis, but he certainly knew more than me.
It was decided that our parents would alternate driving us to school and picking us up. Mrs. Richardson was the one who drove us to school on our first Monday morning. We walked into the classroom, and everyone seemed to be expecting us. To my dismay, our teacher directed John and me to desks on the opposite sides of the room. I’d made it into the same classroom with John, but that was it. Once again the morning went smoothly. We were given our history and English books, and we would go to other classes for science and math, but I knew that there was a reason that a Bible was on my school supply list, and I wouldn’t be totally comfortable until I was finished displaying my ignorance when it came to the Bible.
The same teacher we had spent the morning with announced that we would have Bible study and then lunch. She removed her Bible from her desk drawer and stated what we would be studying that day. She announced a place in the Bible that she wanted everyone to turn to and as long as I live I will never forget that it was a chapter in the book of Kings. Students quickly flipped through their Bibles and seemed satisfied with their stopping points as the teacher began to read. I had never looked up a passage in a Bible, and quickly tried to gauge where Kings was by how far in the Bible the others had turned. I couldn’t find the book of Kings, and I turned pages frantically, but tried to do it quietly. Without a word, the girl sitting next to me, smiled and took over turning the pages in my Bible. She located the correct book and placed her finger on the passage the teacher was reading. “Oh, there it is.” I remember thinking while she looked at me and smiled. “Thanks”, I mouthed silently. She nodded back in acknowledgement, and a friendship was created. At lunch, I found out that my new friend was named Laura. She was the daughter of the chief of police. She used a Bible and showed me how to look up any passage that the teacher threw my way. It seemed any problem I could have had with this church school was certainly gone. Through spending days with my classmates, we all genuinely began to bond. We were taught the church’s interpretation of the Bible, and I remember accepting what I was told as the undisputed truth. We were told that although Jesus drank wine, it in no way had any alcohol in it. Our teacher explained that wine was used so quickly, that it never had time to ferment and was merely grape juice. She said it, so we believed it.
I loved my classmates. We joked, and there bonuses such as field trips, tennis and basketball courts and a recreation room with table tennis. During recreational time, students in the class could do anything they wanted. One particular day, recess was called and everyone piled out of the classroom leaving Laura, John, a girl named Jackie, a boy named Mike and myself. I knew that Laura and Jackie would soon have their noses buried in the latest novel in which they were enthralled. Mike was an excellent artist and would be spending his time working on a comic book that he was writing and illustrating. This left John and me. Our teacher excused herself and said that she was going to the teacher’s lounge and would return. Once she left the room, John moved to a desk close to Laura and me. “What do you want to do?“ John whispered to me. “I don’t know”, I replied. We sat quietly for a few minutes, then John motioned to the recreation room sign in sheet, “Nobody signed up to play ping pong. Do you want to play?“ he asked. “Sure, why not?” I said, shrugging my shoulders. John filled in his name and mine on the ping pong list and removed the door key so we would have access. Without another thought, we walked four rooms down, unlocked the door and began playing ping pong. After about thirty minutes of play, our principal, with our teacher close behind, rushed into the room and began scolding us. John explained that he didn’t understand why we were in trouble. He had filled out the information as required and would return the key just like all the other students had done in the past. We were escorted to the principal’s office.
We eventually were told that our infraction of the perceived rules was that a boy and girl should never be alone in a room, and we would have to be punished. I tried to explain that John was my best friend, and we had no romantic interest in each other. The principal would hear none of our defense and would be sending punishment forms home with John and me. I read the form, and it had the infraction listed as improper use of the recreation room. The form also listed my punishment as cleaning the lunchroom for two weeks, and writing a sentence acknowledging my wrong doing fifty times to be turned in the next day as well as a form for my grandparents to sign acknowledging that they would discuss my improper behavior with me and pledge that I would not misbehave again. I finished out the day with total confusion about what we had done that had upset everyone so badly.
I arrived home, and my grandmother was watching television in the living room. I immediately told her that I had gotten into trouble that day, and her face immediately changed to a look of anger. “What did you do?” she asked me sternly. I removed the yellow and pink papers from my backpack and handed them to her. She read over them, looked at me and asked, “What did you do that was improper in the recreation room?” she asked. “John and I were in the room alone, and we are of the opposite sex.” I answered. “What?!” she almost shouted. “You didn’t do anything else? Are you sure?” she asked me, cocking her head to one side. “No, I promise. We signed out on the clipboard like we are required to do, and that’s how they knew we were in the room”, I explained. My grandfather arrived home, and my grandmother went over my discipline forms with him while I showered. When I returned to the living room, my grandmother said flatly, “You will not be doing any of this punishment, and I will take you to school tomorrow.”
The next morning as John and Mrs. Richardson were pulling out of their driveway, my grandmother waved them down. Without any contact between our parents at all, Mr. and Mrs Richardson decided that John was not going to be punished either. “I guess nobody will be getting pages of handwriting today,” I commented to John.
My grandmother parked her car, and we walked to the principal’s office, and my grandmother told his secretary that she wanted to speak to him. We were escorted to his office, and he invited both of us to be seated. My grandmother stated that he had a lewd mind because he was able to accuse two children of doing something wrong that never crossed their minds. We were not even caught acting inappropriately, she complained, and stated that I would not be completing the punishment that he had set for me. The principal agreed, and I was returned to the classroom, but things were never the same after the incident. All the teachers and the staff whispered behind my back, and were usually less than friendly when they were forced to interact with me. It became miserable. I finished the year at the school, but apparently my grandparents had no intentions of me returning for another year and bought a house located in a rural county about 45 miles from where we had lived, and I was back in public school. John stayed in the same county but moved to a different private school.
The influence of a church wouldn’t cross my life again until about two years later when my biological mother and her three children moved in with my grandparents. My mother’s children all had different fathers, and she had just left my two year old sister’s father. My brothers were seven and ten. I was fifteen and actually didn’t know my mother.
After a few months, my grandparents purchased and set up a mobile home on their property for my mother and her children. We lived close to each other, and we began to speak, but there was hesitation on my part. Maybe it was because I felt that she wouldn’t even be in my life if her marriage had not fallen apart. I always kind of felt like plan B in my mother’s life. I believe she knew that I felt this way, even though the topic was never discussed between the two of us.
We lived in a small town with one convenience store, a post office and a caution light. Anytime any of us would go to the post office, the Postmaster would invite to attend her church that was just a few yards away from the post office. My mother became interested in the invitation. She said that she hadn’t been in a church for a long time, and she wanted to try to