My biggest temptation on this blog thing is to put every story on here day one. My blood runs fast when I start thinking about the Tall Grass Prairie, Shidler and Grainola. And right now I am going to tell you I am going to say it over and over again how excited I am to write about HOME.
This is the old Methodist Church in Grainola which was about 150 feet from Aunt Gladys's house, Miss Snyder is what most folks called her but to me she was Aunt Gladys. I am going to clear my conscience a little here. One time I heard someone call her by a name a little off color and I thought it was the funniest thing I ever heard. Now this is not a good quality of mine and my daughter, Wynter, gets onto me all the time because I enjoy off color jokes and ethnic jokes and just about any kind of joke. Well just get over it and I am going to say it one time, I am sorry for laughing at bad jokes.
Anyway, (you have probably noticed I use that word in every story and for good reason - I need a segway). Well while I am at it I might as well tell you I never got one of those CITY vocabularies like Rick Hill. He was one of those very smart guys.
OK, OK, I will get back to the story about the slanderous name given to my wonderful Aunt and school teacher, Aunt Gladys. One of my dear friends changed it from Gladys to Glad-Ass and to clean it up it was translated to Happy But. If you don't get it, don't call me. Now I will tell you her daughter, Suzie Q, called her Happy But behind her back.
Back again to the Methodist Church. This is the church I grew up going to and we always shared our preacher with Foraker and Shidler Methodist Churches. We never called him a circuit rider preacher but I guess that is kind of what he was. It seemed like Vea Harris was always my Sunday School teacher and she was pretty dog-gone good. And right now I want to tell you it is ok to call it Sunday School, not flock, not home study or anything else. We did not get into being politically correct then. Everyone got along and I never noticed one ounce of prejudice in that town. Most all of us were part Indian of some sort and no one ever seemed to talk about it.
Now in Grainola we had about 36 people including children who lived in town and the rest lived in the country on farms and ranches. We had two choices on churches, Methodist and Lutheran. All the Dutch and Swedes went to the Lutheran and most everyone else went to the Methodist. Outside of Christmas and Easter we had about 23 folks in Sunday School and about 35 or so in big church.
We went to the Lutheran Church until I was about 8 then we switched to the Methodist because most of my friends went there. Did I mention that there were 5, yes 5, in my grade unless Joy Frank switched from Shidler back to Grainola which as I remember she did twice in the 8 years before high school when we all went to Shidler. That is another story.
Now I will have to confess again about a little trouble I got into during choir. And don't laugh, I was in choir for a few years until the director, Margaret Olsen (yes she was a relative and yes they spelled their last name different and yes that is another story), kicked me out of choir for being disruptive. I really was innocent! At least as innocent as Jon Tanny, her son, or Eddy which was Jon Tanny's first cousin and of course they were both my cousins (another story). Get over it!
Anyway, that church is where I learned about Jesus and all that stuff (another story) and every Christmas we had a big gathering at church on Christmas Eve and Santa Claus would come and hand out brown paper bags filled with old fashioned candy that stuck together with either an apple or orange and I was delighted every year with the occasion. Today I still love Christmas and Christmas Carols and Christmas Stories and being with family.
This little church made a big difference in my life. I learned about discipline, respect, love, family, community and the joy of giving and receiving.
Thanks for your time once again,
Gary
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