1950's Church Rules

The things I am about to share with you are not now, nor have they ever been to my knowledge written in any of the worlds languages, nor have they been seen on the walls of any church, synagogue, Buddhist temple, or mosque (trust me on this one I lived in Saudi Arabia for several years). It is something that your mother knows. Where she learned it, I haven't a clue. I am talking about "church rules."

The day you come into this world they applied to you. Oh, they are easy at first, but over time they get harder. They come in three groups.

Group One is from birth to about 4 years of age  (the actual age depend's on your mother, it's all a bit iffy). These are the easy ones.

Group Two is from no later than five years until you have completed the sixth grade.

Then the final Group Three: junior high and high school. This is the serious one, here you can actually receive the DEATH PENALTY( more on that later).

Group one:  Do you remember the first time you went to church?  I don't either. All the ladies crowd around and say how cute you were. Are you kidding me?! All red and wrinkled, please! Anyway you are allowed to make as much noise as you like, NO PROBLEMO. You can throw up on your mother and its OK, really. Is life cool or what?  At about the age of one you are now big enough to make some noise. At this point the dreaded 1950's church rules start (you just don't know it). From this day forward life as you have known is about to change. Don't get me wrong it's all still good.

From the age of one forward you get to make noise and act out, but their are consequences. Like if you are disturbing the nice man in front of you. This seems to me a bit odd, I mean how can you disturbing some one who is asleep? Whatever. It's the young women who have the babies because and the old women have stopped doing that stuff.  If your mother gets "the look" from one of the older women, usually one of the elders' wives, the look means, take the kid out!  So off your mother goes up the aisle toward the outside (used to be called the vestibule),  right? Purse, diaper bag, or whatever paraphernalia. Anyway, there she goes, you're screaming, arms flailing, legs kicking and if you have a older sibling they have your mother by the leg. By this time you have noticed that the scenery is changing. You may start to get louder, or with experience, softer. If you get louder it's outside for you, bud. Now at this point life gets a little weird. Not for you but for your mother. I mean here is this poor woman with all this stuff. If she is standing on the church steps you are still screaming. At the church I attended you step thru that door there is no cover. That right sports fans, you are outside. Whatever the weather.

Now the rule on being taken out varied from church to church. Some have the two-time rule, some the three-time. To my knowledge there was no fourth time. Folks, stay with me here, there was no such thing as a "cry room" in those days. I suppose your embarrassed mother could walk to the car. [I say walk to the car because in those days the church was in town, and the cars parked on the street. The first arrivals got to park closer.] And there you two sat until church was over. Alone. I'm sure you were happy as a clam then to be alone with mommy and out of that stuffy place with that "person" droning on and on. You were probably thinking Mommy was happy about that two. You had no clue.

Group Two:  Here life, for boys at least, starts to become some what difficult. The term sexual discrimination to my knowledge was not used in polite company during the 1950's. However, that's what life for boys was all about. Yes, we were were whooped ... and I am not talking about a tap on the butt ... at a rate of 25 times to one, compared to girls. I do not have statistics for that, it's just a gut feeling, OK? If that was not sexual discrimination, I don't know what was.  Where was the EEOC or one of those alphabet government agencies when you needed them.

In Group Two you were usually still sitting with your parents. Hey is was the 50's.  Now the "rules which you are never told" are starting to become more serious.  It starts simple enough ... your mother says in a nice low voice "that's not nice." For a boy that's a challenge. You do it again. Then you get yanked over by your mother.  At this point something in the male brain should be sending at least a small alarm that things are going south. Nah. You do it again. Now, it's up the old aisle for you, bud. At this point in your life you're more than capable of walking. Hell, you could run if you wanted, but who wants to rush to what's about to happen to you?  So you start the famous "digging in of the heels", do a "sit down if possible", hollering "no, no, I'll be good", any thing to slow down that whoopin'.

Now whoopin's have a protocol of their own. They took place by the closest bush to the front door of the church. And if there were a lot of little boys your age, that bush began to get pretty bare. Why you ask? Because the quicker your mother could beat your butt for acting up, the quicker she could get back in church. Makes sense to me. But please answer me this one question. Why don't churches have bushes like that any more? All they have now are pine trees or curly-leaf lugustrum.

Lugustrum lucidum

Now mother's could swat you with a tiny vine or a pine cone.  Anyway. You knew you were in trouble when the leaves started to come off that 3 foot limb. Damn, did those switches sting!

The best part of whoopin's was when they happened to your best friend.  If you were lucky your family would be setting next to the window. That way you could look out the window (talk about fun). We didn't
have GameBoy back then, you got your entertainment where you could find it.

Group Three:  Junior high and high school. When you are allowed to enter group three, I say allowed because their is a hierarchy, with the high school seniors having the final say. Everyone gets in eventually, even if you were uncool, you were allowed in by the tenth grade. With this group the rules are pretty much understood. I was not the brightest bulb in the box and I pretty much had a working knowledge of right and wrong as for as what was allowed in church.  You were not really interested in following the rules as much as you were seeing which ones you could break without getting caught.

THE TEENAGERS, as we were called at church, were looked at by the old people like we had a disease. Anyway, we sat as a group, usually as far as we could away from the front of the church.  Wouldn't want to get too much of that holy stuff on us. The first rule of church teenagers is to see if you can seat 22 kids on a pew suitable for 10 adults.

As I said earlier. we are now ready to discuss the dreaded "DEATH PENALTY."  The death penalty was only given in the most severe cases. It all starts when your mother turns her head in the middle of church and looks back at you. She has to do this because, number one, you are setting in the back with the teenagers, and, number two, because you have created a situation where the whole church now realizes that something has happened. So you get THE LOOK.  Now if there was a brain in your head that would be enough but nooo. You do it again. The sad part to all of this is that you think it's all very funny. That doesn't last very long because up jumps your mother.  Since you haven't a clue the first thought that passes through what's left of the few brain cells that you still have functioning, is she not feeling well?  No, Wisenstein, she's headed your way. At this point fear starts to set in; there is no place to run or hide. Remember that pew with 22 kids sitting together:? Yep, here sits your mother right beside ... you.  You slump down in your seat thinking, "Just shoot you now. Put me out of my misery. Life as I have known it, is over. I will never again be able to face my friends." And she leans over and whispers loudly, "Sit up straight!" Things get very quiet on that pew.

Remember those days? I do. Maybe if we had a little more of that discipline today, the world might be a better place.

Remember: God only gives us a certain number of days. I plan not to waste the ones I have left.

Until we talk again.

Mike