The Young Couple

There was one young couple in Fort Worth. I don't remember their names. They were fun. They laughed. She had the cutest hair and they had a little chihuahua. They had holes in the bottom of their car and I remember that I was always afraid that my shoes would fall off and land on the road.

He worked for Daddy.

They came over for dinner one night and admired the handiwork of some salt and pepper shakers that Daddy had made. The set was wooden and had little tiles around the middle. They were eight or nine inches tall. There was another set in the drawer and I told them about the other set.

Mother and Daddy both said, "NO."

I should have caught on, but I was a kid. A pretty small one if we were still in Fort Worth.

"Yes, there is. See!" And I hopped up to get them. Well what I ruined I didn't know, but I ruined it.

Later that couple quit coming over. Daddy said the young man stabbed him in the back. Typical. It was always something. I guess when I said that Daddy never had a friend I forgot this one. He behaved more like Mother than I thought. Best friends and then no friends.

The Ice Queen

I'm not talking about the one from Narnia. I'm talking about the one in my memory. I'm not sure when I realized that's how I thought of her. It is sometime in recent history though.

Writing for LifeWay

An inquiring mind at the BB *coughEdEdwardscough* wanted to know more about my writing years at LifeWay, so here is the story . . .

We were living in Marietta and I was a children's division director at a mega church and very active at the associational level. I had taken a group of preschool and children's teachers to Ridgecrest for training and one of the conferences was on writing. It was led by an adult editor. He did every thing possible to discourage anyone from writing as I recall. He made it sound grueling and boring and inconvenient and unrewarding. It is all those things - except for the unrewarding.

At the end of the meeting, he handed out cards for us to fill out for our age division if we were possibly interested. I think I was one of a handful. He was a very good discourager

Not too long after that I got a phone call from the editor of Bible Discoverers, Louise Hobson and was assigned to my first writer's conference. Lots of changes happened during my time writing, and I about 8-9 years ago, I made the switch completely to the Media Center, so now I'm completely out of the loop.

When I first started, the KJV was still being used, not too long after that, we got an NIV-KJV parallel and used both in all the lessons. I know they use the HCSV now but that was after my time.

At that time, there were two writers for each unit. The unit writer who worked with children in Bible study and a Bible background writer who was either an adult Sunday School teacher or a Pastor. I had the great fortune of always being able to write my own Bible background. I don't know how that worked out, but it did. Later, all writers got to write their own Bible background.
In the children's area, we would have a writer's conference. Bible Learners, Discovers, Searchers all conferenced together at the same time. Family Bible Series - Children usually conferenced at another time. We were given our assigned scripture and we had to come in with a pre-assignment which changed depending on the layout of the curriculum - but would include a variety of ideas that we charted to make sure that there wasn't too much overlap. Some overlap was inevitable, but we really did try to minimize it.

At the conferences, we would work in large groups, we would work one-on-one with the editor, and we would work in our quarter groups. All the time we were trying to eliminate duplication. Those of you who use the curriculum wonder what happened I know - it's hard. There are only so many things that can be done in a single Sunday, so many ways to present a lesson, so many ways to get the kids actively involved . . .

The first year I wrote, I'd write a lesson and send it in. Louise would make corrections and call me. We'd argue ( ), I'd fix what she'd told me to fix, and resubmit it. Because I worked so closely with her on that first unit, I was asked to immediately come back. And soon I was writing two units a year for Discovers. And then I started writing for two publications - Discoverers and Searchers and doing some work for Learners in other capacities, and then I started writing for Family Bible series and picking up pieces for the children's magazines.

Writing curriculum is not like other kinds of writing. You write it, you submit it, they do what they want with it, and it is published. You are very removed from the process after you submit your work. You also work a year or two in advance. I remember one year, for my Bible background I'd written an intro about Anwar Sadat and I didn't know it had been cut until it the material was published. When I called the editor to find out why, I was told that she had good reasons at the time. This is one of the drawbacks of this kind of writing. At the time, she was a new editor and I was an experienced writer. I remember how unhappy I was because it was a strong intro for the background.

One of the things I really enjoyed were rewrites. One year, the powers that be decided to redo the curriculum in the middle of the year. Six of us were brought in to rewrite two year's worth of curriculm in a week on computers in conference rooms to the new format. And a couple of times, I got to rewrite curriculum that was turned in but not usuable.

I always wrote on a computer, but at first, I still mailed in a manuscript, then I mailed in a manuscript and a disc, then a disc, then I emailed it.

Again, I haven't done this in 10 years, so I don't know what's going on now.

OH and when I started, it wasn't LifeWay, but the Baptist Sunday School Board. Now I feel very dated.

Presents

Presents were odd things.

First of all, sometimes they were hand-me-downs. If Mother and Daddy got a replacement, Ann and I knew that the old would show up as a gift.

Second of all, we didn't get taken shopping. One year we made net hangers for gifts and Daddy asked what I was going to get Mother for Christmas. Why he asked I didn't know. I'd made her a set of net hangers and told him so.

"How do you think that will make her feel? That's what y'all made everyone else."

There was no offer to take me shopping. I didn't make an allowance anyway. I rewrote a poem I'd written for school and scrounged around and found a frame. It was the only gift I remember giving.

Emergency Room Visits

I had to take Ruth to the emergency room today. She didn't make it to Chapel. Who spoke, what was said, I don't remember. I got back to my classroom and Pam was waiting for me. Ruth is at the office and I'm to take her to the hospital. She's having chest pains.

So I spend a few minutes readying things for a sub to walk in behind me and off I go. We are of course sisters having been through this before. I am the natural one to take her.

They get her into an ER cubical. She is hooked up, wired up, NitroGlycerined up. She is probed, poked. Lunch time comes and goes. I know the school is waiting for an answer but we have none to call them with. We are both starving. She can't eat. Well, in reality, I can't either because there is nothing to eat. mmmmm We finally break the rules and call our husbands and the school to report . . . nothing whatsoever.

The highlight of the day was when they brought in some machine to do something (the day is such a blur that I don't remember exactly what test it was for) and the doctor said, "This will never do, she's much too tiny for this!" We both rolled with that after all the trouble she'd gone through to lose weight!

Way after dinner time, they announce that they have a room for her. Just precautionary as she's not had a heart attack. They are sure her chest pains are related to her surgery. After getting her settled in the room, I head back to church to close down her classroom, pick up her things and deliver her car to the house. I drop my bag in the parking lot (I am carrying two sets of things - briefs, purses - and she parks on the other side of the world from me). A woman passes by and says, "Awww, too bad." I know I scowl. She of course has no idea the length of my day.

Have I mentioned how wonderful Ron is lately? He picks me up from Ruth's house and takes me out for a long awaited meal. What was it? Doesn't matter! It was warm, filling and with him.

The Baby Primary

This was cute.

http://www.slate.com/id/2181495/slid...entry/2181476/

They don't all look incredibly comfortable holding babies . . . *ahem*

Scouts

Now Daddy was Scout Master. I can see him in his uniform. One evening I burnt my tongue on too-hot hot chocolate and he put a slab of cold butter on it. He was in his scout uniform.

I remember the scouts coming to the house, mowing the yard. I watched them from my bedroom window when I was just a squirt supposed to be napping.

I stuck my hand in a wasp's nest once when he was ready to leave for scouts and he put a baking soda paste on it.