The television programing my exclusive club enjoyed was different back in Christianized America. Take for example, a program called, "The Real McCoys," an ABC TV comedy that hit the airways on October 3, 1957, and ended on June 2, 1963.
The popular show centered around the McCoy family, who had traveled from "West Virgininny" to live in California. Walter Brennan, who was one of the most recognizable voices on radio and television at the time, played Grandpa Amos McCoy. He was an old codger set in his ways. He could neither read or write, which provided many plots for the series. Usually each episode revolved around Amos' stubbornness, but he would see the light and mellow before the end of the show.
In one episode, Amos lets a man promoting a casino in Las Vegas paint his barn. The only catch was that the man puts up a sign on the roof of the barn. However, Grandpa Amos had no idea that his barn would be promoting gambling in Las Vegas, so he consented to having the barn painted.
The McCoys' pastor was coming to visit their home, so they covered up part of the sign to have it say something better. Then the wind kicked up, blowing the canvas off, so that the pastor could see they had a sign on the roof promoting gambling. But he wasn’t upset, saying they had painted his barn for free too and had made a sign he didn’t like either.
The first episode set the tone for the series. It opened with the family, Luke, Kate, Hassie, Little Luke, and Amos arriving in California. Their home was on a farm inherited from the death of Uncle Ben McCoy. It’s then that something happened on the show that I would challenge you to find on any ABC, NBC, or CBS show today.
The family gets out of their dilapidated car they’ve driven from West Virginia, walks through the gate, and pauses to look at the house which is as dilapidated as their car. Amos takes off his hat and without a word, they all bow their heads. Then Amos prays, “Lord, we want to thank you for getting us here in one piece. The house is a mite fancy, but we can fix that. Again we want to thank You. Keep up the good work.” All the family reverently says, “Amen."
It doesn’t stop there. Midpoint in the show, Amos has run into a situation that, in his opinion isn’t a good one. He walks into the living room, takes off his hat, looks heavenward and prays again: “Lord I don’t mean to question your judgment, but are You sure I wasn’t happier back in West Virgininny?”
What's important in all this is that the pastor’s visit on the program is a normal and natural thing. He’s neither a hypocrite or an evil person up to no good. When Amos prays, it too is seen as something normal and natural, not a jarring intrusion into the plot as if there were something wrong, socially awkward, or weird about the family.
That show first aired when those in their 70’s today were in middle school. It’s taken a short time, but reverence for God, prayer, a pastor's visit, and a family's praying on a popular national TV have vanished. Instead, we see families in which the "comedy" consists of the father's being dumb, the children having all the wisdom in addition to being disrespectful, one put-down and insult after another, and the parents are clueless. But in "The Real McCoys, the family did what what was right in God’s eyes. Today, TV families do what’s right in their own eyes.
Back then, Amos, Luke, Kate, Hassie, and Little Luke were The Real McCoys.
WITHOUT COST
Friday, April 27, 2018
Friday, April 20, 2018
MY EXCLUSIVE CLUB III
To state the truth: I am a member of what is and what will be the last Christianized generation in American history. It was my generation that had the blessing of being soaked in a Christianized culture that permeated everything from education to entertainment. Such soaking was a blessing not appreciated appropriately at the time, but as time races on, I do appreciate it more each day.
TURNING THE TABLES
Now, let's turn the tables and look at a youth raised without the blessings I and my generation had and examine the life of a girl raised in culture rigorously soaked in atheism, a culture in which the Bible is blocked at every turn and the state is sovereign.
Here, in her own words, were her growing up years in North Korea.
"I was taught never to express my opinion, never to question anything. I was taught simply to follow what the government told me to do or say or think. I actually believed that our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, could read my mind, and I would be punished for my bad thoughts. And if he didn’t hear me, spies were everywhere, listening at the windows and watching in the school yard.
"We were ordered to inform on anyone who said the wrong thing. We lived in fear. In most countries, a mother encourages her children to ask about everything, but not in North Korea. As soon as I was old enough to understand, my mother warned me to be careful about what I was saying. ‘Remember, Yeonmi-ya,’ she said gently, ‘even when you think you’re alone, the birds and mice can hear you whisper.’
