I love blogstream! Not just because I get to have my own place to show off what I’m proud of and who I love, but because I get to be creative. I think I had been operating for too long a time without an outlet for my creativity, for what it’s worth. But I believe that everybody has some degree of creativity to express through their own gifts and talents. So not only do I get an outlet for my creative capacity, but I get to read and observe others expressing themselves beautifully, using the natural gifts they possess.
Another benefit to the stream is that I learn something from each and every individual I visit here, getting new insight, new ideas, new understanding and also new dreams. What I love to do most is write my stories, the ones that make me remember and smile or remember and laugh, even when there is a tear involved here and there.
I read Six’s post this morning and it made me laugh and remember similar times that I’ve had. Similar being those times that you can’t laugh, but you can’t help it. And the funniest times are in church, ever notice? So, as I told Six, I choose to believe God has a wonderful sense of humor. He’d have to to put up with me, lol.
One of those times was when I was a sophomore in high school. I lived in West Texas and a little one horse town, so we always got a day out of school to go to the Lubbock County Fair, which was about 70 miles from the old home town. My oldest step sister had her own car, so she transported all of us sisters, plus our friends most everywhere and since we all hung out together anyway, it wasn’t a problem. We sure had some good times “making the drag” in that old car of hers and, of course going to the neighboring towns to meet boys, always with the radio tuned to rock and roll or country stations. We rode around a million miles just by pooling our change to get a half tank of gas and we sang a hundred hours of “Bye Bye Miss American Pie” as we cruised around in that old brown car. We were all young free spirits that had the world by the tail.
Anyway, before I get too melancholy here, I’ll stop chasing rabbits again and get back to the story. There were six of us going to the fair that day way back when and we traveled the 70 miles, ate cheeseburgers at the Dairy Queen and proceeded on to the fair. Well, it happened that Merle Haggard was doing a concert later in the day, so we all bought tickets first so that we wouldn’t spend all our money on the rides and cotton candy and other goodies. So we did all the events that we could afford til we were all down to just our concert tickets. We still had about an hour to kill before we could go watch the “Outlaw”, so we were all bored and ambling around trying to find something to occupy us for an hour.
We were wandering around in what amounted to the outer fringes of activity and happened onto a big green converted school bus. Outside were two very nice ladies that asked us if we would like to see a Christian film and it was FREE. What the heck, we might as well, right? Nothing else to do for an hour. So we file into this green bus and sit all on one side about the middle, two to a seat and settle down for the movie. The ladies were very nice and proper Christian ladies and we felt like we had made a good choice………until the film started. Now, one lady had gone to the front seat of the bus and sat down with her back to us and the other lady went to the back of the bus to operate the projector. The dim inner light of the bus lit up as the projector whirred into action and there in big letters on the screen at the front of the bus was “Pedro and the Golden City”. Okay, we’re settling in for a nice enlightening feature, each of us in our own thought world and respectfully quiet, eyes glued to the screen.
The title went away and the story began…….and we all started to wriggle a little in our seats, thinking the same thing in unison……”This movie is for toddlers!”
Trapped. We were virtually trapped by the unspoken “proper young lady” rule now. We couldn’t get up and leave, that would be rude, so we sat there, already wishing it was over. Well, the story was very basic and obviously for toddlers so it involved a lot of basic language and colors. But what did us in was the first time a color was mentioned and the lady sitting in front promptly held up, above her head for us to see clearly, a square piece of construction paper of the color mentioned in the movie. And she continued……..every time another color was mentioned, she held up yet another color of square construction paper.
Needless to say, by the third or fourth “color” display, we were all getting pretty tickled but keeping it well hidden, or at least trying to. Then it got worse! There was a number mentioned in the film and,………..you guessed it……she held up the same amount of fingers over her head for us to count. It was absolutely too much for me, but I didn’t realize everybody around me was at the same breaking point til I heard a faint “schnik” behind me, which was my younger step sister doing her best to stifle her myrth. At this point, I was breathing open mouthed, head down, hand shielding the eyes, trying desperately to control myself. I finally looked up to try and focus on something to take my mind off the hilarity of the moment and locked my eyes on older step sister and her friend sitting in front of me. They were stock still, appearing to be totally absorbed in the film, so I thought if I just focused on only them that I could somehow get thru it without making a fool of myself. Then I heard from in front of me an even fainter “nnnnyik” and noticed two pair of shoulders shaking ever so slightly. Pushed over the edge, unable to control myself any longer, I could do nothing past this point but giggle as quietly as I could, hand clasped tightly over my mouth………..and I could not stop. What’s worse, the rest of the girls were doing the same thing, so the instant one of us thought we might be able to stop, another one would snicker or snort and set us off again.
Those nice proper church ladies never wavered in their efforts to win these wayward souls who had the audacity to fall into fits of giggles. Thankfully, the film wasn’t that long, being as how toddlers have a short attention span, so we were finally released to the outside where we vacated the premises as quickly as our legs would walk, tears rolling, til we got as far out of earshot as we could and collapsed into hilarious laughter. I think it took us another fifteen minutes to finally settle down enough to head off to the concert, but for the rest of the day, at different times, one of us would think about “Pedro” and collapse again.
Just one of those memories of fifteen of the worst, but best moments of my life. Thanks Six, for reminding me of that one.
