July brings back memories of corn on the cob, summer squash, fresh green beans, sun-ripened tomatoes--all gathered in the morning dew. Not only did the summer bring bare feet, freedom from books and teachers, but July brought Locust Grove’s annual gospel meeting and vacation Bible school at the Logan-Simpson line near Middleton.
Congregants heard well-known Church of Christ ministers at the time: C.W. Bradley, George Tips, Bill Long, Mark McInteer, and Locust Grove’s own Jim Bill McInteer. For Sunday “dinner on the ground,” the women prepared vegetables from their gardens, fried chicken (fresh from the chicken yard), and desserts--chess pie, chocolate meringue pie and other mouthwatering delectibles. After Sunday’s lunch, children played hide and seek or basketball while the women exchanged recipes and discussed their gardens while the men discussed the past wheat harvest, the current weather, and the current corn crop. If it were a dry summer, the men talked less and wondered more about when it was going to rain.
The next morning vacation Bible school began. In the ’60s Brother Ed Warren composed the opening theme song which Bible schoolers belted out for years: “Locust Grove is calling boys and girls now...come to Bible school.” Preschoolers to high school graduates gathered in the auditorium to call out the 12 sons of Jacob, the different names for the Sea of Galilee, and sing “There once was a little boy David” or “Climb, climb up sunshine mountain.”
Teachers on summer vacation, stay-at-home moms, and farmers’ wives pitched in to help. Some taught, some were assistants, some babysat the infants. Unlike today, no multimedia presentation provided entertainment; simply, each teacher presented a lesson from the vacation Bible school materials and students worked in an accompanying workbook. Scriptures were not Googled but actually looked up in a printed King James Bible--and some had to use the Table of Contents to find those books like Hosea, Joel, and Titus. After the lesson, children patiently waited for their cup of Kool Aid and two duplex sandwich cookies.
Friday was the big day. Women gathered together to provide a picnic: hot dogs, potato chips, Ritz crackers smeared with peanut butter, and ice-cream sandwiches. Cold colas from the Russellville bottling plant quenched our summer’s thirst. Afterwards, a softball game ended the year’s VBS.
Bible school and the meeting provided a summer’s entertainment for the community. VBS provided neighborhood kids a chance to visit, and the Gospel meeting provided adults from not only the community but other Church of Christ congregations to catch up on the latest news. Usually, on the last night, the minister preached his hell fire sermon, one preached with much fervor and sweat; even the most pious ones felt those burning flames.
Today, smaller congregations have discontiuned the Vacation Bible School. Sorry to say, most youth are attending larger congregations. Also, communities have shrunk; very few small family farms exist. Gospel meetings are becoming the “vanishing horse on the horizon.” Our lives have become busy, filled with activities.
No matter what the reasons may be, when July comes, and I smell the corn pollen in the air, my memory wanders back to the days of vacation Bible school and the gospel meeting. I hear those first few strains of “Locust Grove is calling boys and girls now, calling boys and girls now….”