THE RADIO, THE TV
"Radios and televisions came sealed and permanently tuned to state-approved channels. If you tampered with them, you could be arrested and sent to a labor camp for re-education, but a lot of people did it anyway. In the border areas those of us with receivers could sometimes pick up Chinese broadcasts. I was mostly interested in the food commercials. My friends and I would watch these incredible things, but it never really occurred to us that our lives could be any different.
THAT MOVIE
"My uncle Park Jin had a VCR, and when I was very young, I would go to his house to watch tapes of Hollywood films. My aunt covered the windows and told us not to say anything about it. I loved Cinderella, Snow White and James Bond. But when I was seven or eight years old, the film that changed my life was "Titanic."
"I couldn’t believe how someone could make a film out of such a shameful love story. In North Korea the filmmakers would have been executed. No real human stories were allowed, nothing but propaganda about the Leader. The idea that people could choose their own destinies fascinated me. This pirated Hollywood film gave me my first small taste of freedom."
THE PHYSICAL, BUT NOT THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ESCAPE
She escaped when she was 15, but her mind was still captive to the Great Leader. One day in school, after her escape, the teacher asked her to tell the class what her hobby was. She couldn't answer because she didn't know what "hobby" meant. In North Korea, every thought and activity was to be occupied by the state and its leader. There was no such thing as a hobby and no word for it. When there is no word for something, you can't think about it.
THE BOOK
Later, she was asked to tell the class her favorite color; she couldn't answer because the thinking of the North Korean was brainwashed to be "We," the group, the state, not "I," the individual. "I" don't have anything; the state does. One of her most eye-opening moments was when she read Orwell's "Animal Farm" and it hit home.
There was no prolonged electricity in her home; it was on again, off again, mostly off. Running water was a sometime luxury and there was little or no food because of government-produced famines; most of the food went to the powerful leaders. A special day for her was noodle day, when her mother made noodles. But often there were not enough noodles to share with others.
From time to time, she would come across bodies in the streets, either frozen or starved to death, or both. The most horrific discovery for her occurred when she approached a lake and came upon a naked corpse whose face was twisted in a death agony. She knew he had died trying to get to the water, but failed.
That's the way it is, not was, in North Korea.
The last generation of Christianized Americans: we can remember back when, back then, and shed a tear for those who do not know and will never know.
TURNING THE TABLES
Now, let's turn the tables and look at a youth raised without the blessings I and my generation had and examine the life of a girl raised in culture rigorously soaked in atheism, a culture in which the Bible is blocked at every turn and the state is sovereign.
Here, in her own words, were her growing up years in North Korea.
"I was taught never to express my opinion, never to question anything. I was taught simply to follow what the government told me to do or say or think. I actually believed that our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, could read my mind, and I would be punished for my bad thoughts. And if he didn’t hear me, spies were everywhere, listening at the windows and watching in the school yard.
"We were ordered to inform on anyone who said the wrong thing. We lived in fear. In most countries, a mother encourages her children to ask about everything, but not in North Korea. As soon as I was old enough to understand, my mother warned me to be careful about what I was saying. ‘Remember, Yeonmi-ya,’ she said gently, ‘even when you think you’re alone, the birds and mice can hear you whisper.’
THE RADIO, THE TV
"Radios and televisions came sealed and permanently tuned to state-approved channels. If you tampered with them, you could be arrested and sent to a labor camp for re-education, but a lot of people did it anyway. In the border areas those of us with receivers could sometimes pick up Chinese broadcasts. I was mostly interested in the food commercials. My friends and I would watch these incredible things, but it never really occurred to us that our lives could be any different.
THAT MOVIE
"My uncle Park Jin had a VCR, and when I was very young, I would go to his house to watch tapes of Hollywood films. My aunt covered the windows and told us not to say anything about it. I loved Cinderella, Snow White and James Bond. But when I was seven or eight years old, the film that changed my life was "Titanic."
"I couldn’t believe how someone could make a film out of such a shameful love story. In North Korea the filmmakers would have been executed. No real human stories were allowed, nothing but propaganda about the Leader. The idea that people could choose their own destinies fascinated me. This pirated Hollywood film gave me my first small taste of freedom."
