During our Houston years we took a vacation trip to Hot
Springs. We now had a family ranging in
age from kindergarten to high school. So
how do you keep a brood like that entertained on a vacation? Hot Springs turned out to be a pretty nice
trip for us. This was another one of
those trips when “Nannie” (Ann’s mother) went with us. That was guaranteed to liven up any journey.
We left Houston on a Saturday night. Our plan was to spend the night in Texarkana,
and then arrive in Hot Springs on Sunday morning in time to attend church.
We wanted to get up about 7 the next morning to make sure we
could make it to Hot Springs in time for church on Sunday. We stayed at Motel 6 in Texarkana (seven us
in one room). We weren’t staying in
five star hotels when we traveled. Motel
6 promised “a clean comfortable room, and we’ll leave the light on for
you.” That’s what we got.
There was no telephone in the room, and there was no way to
arrange for a wakeup call. Mother (which
is what I called, Nannie) said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll wake up.” I said, “Well get me up about 6 and we’ll go
to breakfast.”
The next thing I knew she was saying, “Norman, it’s 6.” I got
up, showered and shaved. She and Ann
began dressing for church, but we let the kids sleep for awhile. She said, “Oh, I looked at my watch wrong. It’s
4, not 6.” I thought, “Well, we’re
already dressed. We’ll go ahead and have
breakfast.” We came back and got the kids
up around 5 or so, made them dress and loaded them into the car. I think we probably stopped and picked up
some doughnuts at 7-11. Then we headed
out to Hot Springs.
We arrived in Hot Springs well in advance of any anticipated
worship hour. I had an address, but when
I drove there, I saw a sign informing me that the church had built a new
building. The sign directed me to the new
address. It was across town, but we got
there well in advance of the Bible class time.
I may have mentioned this before, but the kids always hated
going to Bible classes on vacation. In
variably the teachers would find out they were PK’s. They would be expected to know everything from the identity of
Abraham’s father to the exact location of all the stops Paul made on this third
missionary journey. It wasn’t their
favorite experience. But I made sure
they were there. We even showed up on Wednesday night wherever we
might be traveling. I thought I was setting a good example for them that they
would carry into adulthood.
A few years ago, I got a birthday card from one of my
children. The message went something
like this, “Dad, we’ve forgiven you for dragging us into all those Wednesday
night services in strange places when we were traveling.” So much for the example theory.
We eventually found the location of the church we had
planned to attend, and we attended the worship service that morning, which was
all right except for the fact that the song leader seemed to be a Church of
Christ version of a Marine Corps Drill Instructor.
At the conclusion of the service, he announced, “You WILL
return at 6 o’clock this evening.” The
way he put it, there was no option. If
you drove to some place like Arkadelphia to see your sick aunt on Sunday
afternoon, you’d better make dead sure that you got back before 6. Maybe the guy wasn’t all that rigid, but he
sure came across that way, and the kids picked up on it. They had fun with it in the car.
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