In the last post I spoke about the beginning of my journey. My time in Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky was incredibly important for my early development. My sister was born, and my life was just beginning.
We lived at the top of the mountain in rural Kentucky for roughly 5 years. My dad was the pastor at the small Baptist church there until I was around 6 years old. A couple of things took place then that caused us to move on from Kentucky.
First my parents had some major conflicts with church members. I really don’t know what all of it was about, but I remember my mom saying something about us taking the vacuum from the church to use in our home. I’m sure there were much deeper issues, but I was much too young to remember anything about it.
The other major thing was that my dad wanted to go back to school. He had decided he was going to begin studies at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. I believe he was going to be attending seminary there, but I don’t actually remember what his course of study was.
What I do remember is the day we moved. I was sitting at breakfast eating Cheerios on a sunny morning in 1995. After breakfast, we cleaned up and got in the moving truck that my parents had rented. We stopped at the bank where my parents closed their account and drove the roughly 5 hours to our new home in Greer, South Carolina. That night, we set up our tv on the floor and slept in sleeping bags on the floor.
We had moved to a trailer park. My parents had agreed to purchase a mobile home from another family. It was at the end of a long gravel road, one of two in the trailer park. It was surrounded on two sides by woods and there was a field between the two roads. Technically there was a playground, but it was most often overgrown with rusty equipment, so we neighborhood kids didn’t play there very often. There was also a pond, though it was often covered in algae and wasn’t great for fishing.
But we didn’t notice any of that. To us, my brother, sister, and I, it was our own little world. There was only one road in and out of the trailer park, and the rest of the park was surrounded by woods or fences. This made it an ideal place for kids to wander freely and get into mischief.
One of our first days there my brother disappeared. My parents looked for him for a long time, worried that he had gotten lost in this new place. It turned out that he had discovered a path that led deep into the woods behind our trailer. We spent many, many days wandering those woods after that. We got to know the woods very well, discovering treehouses that had been built by former inhabitants and a stream where we would catch crawfish.
We also bonded with the neighborhood kids. There were twins, a boy and a girl, that we became particularly close with. There was a mean girl who lived on the other road of the trailer park. We often avoided her, but sometimes she would lead her friends to our dominion and we would all play together. It was with her that I experienced my first kiss, hiding under a play shelter in our front lawn. She tasted like Froot Loops.
My parents, being the Fundamentalist Baptists that they were, didn’t trust the public school system. As a result, my brother, sister, and I were homeschooled. I remember sitting with my mom and fighting with her about doing my daily work. Occasionally I just wouldn’t do it, and I hoped she wouldn’t notice. It never worked.
My mom didn’t work because she had health problems. Like, serious, constant health problems. She said that her health issues started as a result of having had measles as a child. She had kidney disease, and she was on the transplant list. We often accompanied her to dialysis and would sit in the waiting room doing our homework or reading books or being bored for long, long hours that felt like they would never end.
Her health problems put her in the hospital multiple times. In fact, my brother, sister, and I sometimes remember how old we were when certain life events took place by figuring out what our mom was in the hospital for at the time. Her health difficulties did have an upside, however. It meant we got to take occasional trips to Charleston, the beautiful seaside town with palm trees and beaches. We would often go there because my mom was seeing doctors at the Medical University of South Carolina. In between her appointments, we would go to the beach or go see the historical sites. I love Charleston to this day.
My dad, on the other hand, had to work. He attended classes at Bob Jones for maybe one year before he couldn’t afford to continue. He never achieved his degree. The rest of the time he worked at Toys R Us. I cannot even begin to describe how magical it was to have my dad work at a toy store when I was a kid. He got a 10% discount on everything and we would often just go browse the store or spend time there while he was working. My brother and I loved playing the Nintendo 64 demos in the electronics section. Sometimes we would even accompany him for entire shifts. My friends were all jealous.
I was around 9 years old when the Pokemon craze hit. And I’ll tell you: it hit hard. I remember watching the television show and just waiting for the first video games to come out. It was incredibly exciting when I opened the Blue Gameboy game box and extracted my very own copy of Pokemon Blue. I have incredibly fond memories of wasting hours playing that game. And don’t even get me started on the trading cards! My dad’s work had a Pokemon Trading Card League at least one Saturday morning every month where my brother and I would go play the card game and trade cards with other kids.
Yeah, having a dad who worked at Toys R Us was the best.
I’m aware that this is all background and is short on the church and theological background that shaped my life. That will require a blog post of its own. Maybe several. Trust me, you will want to follow the strange, bizarre journey that is my church experience in South Carolina. It’s a thing to behold.
But for now, as I wrap up this chapter of my early years, I want to thank you for joining me on this nostalgic journey down memory lane. Each moment, whether spent in the woods behind our trailer or exploring the aisles of Toys R Us, has played a part in shaping who I am today.
In my next post, I’ll delve into the complexities of my church experience in South Carolina. From fundamentalist Baptist teachings to unexpected twists and turns, it’s a tale that’s as intriguing as it is enlightening.
Until then, be blessed, and stay tuned for more tales from my past.
Coffee & Theology 