THE PHYSICAL, BUT NOT THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ESCAPE
She escaped when she was 15, but her mind was still captive to the Great Leader. One day in school, after her escape, the teacher asked her to tell the class what her hobby was. She couldn't answer because she didn't know what "hobby" meant. In North Korea, every thought and activity was to be occupied by the state and its leader. There was no such thing as a hobby and no word for it. When there is no word for something, you can't think about it.
THE BOOK
Later, she was asked to tell the class her favorite color; she couldn't answer because the thinking of the North Korean was brainwashed to be "We," the group, the state, not "I," the individual. "I" don't have anything; the state does. One of her most eye-opening moments was when she read Orwell's "Animal Farm" and it hit home.
There was no prolonged electricity in her home; it was on again, off again, mostly off. Running water was a sometime luxury and there was little or no food because of government-produced famines; most of the food went to the powerful leaders. A special day for her was noodle day, when her mother made noodles. But often there were not enough noodles to share with others.
From time to time, she would come across bodies in the streets, either frozen or starved to death, or both. The most horrific discovery for her occurred when she approached a lake and came upon a naked corpse whose face was twisted in a death agony. She knew he had died trying to get to the water, but failed.
That's the way it is, not was, in North Korea.
The last generation of Christianized Americans: we can remember back when, back then, and shed a tear for those who do not know and will never know.
Friday, April 13, 2018
MY EXCLUSIVE CLUB II
I'm a certified, card-carrying member of an exclusive club--the last Christianized generation in American history, which, as we've seen, means that we were soaked in Christianity. But Christianized doesn't mean "born again" in the biblical sense. "Christianized" simply means that the milieu in which we lived, moved, and had our being was heavily influenced by Christianity.
It was that Christianized culture that produced my high school class of about 400, students like Hank Still and James Ellis who went on to argue cases before the U. S. Supreme Court. In debate class class, my partner and I often debated with Hank and his partner. Hank was skilled in debate and his talent has stood him in good stead over the years. James was in my high school and college Latin classes; He played football for both institutions (whoever heard of a starting quarterback taking Latin in high school and college?) He was also a Rhodes Scholar finalist. On the baseball team, he was the premier pitcher, the quintessential student-athlete.
The girl who sat in front of me in high school Latin, Carolyn Dean, would grow up to handle and study the rocks taken from the surface of the moon. Within our ranks would be those who would become college professors, like John Moeser and Mike Moorehead.
One girl, Kay Thornton, the editor of our school newspaper, "The Monterey Mirror," would move to Canada and become an author of published fiction, while another would write a book about the famous Lubbock UFO sightings, which became known in the national press as "The Lubbock Lights." (I saw them one night.) My classmate, Arthur Neill, was so brilliant in the third grade, he corrected our teacher's spelling of "encyclopedia;" he would grow up to become a radio astronomer, in Boston. The last time I saw Arthur, he and his wife were flying to Europe.
THE DRESS CODE
If there was a high school dress code, I don't remember its being in print nor any instructions given orally about it. The school didn't have to have one because a dress code was enforced at home before we left for school. The dress code had one rule, "You don't embarrass your parents." End of the code.
Parents enforced that code and didn't expect the school to do it; such would have been unthinkable. In that regard, there were no T-shirts whereby we could announce how special we were such as the young lad wearing a shirt I saw today which proclaimed, "HAVE YOU NOTICED MY AWESOMENESS?" (I wanted to tell him, "No.")
Back then, parents may have thought their children were special, but they didn't expect others to do so and they didn't bore others by bragging about their children. Such would have been considered gauche.
LUNCH-A-LOT
When lunch time came around, we ate in three different shifts: there were lunch periods A, B. and C, with A as the earliest and C the latest. For some reason, praise be, I never was assigned the C lunch period. With only three periods for lunch, that meant there were a lot of us eating in the cafeteria at those times. The teachers had their own separate lunch room where they would dine and, in my opinion, spend their time plotting against us.
There was only one spontaneous outburst in the cafeteria during my years in high school. Unbeknownst to me and the others at our lunch table, there was a group in the cafeteria which was watching the clock, and when the time hit a certain hour and minute, they burst into enthusiastic applause. At our table, we looked at each other, wondering what in the world was going on.
