Church was hard on me. I was sure church clothes had been designed by the devil. My mother was raised by Appalachian parents. I mention this because religion was the central influence on their lives. Bootleggers might have been rife among them but it didn’t mean they weren’t numbered among the faithful. It was not uncommon for preachers and the devout to reinforce their churching with moonshine.

At any rate, my mother was determined to drag her children into heaven, against their will if necessary. She translated her faith into works using her ancient treadle machine sewing dresses with twirly skirts, puffy sleeves, lace, fancy collars, and gigantic sashes that tied in a big bow. It mattered little that they might be made of printed feed sacks. The workmanship made them fancy. My brother was shined up in Sunday best that ensured his misery as well. Just in case we might get a little comfortable, she starched and ironed these clothes till they were so stiff they could stand alone.

If ruffles and misery could have gotten us in heaven, Mother’s kids had nothing to worry about. Getting ready for church started Saturday night with a bath and hair washing. No problem with that. The trouble started when Mother got out the hair pins and tissue paper. She clamped me between her knees and divided my straight, straggling hair into tiny strands wrapped in tissue paper. My hair was fine and dried quickly, so she continuously dipped her comb in a bottle of curling lotion the consistency of snot. I never got the connection between biting the plastic ends of hair pens and pain, so there was plenty of scalp scraping as she slid the pins into the curls. Knowing that my sister would suffer, too, did me little good, since she liked pretty hair and would do anything to look pretty. My wiggling and protesting didn’t help. Mother had her pride and would not suffer a daughter with straight hair on Sundays. As she clinched her knees tighter she hoped I’d have fifteen girls with straight hair. That didn’t bother me. I had no intention of having any girls or boys, straight-haired or otherwise. I was going to be a cowboy!!

My sister loved anything to do with church, making me look particularly bad. The only glimmer of hope was that she was slow and Mother threatened to leave her every Sunday.  She always came flying out as the car backed out carrying shoes, makeup, and jewelry, jumping in the front seat and twisting the mirror so she could get her lipstick on straight.  It was a waste of time anyway.   No-one was going to see past her clown hair to notice her lipstick.   When I tried dawdling around in hopes of getting left, Mother saw right through it.  It was obvious I wasn’t wasting any effort getting ready lying on the floor in front of the TV watching Davy and Goliath.

Sunday school was tolerable.  The teachers didn’t expect much, happy if we could just answer a couple of questions after the lesson. Usually, we got through a few minutes early we got to play a little before church.  I had to be careful not to get too rowdy.  Chairs were just waiting to snag skirt tails and snatch off sashes.  I knew from experience my mother would not be happy if I showed up in church with a torn, dirty dress or missing sash.

Church started well enough.  Singing was good.  The words didn’t always make sense.  I didn’t know why we sang about the laundry, “Bringing in the Sheets”(sheaves), but so much else didn’t make sense either so I sang along enthusiastically. It just didn’t last long enough.  I tried to be still and listen to preaching.  Sometimes the preacher told an interesting story when he started and another at the end, but there was a lot of not so interesting in between. 

Sitting still was hard.  I would try counting, finding people in church whose name started with each letter of the alphabet, looking at pictures in the Bible, reading ahead in my Sunday School Book.  When I wiggled or turned around , Mother looked sternly and shook her head.  I knew I’d be in big trouble if I didn’t behave.  It didn’t do any good to say I had to go to the bathroom.  Mother always made me go right before we went in.  Some kids got to look in their mother’s purse for toys or gum, but Mother wasn’t having any of that. Sadly for me, we never attended one of those

Some members of the congregation were dear to me, dependable for relieving the tedium of a long Sunday service.  Mr. Dick Peppridge sat just in front of us in his ancient, shiny black suit.  He was deaf as a post and never spoke to me, but I admired him breaking up the tedium of services periodically.  He’d relax and drift off to sleep and treat us to a flatulent recital.  There were no cushions on the pews, so the bursts echoed several times like a screen door flapping before dying out.  Good Old Mr. Dick. Once a rowdy four-year-old delighted us by tooting raucously during prayer and proclaiming, Gosh darn!  I farted!

Daddy was proud of his standing in church enforcing an unbreakable rule.  The seven of us had to sit together, setting a good example for the rest of the congregation. We sat in the fourth pew from the front, in the same order Sunday after Sunday.  Phyllis filed in first, seated the fartherest from Daddy, since she could be depended on to behave perfectly.  She was responsible for Connie, the next to the youngest.  I had to sit between Mother and Marilyn, the youngest, since I needed to be where Mother could give me dirty looks without drawing attention to herself. Billy had the worst spot of all, wedged between Mother and Daddy.  My older sister oved church and enjoyed the admiration of the saintly, making me look even more like a heathen. Instead of running wild in the parking lot after church services, she joined my parents as they talked to the other worshippers.  God answered my prayers and gave her what she deserved for her prissiness one Sunday morning.  Daddy and Phyllis were part of a group discussing some matter of grave importance to the congregation. Phyllis stood listening quietly as the conversation became more animated. Seizing a break in the tempo, Mr. Cornell Poleman burst in determined to make his point, even though his nose was near to bursting with congestion. Never one to waste an opportunity, he had his say, yanked his handkerchief from his pocket, ducked his head and snorted.  Luckily for Mrs. Poleman, he missed the handkerchief leaving one less disgusting handkerchief in Monday’s laundry. Simultaneous with the snort, Phyllis felt a warm, repulsive flop, looked down, and saw a huge slimy slug of yellow-green congealed snot on her forearm, still warm from nasal incubation.  Mr. Poleman brought her out of shock by grabbing her arm, smearing it wildly with his snowy handkerchief, while apologizing continuously.  Horrified, she fled the attentive crowd for the church bathroom where she scrubbed her arm with soap and water, then Comet scouring powder.  Still not satisfied, she looked for something she could use to amputate her arm.  Finding only a toilet brush and the deodorizer hanging in the toilet bowl, she finally doused herself with Clorox and came on out, with Mother falsely assuring her the crowd was gone and probably no one had noticed anyway.