Spring Break Update
(Wendy Wilson is the Watervalley Elementary school contributor to the Village Voice, the newspaper of Watervalley. The following is a copy of the original article written by Wendy before the 6th Grade Language and Reading teacher, Ms. Grubbs, edited it due to some less than kind commentary. Hope you enjoy it.)
Spring Break Update
By: Wendy Wilson, Elementary School Contributor
Hey, everybody!
From what I hear everyone had a good Spring Break. Several of the teachers really did. I overheard them talking about a party where they ate Jell-O and laughed a lot. Apparently eating Jello at parties is a big deal. Sometimes Daddy makes me raspberry Jell-O, my favorite. But a whole party eating Jell-O? Seriously?
As many of you know, Hope Baptist Church decided to hold a revival the week of Spring Break. Fifty-two weeks in the year and the week of Spring Break is when Pastor Mike thinks we should take God seriously. So, guess where yours truly spent every evening during the week off. Tommy Clyburn, Pearl Pillow, and Marcus Holt’s families were also present for every service, although Tommy and Marcus sat in the balcony and giggled a lot.
One night at the revival the visiting preacher, Reverend Billy Dan Caldwell preached on using our gifts. From what I could see Reverend Caldwell primarily has the gift of consumption. He could eat like a pig. At the church supper he ate four different pieces of pie, claiming that he didn’t want to offend any of the cooks. I think the cooks would be less offended if his belly didn’t look like he had swallowed a Buick.
Spencer Grace Benedict spent the entire two weeks before spring break reminding everybody that her family was going to Destin, Florida for the week. She was all snooty about it, the same way she’s all snooty about insisting that everybody call her Spencer Grace. What is it with people with two names? She says she was named after the movie star Grace Kelly. Pearl Pillow and I told her she looked like the movie star Spencer Tracy. She was all happy about it until she went home and Googled it.
During Spring Break I got online everyday and checked the weather for Destin, Florida. It rained the whole time. Ha! Apparently God thought that Spencer Grace should have stayed home and gone to the revival. She posted pictures of a sunny beach on Facebook, but I think they are stock pictures. She got a tan but it looks a lot like the kind you get in a tanning bed. Seems suspicious.
Bianca Maxwell and her mom went to the Green Hills Mall in Nashville and she got a shirt from the Abercrombie store with a big A on it, which seems dumb because her name starts with a B. Duh. Anyway, she likes it and thinks it’s a big deal. Maybe the A just stands for what she hopes to make in math one day.
Tommy Rose got a dog over spring break. Tommy’s the meanest kid in our class. It’s probably because people make fun of his brown teeth. Tommy’s real skinny and not much to look at. Still, he shouldn’t be so mean to everyone. And guess what? You’d think he would have gotten a pit bull or some kind of dog that’s mean like him. But instead he got a beagle and it just follows him everywhere and is always licking his face. I guess dogs don’t care about ugly, or even good dental hygiene.
Grady Stovall and his family went to Gatlinburg. It was crowded. One afternoon they drove over to North Carolina and Grady got his picture made with a real live Cherokee Indian. He said the Indian didn’t look very happy which is understandable since his ancestors were made to walk to Oklahoma. I hope he didn’t have to walk back to North Carolina and was at least able to ride the bus. After the picture was taken the Indian looked at his watch and said it was time for his break. He walked over to some trees and smoked a cigarette. I guess they don’t smoke peace pipes anymore.
Daddy took me to the Mule Day Celebration over in Columbia to watch the parade. There were a lot of mules and politicians. Daddy said that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two. Daddy got all cleaned up and got our neighbor to milk the cows so we could stay and go to the celebrations that night. There were a lot of pretty women there and Daddy smiled at them. I think Daddy’s lonely. I wish he could find a girl friend. I think he’s a real catch when he doesn’t smell like silage.
Anyway, back to the revival. On Thursday night Tommy and Marcus got to giggling so loud up in the balcony that Reverend Billy Dan Caldwell stopped right in the middle of his sermon and stared at them. Tommy’s mom Shirley Clyburn marched right up there and dragged him outside to the cemetery and spanked the daylights out of him. I think she worries because Mr. Clyburn didn’t come to the revival and spends a lot of time at the Alibi Tavern. Tommy hollered so loud Daddy said that he might wake up the dead. He was certainly in the right place for it.
I found out later that Tommy and Marcus had gotten one of the Baptist Hymnals and were thumbing through it and whispering the phrase “between the sheets” after every song title. They were cracking up pretty good with “How Great Thou Art” (between the sheets), and “Since I Have Been Redeemed” (between the sheets), but when they got to “I Surrender All” (between the sheets) Marcus lost it and laughed so hard he blew snot out of his nose which made Tommy laugh so hard he cried. I guess Tommy’s mom saw to it he had something to cry about.
Later that night Tommy made a recommitment of his life at the alter call invitation. So, I guess it all turned out for the best, although I think he just did it because it was too painful to sit down.
I did a spell check on this article and the Word software program said it was written on the 4.9 grade level, which I find very insulting because I am in the sixth grade. It was probably because I wrote about dumb people like Bianca Maxwell. Our math and science teacher, Ms. Chambers, says we are about to study Einstein in science. So, next time I write an article, I’ll talk about that and Word will show me writing on a much higher-grade level.
I’m Wendy Wilson, and that’s this year’s Spring Break update!