Then my good friend, Jim Smith, figured it out--it was May 2 and, at that precise moment, was the appointed time for the execution in San Quinton Prison of Caryl Chessman who had gained national infamy for his crimes and 8 stays of execution. (His picture was on the cover of "Time Magazine.") He had become the poster boy for the anti-capital punishment movement in America. The group was applauding because the time had come for execution to commence.
But before lunchtime was over, Jim had figured out something the applauding group had missed--the time difference between Central Time and Pacific Time. Their applause was premature by two hours, but we thought it was a nice gesture. We were up on current events and issues back in the day.
In all my years spent in the cafeteria, there was never an incident of unruliness or an outbreak of an untoward argument. Everyday, in every way, world without end, the we ate together in peace and calm in an orderly manner and cleaned up our table when we were through.
THE QUICK FIX
So, since we're partial to shortcuts, we think, "To produce a milieu such as that, let's study those days, take what they did and impose their code on our schools today and then we would have such a culture as they did--one that's disciplined, educated, and respectful of authority. Let's impose the demerit system just like Monterey Senior High School had, and, just like an assembly line, we'll turn out respectful, disciplined, moral, and dependable citizens just like schools did back in those halcyon days.
IF ONLY
If only it worked that way, but it doesn't. To impose such systems as were in vogue in the days of My Exclusive Club is appealing, but the results would be appalling. The reason for that is that it wasn't the systems that produced the Christianization; the Christianization, produced the systems.
THE CART IS NOT TO BE PUT BEFORE THE HORSE
In other words. the spiritual engine (the Christianization) in place at the time produced the systems that came into being. It wasn't the other way around where the systems produced the engine. To say it another way, it was the Chrisitanizing, the soaking of the culture in Christianity, that produced My Exclusive Club; no demerit system, no courses in English and Latin and algebra did it. The rigorous discipline system and curriculum came out of Christianity; they didn't produce Christianity.
The engine that produced the culture was based on the concept of absolute truth in which we were soaked. Back in the day, we were taught that there was right and wrong, a morality which was absolute. To be absolute, such a code has to originate outside of man and be something man can't arbitrarily change depending on what he wants to do. Whether we could articulate that concept or not, it was in the air we breathed.
My Exclusive Club was raised that way, taught that way, and lived that way, Christian or not.
TO BE CONTINUED
It was that Christianized culture that produced my high school class of about 400, students like Hank Still and James Ellis who went on to argue cases before the U. S. Supreme Court. In debate class class, my partner and I often debated with Hank and his partner. Hank was skilled in debate and his talent has stood him in good stead over the years. James was in my high school and college Latin classes; He played football for both institutions (whoever heard of a starting quarterback taking Latin in high school and college?) He was also a Rhodes Scholar finalist. On the baseball team, he was the premier pitcher, the quintessential student-athlete.
The girl who sat in front of me in high school Latin, Carolyn Dean, would grow up to handle and study the rocks taken from the surface of the moon. Within our ranks would be those who would become college professors, like John Moeser and Mike Moorehead.
One girl, Kay Thornton, the editor of our school newspaper, "The Monterey Mirror," would move to Canada and become an author of published fiction, while another would write a book about the famous Lubbock UFO sightings, which became known in the national press as "The Lubbock Lights." (I saw them one night.) My classmate, Arthur Neill, was so brilliant in the third grade, he corrected our teacher's spelling of "encyclopedia;" he would grow up to become a radio astronomer, in Boston. The last time I saw Arthur, he and his wife were flying to Europe.
THE DRESS CODE
If there was a high school dress code, I don't remember its being in print nor any instructions given orally about it. The school didn't have to have one because a dress code was enforced at home before we left for school. The dress code had one rule, "You don't embarrass your parents." End of the code.
Parents enforced that code and didn't expect the school to do it; such would have been unthinkable. In that regard, there were no T-shirts whereby we could announce how special we were such as the young lad wearing a shirt I saw today which proclaimed, "HAVE YOU NOTICED MY AWESOMENESS?" (I wanted to tell him, "No.")
Back then, parents may have thought their children were special, but they didn't expect others to do so and they didn't bore others by bragging about their children. Such would have been considered gauche.
