|
|
April Fools Day
Thursday, April 1, 2004
Do you why today is called April Fools Day? Seems that hundreds of years ago, the yule season was celebrated in March. The official end of the celebrating was supposed to be the 31st of March, but some of the celebrants got caught up in the wine inbibbing and celebrated into April 1. These folks were called April Fools. Did anybody get April Fooled? I kept on expecting to, but never was. Made me feel kinda bad....am I too old for this stuff? So, after the babies left, I made piemento cheese spread and chicken salad to sell to raise money to help pay for the Easter cantata. Did you know that 10 pounds of boneless chicken only makes about 7 pounds of chicken salad? Looks like after you add pickle, celery,a smidgen of grated onion, and a jar of mayo, you would get at least 10 pounds. Don't you think? Anyway, I finally realized that it was 9PM and I hadn't had supper, so I sampled the salad on some bread. Pretty good, if I do say so myself. I hope I sell all of it tomorrow, then I can give my part to whoever I'm supposed to give it to. Anni, my next door neighbor, has a son visiting her and he's doing some big time remodeling on her house. Every now and then I hear this big crash/thud and I realize he's throwing stuff out into a big dumpster like thing thats parked in her front yard. One day he was throwing bricks out the rear window into the yard; looked like fun! Have yall seen the previews for the Garfield movie? Garfield is a computerized cat, but he's so cute. I might have to go see that one. Well, I can hardly hold my eyes open or my mouth shut....guess my body is trying to tell me something. Good night!!
She Made My Day
After a particularly L O N G day, all of the babies were finally gone. One for two weeks cause her mom is a teacher at a year round school and they are having intercession.....the others just for the weekend. Doug and I had been talking about going to see GW's school play, cause some of them are really good and this one promised to be very funny. And it lived up to the advertising.....it was well performed and really funny. I laughed til I cried and for me, that's funny. But for me, the best part came when we first got there. The wind had picked up and when we got out of the car at the parking lot it nearly blew us away. My very carefully coiffed hair looked like a bale of hay by the time we got inside. Doug got to the ticket window first, so I gave him my money, too, He asked for "One student and one senior" and the lady in the ticket box looked out and said, "Where is the senior"? Doug said, "Her" just as I said "Me" and she said "You, are you 55?,cause you sure don't look it". She made my day!!!!!
After that, how could I not love the show?
Now to get my beauty sleep so I'll look that good tomorrow! The Cantata
After weeks of practice, days when we knew we would make fools of ourselves, a really BAD dress rehearsal......the day finally arrived. We got to church at 4:30 as per instructions to find the church beautifully decorated. Everybody got dressed or robed and we waited in the parsonage until it was time. While we waited we watched out the window to see if anybody would show up. Well, the folks started coming and pretty soon the parking lot was filled and also the street in front of the church and the street beside the church. At last we got the signal to come over to the church. We went over, got in our lines and at the proper time, marched in singing. It went so well! Our music system was just put in place at 4:30 that afternoon and the guy working it hadn't practiced with us at all. Every time we practiced it seemed to take about one and a half hours to get through it, but in reality, we did it in 56 minutes. I really couldn't tell too much about how it sounded from the back row of the choir, but when I saw and heard the tape, we all sounded good. After it was over, I was shaking hands with an old guy who attends that church, and I told him how much I enjoyed the cantata. He leaned in close and said, "Well, I was at your cantata and yours was so much better than ours. Yall sounded so professional. We were just average, but yours was GOOD!!!!!"
