Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The Bible Hour Fish Ponds Fiasco

In previous posts Mother's comprehensivet knowledge of Scripture was mentioned. Her teaching techniques were to read us two stories before our afternoon nap (which I often faked). She chose a Bible story and a story from children's literature. My favorite fiction was the wicked little Peter Rabbit. I fantasized about his escapades.

Her favorite Bible story source was Hurlbut's Story of the Bible. [I have the book she used 60-plus years ago!] The Bible story book is written like any storybook, except some of the names were hard to pronounce.

Mother often added "color" to the stories so they came alive. I and my siblings asked penetrating questions about the stories. Mother always had an answer.

After our naps and my faked nap, we would playact some aspect of these stories. Most of our antics were amusing to Mother. We baptized our dolls in the dog's water bowl, served the Last Supper morning, noon and night, and dozens of other child imaginary Biblical scenes.

One of my favorite stories was Gideon and his 300-man army . I did not key in on the "victory of the Lord" with a small army. I was intrigued how Gideon chose his army by the way they drank water from a water source. The chosen men lapped water like a dog from one cupped hand, while the other hand held weapons.

One part of our back yard was off limits to me and my siblings - a fish pond, today's koi pond predecessor. It was about one foot deep with lily pads and goldfish. A net covered the pond so if we accidently fell, the net would prevent us from drowning

I wanted to see if I'd be a good soldier in the Lord's army, so with my dog Snooky by my side I knelt down to try lapping water. I watched the dog, then I tried to mimic his lapping. My little hand would only hold two teaspoonfuls, so I didn't get many laps through the sieve-like hand. Practice did not last long...

Mother caught me in the act, and interceded with a paddling. I was mystified why trying to be a good soldier was wrong. It was the off-limit fish pond, but I thought the Lord's work superceded and negated the fish pond off-limits order. Snooky innocently watched the paddling, but he escaped spanking.

Another fish pond got me trouble. Our city park, two blocks from home, had two fish ponds with a wishing well drinking fountain, all off-limits to me and reinforced every time I went to the park. The park attendant lived on the grounds. His granddaughter and I became friends in the second grade.

I was allowed to walk to the park and play with my friend. I usually carried a toy, or played with hers. One day we baptized our the dolls in the fish pond. I was sure the Lord was proud we knew how to do it and say just the right words.

Alas, when I returned home and proudly told Mother we were doing the Lord's work, [I was no good at lying anyway], it was another paddling, plus I was no longer allowed to go play with my friend in the park. Later her parents bought a home one block from us; I just trotted down the alley to play with her. They had no fish ponds, just cats.

Bible stuff was a puzzlement, when I was very young. Somehow it appeared my parents authority was higher than God's and not vice versa. So much for being called by the Lord.

I wonder if my fish pond excursions caused me to have a great fear of water, as I never learned to swim and have an unhealthy fear of water to this day!

9 comments:

Arkansas Patti said...

Having trouble commenting again. That was an interesting and fun post. I like that your mother gave the bible stories "color"
Those dolls certainly were throughly baptised.
Ever thought about swimming lessons?

Sniffles and Smiles said...

Oh, this was so much fun!!!! Loved these stories...I play-acted all the stories I read as well!!!! Thanks for sharing!!!! ~Janine XO

Liz Hinds said...

THis post and the previous one are wonderful stories. Your mother sounds a great person.

NitWit1 said...

Thanks for all your comments. I am checking on the "operation aborted" message some of you are occasionally getting. I got it myself when I tried to answer your comments.

One solution suggested I upgrade to Internet Explorer 8. or use FireFox. I upgraded for now.

I am still looking. I know I got the message while surfing web sites.

I am also have problems with my DSL ISP provider, with slower-than-normal service and non-loading of sites. GRRRR.............

Thanks for preserverance.

Amber Star said...

I really enjoyed this post. My mother didn't read to me from the bible or much of anything that I can remember. My grandmother did read to me, and probably instilled the love of reading I have always had. One of my aunts gave me a "Children's Bible in pictures" that I read often. I read the bible a lot as I got older, espcially when I was trying to figure out why things were going the way they were.

Amber Star said...

Thought I'd just use this instead of the mail thing. Your comment about some of my meds being close to chemo meds is true. The idea is to knock down my immune system some....it must be going AIE AIE AIE to cause all this much trouble. The first time I took the methotrezate I didn't have any side effects I was aware of, but the last two Tuesdays have been pretty miserable. I'm hoping it helps, but the info about them is that it may take up to 12 weeks to see improvement. Oh well, if nothing else I get a sofa day on a day I usually don't have anything to do. I was tired today still, but got cranked up when I saw that Crazy Aunt Purl's garden is ahead of mine. Granted she lives in the Valley in California and all, but I'm going to plant my cantaloupes this evening after the shade gets over where I want them. I decided a bag of topsoil with an X cut in it top and bottom would do just fine and dandy and some mulch around it all to hide the plastic back.

My email since this goes straight to you before posting is amber_star_98@yahoo.com

Your post thing is acting up again!

Lorna said...

I too had a dreadful fear of water, but a few years ago, I took a Swimming for the Terminally Afraid course at the Y---I still can't swim, but I can put my face in the shower and zip around a pool if I have one of those foam noodles.

NitWit1 said...

Lorna, if we had a Y here in the wilds of the Ozarks, I might try that. I do shower, but forsook tubs a long time ago when knees were bad. Have new knees but decided showers were more to my liking. We have a lot of those foam noodles around here for sale to the tourists visiting the big lake.

Pat - Arkansas said...

Up until age 10, I didn't have a fear of the water, then my mother decided I should learn to swim at the "Y." I had a terrible experience on the first day of swimming class and thought I was drowning with no one to help me. Never went back. I never did learn to swim (still cannot stand to have a lot of water in my face, even in the shower), but my HS gym instructor taught me to float on my back when it became evident that I *would not* put my face under water. Since my daddy was a preacher, I probably baptized a lot of dolls, too, but have no clear recollection of such.

Lovely post!