By Donna Traywick
Mt. Olivet News

On Sunday, July 9,  Mt. Olivet Celebrated their first Sunday as a member of the Global Methodist Church. Bro. Charles gave a very stirring message. Shipp Sissel and William Bolton cooked hamburgers and hot dogs after which the young people enjoyed the bouncy houses.        

These past two weeks have been very wonderful and tiring. Mt. Olivet had vacation bible school, I taught the three and four-year old’s. I looked at the little fellows and I could just see their minds soaking up the stories, just like a sponge. I thought if only we could keep the little fellows going, what wonderful Christians we would have.        

The innocence of children that age is astounding. Country song written by Tom T. Hall wrote a song with the sentence that goes, “God bless little children while they’re too young to hate!” 

What age do children learn to hate? Who do they learn it from? According to Diane Hughes professor of Psychology, New York University, children are not born with hate and prejudice. They learn at a very young age from parents, teachers, friends and social media. Children will reproduce attitudes and words if they are reinforced long enough.        

I had the color me happy pre-school, I had the cutest little blonde hair, blue eyed four-year-old boy. Granddaddy had a way with words. Cuss words that is. Little Billy (not his real name for fear he’s all grown up and reads this) thought that what granddaddy said was just perfect to shock Miss Donna with all the new vocabulary words that he learned from granddaddy.

Every time Billy let loose with a string of bad words, we would march into the bathroom, and swish, and swish and swish until all the bad words were out. He soon learned that granddaddy’s words were not fit for pre-school. 

One day when Billy was home with his mother, he felt it safe to let out a string of granddaddy’s words. When mother reprimanded him, he said “mama, please don’t tell Miss Donna, she’ll make me swish.” 

Oh, to have that same influence with all children. I can truly say that my Bible school experience was well worth me coming home, falling out on the couch and waking up at 2 a.m. then doing the same thing the next night. Mr. Bill Rouse taught the older group and I’m sure he enjoyed it as much as I did.

I attended the visitation service of my neighbor Kenny Anderson Sunday. Kenny was a true outdoors person. He was a commercial fisherman and was at home on the lake every Friday he sold fish on the square. You could always tell Kenny’s fish. It was always fresh and nicely cleaned. Kenny served his country by being a military policeman In the United States Air Force.

I saw Wesley Rutherford, whom I haven’t seen in over fifty years. He told me he read my column and Ricky Swindle’s. I told him that I call Ricky the “Batesville, Jerry Clower.”

Known as the “Mouth of Mississippi” Clower studied agriculture at Mississippi State where he also played football. After finishing College in 1951 he became a county agent and later became a fertilizer salesman in 1954 by this time Clower had developed a reputation for telling funny stories to boost his sales. 

His recording “The coon hunt” received a platinum record and sold over one million records. Clower became a friend of Charlie Pride and opened a lot of Pride’s Shows.

Clower was the author of several books, one of which was ‘Ain’t God Good’. He spoke at many Southern Baptist Conventions. He said his faith kept him happy and able to make others laugh.

Though for the week: I want confidence that comes with conviction. Strength that comes with character grace that comes with humility. Humor that comes with wisdom.  

Get in touch. Waiting to hear from you.

 

Call or text Donna @ 901-828-8824