Photo by Robert Lindner on Unsplash My parents had never broached the idea of coming to visit me in Florida. For that matter, I never invited them. After all, Dad was working, with just two weeks of vacation a year. Mom worked in a candy factory known for its peanut brittle, though summers were slow, and she took those months off. And where would I have put them? Although my Dad’s mom and stepdad had lived in a trailer in Florida at some point during my teen years, we had never gone to visit them. Mom hadn’t traveled alone since Dad had returned from World War II. It had been years since Dad had done any long-distance driving; Mom didn’t drive. I don’t know if the cost of two flights was affordable for them. Now that I think of it, I’m not sure either of them had ever flown. My Dad came back from Europe on a ship; he probably shipped out, too. Mom had glued on airplane wings at Goodyear during the war, but she rode a train to see Dad in California when he was drafted. Things changed, though, after Dad died in February, 1976. Mom decided to fly down for a visit that summer. We selected the Fourth of July weekend, because the church had a major preaching/concert event scheduled for the nation’s 200th birthday and had rented the Palm Beach Auditorium near the mall. I remember our choir’s dresses, which we made. They were in solid red, or white, or royal blue, and probably polyester, certainly very hot and ugly. We women wore floor-length gowns in south Florida, with nylons and heels, makeup melting on our faces. I may have regretted being in choir that weekend. My new roommate, Alicia, and my mother, whose taste in music ran to anything loud, sat in the audience as we sang patriotic and religious songs. This was the biggest of big deals, but the church was forever doing events designed to draw a crowd and save souls. We even had revival meetings, sweltering in the heat in a large canvas tent on the church’s lawn, with Gospel music and many verses of “Just As I Am” as the invitation hymn. Think Neil Diamond’s “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show,” except the preacher was our own and the tent wasn’t ragged. I’m listening to it now for inspiration. Or you could listen on YouTube to the version we sang of a text taken from 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPY-CrPtdKw
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Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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