The New Church
As of April 25, 2004, Emmanuel Wesleyan is no more. The Gethsemane and Emmanuel churches have merged and the "new" church is now known as Trinity Wesleyan. Our last service is this Sunday and we (the Emmanuel folks) were hoping for a nice closing service with friends and family, a few tears, memories,and a meal in the parsonage. Imagine our surprise when we were told last night that Gethsemane would be joining us for our last service. It's not that we don't like them, but this is the church we have been to for---some of us---all our lives. Is it so hard for whoever made this plan to understand that come May 2, we WILL be with them, but for this particular day, we would like it to be just us. The other church is really happy about this merger, more so than our church(except for a couple of people).In time, and a new centrally located church, I think it will work out; but for now we really wanted to mourn the passing of an era with just OUR people. Some More from Fara
I best remember the time Geraldine was fetched to rescue Butch, now Keister, and Boots from underneath a car. I came across the yellowed article "Car Fall on Man" clipped from the Danville Register just a few weeks ago. Geraldine wondered aloud (or maybe she was telling the tale to grandma Lena on the phone) after that particular catastrope-"Why do they always call me? I'm the last one to handle an emergency! What did they want me to do? Lift that car off him?" Well, she was the one with the telephone at the time and she did call 911. I remember the time Boots closed the bathroom door with Linda's pinkie finger in it and Mama was fetched for that, too; after which she went on about who was hurt the most-Linda who was bleeding or Boots who was hollering and crying,"Oh Lawd, I've done cut my baby's fingers off!" I remember somebody, I think it was Butch, now Keister, leaning over a trash barrel to look inside and something skinny, metal and unseen by him, poked him in his eye. I think he had to wear a pirate patch for that. I remember that somebody got hit smack in the eye socket so hard with the head of a flying baby doll that their eyeball blood vessels got broken and that person had to be bed-ridden for a while. Was that Butch, now Keister, too Or was that Bobby? Note from Maxine: that was Bobby...Butch was the one swinging the doll around. I remember that tent, too. It was big enough for even the adults to stand up in if they stood in the smack center. Was it an Army tent? I remember that it was that dark olive green. I remember that it was HOT!!!! and we would emerge just dripping sweat, particularly Ritchid. But we thought having that tent great fun as I recall. It was probably Geraldine's attempt at keeping us outside while Daddy slept. I never remember sleeping in it though. I was probably too scared. I remember that Geraldine loved to tell the story of how Bobby knocked the salt and pepper shakers(or at least one of them) over-maybe even off of the shelf and onto the stove-but that's not the important thing. The important thing was how upset Bobby got when he realized he had spilled the salt-you would have thought he was a tad superstitious about bad luck-Bobby scrambled to clean up the mess( of which there was very little, what's a little salt?) declaring all the time, "I shoulda just stayed home-just stayed home!" For some reason, we all thought Bobby's agony at creating such a "problem" for his favorite Aunt, funny. More later..my fingers got tired!
The Little Church on the Hill
There's a little white church that sits on a hill
Founded by those with a very strong will,
Of love and faith and acts of glory
If it could talk would tell a story.
The Last Service
I had both dreaded and looked forward to our last service at Emmanuel. Dreaded because it would be the last, but looked forward to see how many former attendees would show up. Well, when I got there about 9:50, the street was full, the back yard of the parsonage was full and the parking lot was just about filled to capacity. When I got inside the church, the pews from about the fifth from the front all the way to the back were just about filled.What is it about the front four pews? Anyway, Marie and Tony were there, Cathy and Averette brought Shirley, Bebe Stevens and her husband were there as were the Sadlers, Susan Wyatt and sons,Cindy and Dave, Kerri and Brittany, Faye's son and daughter as well as her grandkids and spouses of the married ones. And a LOT of folks I didn't know. If they had gone there before, they had gotten so old that I didn't recognize them. But it was a good crowd. We had a good choir and we did a "special" with our pastor playing the piano and the pianist and organist joining us in the choir. He plays by ear and really does play good. As he started the intro, Morris-one of the older guys from the other church who was in the choir-decided he didn't want to sing any contemporary music. So he got up, walked down the four steps, got right to the front of the church and ker-plunk!, he landed on his knees. Of course, the pastor, choir leader and a guy in the congregation all rushed to his aid. He wasn't hurt; he'd had hip replacement surgery and sometimes he doesn't have feeling in his foot and when he put it down, he just sorta crumpled down onto his knees. After that lil scare, the song leader came back, the pastor started playing again and we did the fastest "I'll Fly Away" you ever heard. But contemporary? That song is older than me!!!! Douglas read that poem, Bobby played for the offering( he played so good) and Doug's friend April sang two songs. Jennifer did a sort of church history and recognized the members who were still there who had done things in the church and also called out the names of the departed ones who had played such an important part in our church. Brittany liked this part cause she got to stand up and to hold her hand up in the air. She also sang when we did the congregational songs. Except that Susan Wyatt told Jennifer off for slighting her mom....Margie wasn't there on time to start playing the piano, so the pastor's wife started playing, every thing went very well. Jennifer cried for the rest of the day, but she did nothing wrong. Margie should have got her butt there on time if she wanted to play. Leastwise, that's my opinion. We only had a few from the other church who came to "support" us, and luckily, they were ones who I honestly think came because they "felt" for us. They were the ones who have always gone out of their way to be friendly and to help with the WW projects. This Sunday, May 2, will be our first service at the "new" church. I hope that everything goes as well as it did last week, except I don't want my heart in my throat again as it was when Morris hit the deck! This Sunday, we will again have a meal after the service. If we don't quit eating so much, we're all gonna have to join weight watchers. Last week, we had a salad supper for my Sunday School class, a spaghetti supper(WW) and then they ate at the parsonage after the service. I didn't cause I had picked up a bug and didn't sleep much Sat.night so I went home and napped Sunday afternoon away. All in all, it went much better than I had thought it would. And now......to the future with hope and love for our fellow man!!!
|