LUNCH-A-LOT
When lunch time came around, we ate in three different shifts: there were lunch periods A, B. and C, with A as the earliest and C the latest. For some reason, praise be, I never was assigned the C lunch period. With only three periods for lunch, that meant there were a lot of us eating in the cafeteria at those times. The teachers had their own separate lunch room where they would dine and, in my opinion, spend their time plotting against us.
There was only one spontaneous outburst in the cafeteria during my years in high school. Unbeknownst to me and the others at our lunch table, there was a group in the cafeteria which was watching the clock, and when the time hit a certain hour and minute, they burst into enthusiastic applause. At our table, we looked at each other, wondering what in the world was going on.
Then my good friend, Jim Smith, figured it out--it was May 2 and, at that precise moment, was the appointed time for the execution in San Quinton Prison of Caryl Chessman who had gained national infamy for his crimes and 8 stays of execution. (His picture was on the cover of "Time Magazine.") He had become the poster boy for the anti-capital punishment movement in America. The group was applauding because the time had come for execution to commence.
But before lunchtime was over, Jim had figured out something the applauding group had missed--the time difference between Central Time and Pacific Time. Their applause was premature by two hours, but we thought it was a nice gesture. We were up on current events and issues back in the day.
In all my years spent in the cafeteria, there was never an incident of unruliness or an outbreak of an untoward argument. Everyday, in every way, world without end, the we ate together in peace and calm in an orderly manner and cleaned up our table when we were through.
THE QUICK FIX
So, since we're partial to shortcuts, we think, "To produce a milieu such as that, let's study those days, take what they did and impose their code on our schools today and then we would have such a culture as they did--one that's disciplined, educated, and respectful of authority. Let's impose the demerit system just like Monterey Senior High School had, and, just like an assembly line, we'll turn out respectful, disciplined, moral, and dependable citizens just like schools did back in those halcyon days.
IF ONLY
If only it worked that way, but it doesn't. To impose such systems as were in vogue in the days of My Exclusive Club is appealing, but the results would be appalling. The reason for that is that it wasn't the systems that produced the Christianization; the Christianization, produced the systems.
THE CART IS NOT TO BE PUT BEFORE THE HORSE
In other words. the spiritual engine (the Christianization) in place at the time produced the systems that came into being. It wasn't the other way around where the systems produced the engine. To say it another way, it was the Chrisitanizing, the soaking of the culture in Christianity, that produced My Exclusive Club; no demerit system, no courses in English and Latin and algebra did it. The rigorous discipline system and curriculum came out of Christianity; they didn't produce Christianity.
The engine that produced the culture was based on the concept of absolute truth in which we were soaked. Back in the day, we were taught that there was right and wrong, a morality which was absolute. To be absolute, such a code has to originate outside of man and be something man can't arbitrarily change depending on what he wants to do. Whether we could articulate that concept or not, it was in the air we breathed.
My Exclusive Club was raised that way, taught that way, and lived that way, Christian or not.
TO BE CONTINUED
Friday, April 6, 2018
MY EXCLUSIVE CLUB
I'm a member of an exclusive club, one that admits no new members. This closed club requires no application fee to join and has never had any dues to pay. The club has no meetings and, in fact, has never met. If you're not already a member, you can't join--that sums it up.
UNIQUE
What club is this? It's not an organization that I joined because of any merit or achievement I garnered, earned, or was awarded. It's a club based on birth. It's made up of my generation of Americans: I am a member of the last fully Christianized generation in America, and sad to say, there will never be another like us.
What I mean by that is not that all members of my generation are or were born again, but that my generation is the last to be heavily soaked and influenced in the culture which Christianity produces that we can say that my generation is the last one to have been so blessed, so "Christianized."
MRS. NELSON AND HER RECORD PLAYER
Allow me to give you some examples of the Christian soaking we received. In the second grade, Mrs. Nelson was our teacher. Mrs. Nelson taught us all subjects from math to music. There is one and only one thing I remember from the music she taught us. One day she brought out the record player and played a song for us. It was "The Lord's Prayer" set to music. You've probably heard it, but not like we club members did; we heard it in a public school, Dupre Elementary School, to be exact.
In each elementary school in the city there was a special day for all 5th graders. It was the day representatives of the Gideons came and presented every 5th grader with a Bible; we were proud to receive that little New Testament. I carried it around in my back pocket.
