Mother of All Foolishness

If I had to categorize all of the foolish things I did in my youth, this would probably take first place.  I was fourteen years old at the time this happened.  In order to describe this event, I have to describe the old church building where my parents attended church.  They were church-going people and I was pretty much required to attend with them.

The church had the normal arrangement of benches on the ground floor, but did have the unique feature of a mezzanine that was built toward the back end of the building.  This mezzanine was accessible by stairs that extended from the back of the general seating area. From this mezzanine were several windows that opened outward. I suppose that the original purpose of the mezzanine was to provide a place for mothers to take and care for fussy babies.  Actually, the mezzanine seats were usually occupied by teenagers who wanted to get away from their parents. We told our parents we wanted to sit in the mezzanine because it was closer to Heaven.  On this particular Sabbath day my friend and I were successful in getting a chair in this special site."

Outside it was a beautiful spring day.  The weather was perfect.  Inside, it was hot and the speakers were about as entertaining as a Democratic politician.  My friend and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, "We've got to get out  here."  We couldn't walk down the stairs because our parents would see us.  The only other possibility was to climb out the back windows. These windows were about thirty feet above the ground.  There was however, an 18 inch ledge at the bottom of the windows that extended both ways to the shingled roof. We stepped out onto the ledge, pushed the windows shut, and very carefully edged our way along the ledge to the roof.  We were then able to throw our leg onto the roof.

Now we faced another challenge.  We were now about forty feet above the ground and there was no way to climb down.  The solution was to walk quietly across the roof to the opposite corner where there was a large tree.  If could reach that tree we could then climb down.  So off we went up to the apex of the roof and than down to the tree located at the opposite corner of the church.

Wayne and I  were puffed up with pride.  We had actually escaped from church. But only for a moment.  We grabbed hold of a limb and then looked down and there stood the Bishop.  He said, "Come on down, boys."   He then took us by the hand and led us back into the church building and then right to the front row and sat us down.  I was humiliated.  My dear mother was mortified.

Later, my mother asked me "What in the world were you thinking?"  Did you think no one would hear you?"  She said that the preacher had just reached a point in his sermon when he was telling the congregation that they should be aware of spiritual signs.  At that point, footsteps could be heard along the rooftop.  She reported that  "every eye in the church except those who were hard of hearing looked up at the ceiling.  Even the hard of hearing eventually looked up to see what the others were looking at.  These eyes followed the progress of the footsteps up to the apex of the roof and then down the others side.  She said that those steps sounded like a bunch of hippopotamuses."  Mother said she began to pray regularly that I may have better judgement in the future.