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
Divorce? There was no such thing in my experience, with one exception. I only knew one person, just one person, all through elementary school, junior high, and high school whose parents were divorced. Just one. Marriage was forever in this life. That's the way it was in a Christianized society back then.
THE PUGILISTIC ARTS
Speaking of high school, there were around 1,300-1,400 students in mine. My senior class was over 400. During my years traversing those secular halls, none of us ever saw a policeman in the building, "resource" or otherwise, and I never saw one fight inside the school building or on the school grounds.
DISCIPLINE
Teachers maintained order by a demerit system. A student would receive one demerit if he was late to class or if he talked during class or if he ran in the halls or chewed gum, things like that. The most demerits in one whack a teacher would give a student were five, and that was for being absent without excuse or some exhibition of direct disrespect. I never saw any exhibition of direct disrespect, not once, not ever. Verbal disrespect sometimes reared its rebellious head, but it was in a private conversation, in hushed tones.
The reason that the demerit system kept us in line was simple: anyone receiving more than 10 demerits in a semester had to come to school on the last Saturday of that semester and endure an 18 weeks' written test in every subject he was taking--English, algebra, history, every subject. The grades on those tests would be factored into a student's final semester grades in each subject.
I went though high school having received one demerit. That was good because I couldn't have passed an 18 week's test in any subject. Only Robert E. Lee and Charles Mason have better records than I; they graduated from West Point with no demerits. Both graduated in 1829; Mason was first in his class; Lee was second.They bested me there too; I was so far away from being number one in my class, that my ranking wasn't listed to save embarrassment.
Another factor in the Christianized atmosphere was the dreaded paddle. Our P. E. instructors (the coaches) had their own and used them when the need arose. Each teacher's paddle was "The Board of Education" that got to the seat of the matter. One typing and business teacher had her own paddle and wielded it with a mighty hand.
STARTING THE DAY
At the beginning of each school day, there was "Morning Watch" during which someone from one of the local churches spoke to those who assembled in Room 143. (There's a picture of them in my yearbook with heads bowed and the words at the bottom of the picture call them, "The Watch Worshipers.") Each home room had a Morning Watch representative who would report to us and encourage us to attend. (The representative from our homeroom was Martha Nelson, a friend with whom I still have occasional contact.)
THE YEARBOOK
Also in my yearbook is a picture taken around Christmas time of a group in the drama class. They're practicing for a Christmas play and they're dressed as shepherds, kneeling at the manger. Also in that yearbook the writers printed a quote from Genesis, attributing it to "Genesis 13:8" from the King James Version.
THE BIBLE COURSE
One of the electives taught in my high school was "Bible." The first semester was the Old Testament, the second semester was the New Testament. We made maps of Israel. We made maps of the Roman Empire in the second semester. We studied the life of Christ and the journeys of Paul. We typed each lesson on onion skin paper and at the end of the year, many of us had our collection of the lessons on that paper bound into a rather large book. I still have mine. Somewhere.
THE CLUB GATHERS
We enjoyed weekly assemblies. One of the assemblies featured a speaker from the military. I think he was of a high rank. This was during the Cold War and he spoke to us about the Russians. I remember two things he said: "The Russians are barbarians with nuclear weapons." We had no problem with that because he was telling the truth. America was superior to those atheists and we knew it.
Then he showed us a slide show ("slide show" sounds archaic; there was no such thing as Power Point). One of the slides was a picture of a Russian woman doing hard manual labor repairing a Russian street along with a small group of men. We immediately laughed, because this was strange to us to see a woman out in the cold with a shovel doing pavement work. To us, that was men's work. Then he told us, sarcastically, "Don't laugh. This is what the Russians call, 'Equal rights for women.'"
We laughed again.
A PEP RALLY
The club had a hatred; it ran deep in our veins and was directed toward the rival high school. At the pep rally in the gym before the big game, the cheer leaders executed our rival's star player in effigy. It was great fun; nobody thought it anything to do with real life. Later, our team won the game.
THE CROWNING TOUCH
The capstone example of our Christianized generation occurred in my Latin class. Our teacher, Mrs. R. P. Johnson, had told us translate at our desks from the textbook, and as we did, she went from desk to desk to help anyone who needed it. When she came to one student's desk, he was having a problem because he didn't know the meaning of a word. It was the Latin word, "redempto," which means "buy back."
The rest of us, diligently working at our desks, could hear Mrs. Johnson as she helped him, and we all heard her when she explained to him, "That word means 'buy back,' we get our English word, 'redemption' from it. That's what Christ did for you, He bought you back."
No student raised an eyebrow and I doubt that any student reported to their parents what Mrs. Johnson said because what she said was a normal thing to say for our Christianized generation. We were used to hearing it. We were soaked.
THE EDUCATION OF THE CLUB
Recently a man who was a substitute teacher said that he was examining the small library in his classroom and came upon some textbooks from the era of our time in high school. He said he was amazed because they would be considered college level textbooks today.
We received an education, a real education. One college professor told me that those students from my club came to college knowing English grammar. (For example, we wouldn't say, "I hope you don't mind ME parking there." We knew better. We would properly say, "I hope you don't mind MY parking there."
We memorized a hundred lines of poetry a year, wrote and presented orally four pre-approved book reports a year, diagrammed sentences, took vocabulary tests, and we knew direct and indirect objects when we saw them.
One other thing: we didn't think were and we still don't think we are anything special. Nobody told us were the greatest; we didn't wear T-shirts announcing how wonderful we were. We were just kids going through the public school system back in the day. We were normal.
This trip down memory lane has been for a purpose: next week, we'll take a look at what it means to our society that my generation is the last of its kind, the last Christianized generation in American history.
TO BE CONTINUED
UNIQUE
What club is this? It's not an organization that I joined because of any merit or achievement I garnered, earned, or was awarded. It's a club based on birth. It's made up of my generation of Americans: I am a member of the last fully Christianized generation in America, and sad to say, there will never be another like us.
What I mean by that is not that all members of my generation are or were born again, but that my generation is the last to be heavily soaked and influenced in the culture which Christianity produces that we can say that my generation is the last one to have been so blessed, so "Christianized."
MRS. NELSON AND HER RECORD PLAYER
Allow me to give you some examples of the Christian soaking we received. In the second grade, Mrs. Nelson was our teacher. Mrs. Nelson taught us all subjects from math to music. There is one and only one thing I remember from the music she taught us. One day she brought out the record player and played a song for us. It was "The Lord's Prayer" set to music. You've probably heard it, but not like we club members did; we heard it in a public school, Dupre Elementary School, to be exact.
In each elementary school in the city there was a special day for all 5th graders. It was the day representatives of the Gideons came and presented every 5th grader with a Bible; we were proud to receive that little New Testament. I carried it around in my back pocket.
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
Divorce? There was no such thing in my experience, with one exception. I only knew one person, just one person, all through elementary school, junior high, and high school whose parents were divorced. Just one. Marriage was forever in this life. That's the way it was in a Christianized society back then.
THE PUGILISTIC ARTS
Speaking of high school, there were around 1,300-1,400 students in mine. My senior class was over 400. During my years traversing those secular halls, none of us ever saw a policeman in the building, "resource" or otherwise, and I never saw one fight inside the school building or on the school grounds.
DISCIPLINE
Teachers maintained order by a demerit system. A student would receive one demerit if he was late to class or if he talked during class or if he ran in the halls or chewed gum, things like that. The most demerits in one whack a teacher would give a student were five, and that was for being absent without excuse or some exhibition of direct disrespect. I never saw any exhibition of direct disrespect, not once, not ever. Verbal disrespect sometimes reared its rebellious head, but it was in a private conversation, in hushed tones.
The reason that the demerit system kept us in line was simple: anyone receiving more than 10 demerits in a semester had to come to school on the last Saturday of that semester and endure an 18 weeks' written test in every subject he was taking--English, algebra, history, every subject. The grades on those tests would be factored into a student's final semester grades in each subject.
I went though high school having received one demerit. That was good because I couldn't have passed an 18 week's test in any subject. Only Robert E. Lee and Charles Mason have better records than I; they graduated from West Point with no demerits. Both graduated in 1829; Mason was first in his class; Lee was second.They bested me there too; I was so far away from being number one in my class, that my ranking wasn't listed to save embarrassment.
Another factor in the Christianized atmosphere was the dreaded paddle. Our P. E. instructors (the coaches) had their own and used them when the need arose. Each teacher's paddle was "The Board of Education" that got to the seat of the matter. One typing and business teacher had her own paddle and wielded it with a mighty hand.
STARTING THE DAY
At the beginning of each school day, there was "Morning Watch" during which someone from one of the local churches spoke to those who assembled in Room 143. (There's a picture of them in my yearbook with heads bowed and the words at the bottom of the picture call them, "The Watch Worshipers.") Each home room had a Morning Watch representative who would report to us and encourage us to attend. (The representative from our homeroom was Martha Nelson, a friend with whom I still have occasional contact.)
THE YEARBOOK
Also in my yearbook is a picture taken around Christmas time of a group in the drama class. They're practicing for a Christmas play and they're dressed as shepherds, kneeling at the manger. Also in that yearbook the writers printed a quote from Genesis, attributing it to "Genesis 13:8" from the King James Version.
THE BIBLE COURSE
One of the electives taught in my high school was "Bible." The first semester was the Old Testament, the second semester was the New Testament. We made maps of Israel. We made maps of the Roman Empire in the second semester. We studied the life of Christ and the journeys of Paul. We typed each lesson on onion skin paper and at the end of the year, many of us had our collection of the lessons on that paper bound into a rather large book. I still have mine. Somewhere.
THE CLUB GATHERS
We enjoyed weekly assemblies. One of the assemblies featured a speaker from the military. I think he was of a high rank. This was during the Cold War and he spoke to us about the Russians. I remember two things he said: "The Russians are barbarians with nuclear weapons." We had no problem with that because he was telling the truth. America was superior to those atheists and we knew it.
Then he showed us a slide show ("slide show" sounds archaic; there was no such thing as Power Point). One of the slides was a picture of a Russian woman doing hard manual labor repairing a Russian street along with a small group of men. We immediately laughed, because this was strange to us to see a woman out in the cold with a shovel doing pavement work. To us, that was men's work. Then he told us, sarcastically, "Don't laugh. This is what the Russians call, 'Equal rights for women.'"
We laughed again.
A PEP RALLY
The club had a hatred; it ran deep in our veins and was directed toward the rival high school. At the pep rally in the gym before the big game, the cheer leaders executed our rival's star player in effigy. It was great fun; nobody thought it anything to do with real life. Later, our team won the game.
THE CROWNING TOUCH
The capstone example of our Christianized generation occurred in my Latin class. Our teacher, Mrs. R. P. Johnson, had told us translate at our desks from the textbook, and as we did, she went from desk to desk to help anyone who needed it. When she came to one student's desk, he was having a problem because he didn't know the meaning of a word. It was the Latin word, "redempto," which means "buy back."
The rest of us, diligently working at our desks, could hear Mrs. Johnson as she helped him, and we all heard her when she explained to him, "That word means 'buy back,' we get our English word, 'redemption' from it. That's what Christ did for you, He bought you back."
No student raised an eyebrow and I doubt that any student reported to their parents what Mrs. Johnson said because what she said was a normal thing to say for our Christianized generation. We were used to hearing it. We were soaked.
THE EDUCATION OF THE CLUB
Recently a man who was a substitute teacher said that he was examining the small library in his classroom and came upon some textbooks from the era of our time in high school. He said he was amazed because they would be considered college level textbooks today.
We received an education, a real education. One college professor told me that those students from my club came to college knowing English grammar. (For example, we wouldn't say, "I hope you don't mind ME parking there." We knew better. We would properly say, "I hope you don't mind MY parking there."
We memorized a hundred lines of poetry a year, wrote and presented orally four pre-approved book reports a year, diagrammed sentences, took vocabulary tests, and we knew direct and indirect objects when we saw them.
One other thing: we didn't think were and we still don't think we are anything special. Nobody told us were the greatest; we didn't wear T-shirts announcing how wonderful we were. We were just kids going through the public school system back in the day. We were normal.
This trip down memory lane has been for a purpose: next week, we'll take a look at what it means to our society that my generation is the last of its kind, the last Christianized generation in American history.
TO BE CONTINUED
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