Caught in a Sticky Situation

From across the nation, individuals and families moved into St. Mary Parish, and throughout South Louisiana in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Oil and gas jobs were abundant and workers were badly needed to keep up with the strong economy. With Morgan City one of the key outposts into the Gulf of Mexico, nearby Patterson provided a great home base for families who wanted to live in a smaller community, but still be close to work. Although hundreds and hundreds of families moved and actually settled in the area, there were just as many people who were in and out, some for a few weeks or a few months, some only for a night or two due to a vehicle breakdown or because they missed their bus and had to wait 24 hours for the next one.

In my home, my parents welcomed friends and relatives over the years who stayed with us from time to time while they looked for work or simply needed an overnight stay before catching a crew boat or helicopter the next morning en route to an oil platform in the Gulf. At First Baptist Church of Patterson, every visitor was welcomed and oftentimes visitors were taken care of when they needed a tank of gas, groceries, clothes or simply some encouragement and prayers. As is the case everywhere, there are always bad seeds and people who try to take advantage of the good deeds of others. Everyone is a sinner. But, not everyone is a criminal. Not every criminal is in jail. Not every convict who is released from prison manages to stay out of trouble and live a life absent of crime. Not even criminals who show up at church out of the blue seeking a fresh start. Not even a man by the name of Mike.

Not everyone knows this, but at one point, the church bulletin that listed the Sunday order of service and general announcements was also the best piece of paper for making paper airplanes. I don’t like to brag, but at my peak of designing and building paper airplanes out of church bulletins, I was most likely the best ever. Sure, sure there will be people like Lonnie Easley, Ray Cowart, Glen Cook, or even some of the older developers like Randy Bacle or Steve Stewart who will take issue with my status, but we will save that debate for another time. The point is, the weight of the paper, its size and the near-perfect atmosphere of the church auditorium provided us boys a great place to build and most importantly, a place to fly our creative designs. Now before anyone thinks too ill of what I am saying, airplane building and flying took place after the morning service or before the evening service when it was only us kids around. Sure, it still wasn’t what we should have been doing but, well, it happened.

I will ask in advance for the forgiveness from the wonderful church secretaries like Mrs. Mary Lou Stewart and Ms. Jeannie Turner who I know probably hand-cranked thousands of these bulletins out of an old mimeograph machine only to later see them used as paper airplanes. But in our defense, recycling wasn’t a concept that had caught on in those days so after church, the bulletins would go in the trash anyway. Today, as I think about it, maybe us boys were trendsetters and were doing our own version of recycling. Seriously, look at the money we saved our parents by creating our own toys, how we took something that was going in the trash and made it into something useful. Smile.

For some reason, one Sunday afternoon, Ray Cowart, Lonnie Easley and I were at church way ahead of the evening service that started at 6 p.m. Maybe we had to arrive early because our parents had a meeting or something, but finding ourselves bored, we decided to find some bulletins, make some airplanes and see who could make their airplane achieve the greatest distance, height, time in the air, etc. We did that for awhile but soon got bored and began looking for something else to do. Probably in one of the Sunday School classes we found some of that sticky clay that was used to stick paper and signs and stuff to walls. This stuff was seriously sticky and when you made a small ball and threw it against the wall, it would stick. Not forever but for several minutes unless you pulled it off. Move over paper airplanes, modern science is taking us onto another adventure.

Of course we ended up in the auditorium goofing off and throwing these pieces of clay at each other and against the wall. Nothing terrible, just some boisterous preteens who were bored and had found a new game. At least that’s how we justified things at the time. The surface of the ceiling was flat with small tiles and the distance from floor to ceiling was probably about 30 feet. It didn’t take long for one of us to throw the sticky substance upward to see if it would stick to the ceiling. Well it did, but only for seconds at a time, probably due to the lack of force and the distance we had to throw to make it to the ceiling. About this time, a few people were coming into the auditorium to get ready for the evening service. One person who entered was an ex-convict who came to town one day, saying he was looking for work and wanted to get his life back on track. He managed to say all the right things, attended church regularly and I guess found a job because he was around for a few months.

When Mike saw what we were doing, he pulled us aside and lit into us, reminded us how disrespectful it was and how we should be ashamed of ourselves. Now if anyone else had said all of this to us, we would have listened, said yes sir and moved on. But hearing all of this from someone recently released from prison echoed hollow in our young minds. He was right but we looked at it from a different perspective I guess. As Mike walked away,out of defiance I picked up my piece of clay and hurled it at the ceiling one last time. I walked underneath the spot where the clay stuck to the ceiling and waited for it to fall into my waiting hands. Well I waited a minute or two and nothing happened. Ray and Lonnie came over and looked up at the clay holding its place on the ceiling. They looked at me and panic filled our eyes because the church was starting to fill up and the service would start any minute. We needed that clay to fall right then and there. For one thing we couldn’t afford for the clay to fall during the service and secondly, the clay was close to the front of the church, right over the third row near the aisle. What were we going to do?

The service was only a few minutes away so the three of us found a seat near the back of the church, worried, afraid and unsure how bad everything was going to end for us that night. At first, no one took the seats under the clay, giving us some hope. No sooner did we breathe a sigh of relief than we saw two people walking down the aisle, looking like they wanted to sit close to the front, wanted to sit in the seats that were….right there, underneath the clay. Ohhhh noooo. We were whispering, blaming each other for throwing the clay, asking each other what we should do, deeply worried. If only that convict Mike had not caught us, we might be okay, but we knew for sure Mike would rat us out. We knew he was the only one who knew our secret and how the clay got on the ceiling in the first place, that is if it fell during the service.

The song service dragged by. The sermon seemed to last forever, the prayers longer than usual. Through the entire service, Lonnie, Ray and I stared at the ceiling, willing the clay to stay put. The unsuspecting couple on the third row had no idea what was above their heads. The entire congregation was attentive and enjoyed a typical Sunday night service. Well, everyone but three preteen boys and one man who had not long ago been a resident of Angola Prison. The clock ticked. The service continued. The clay remained. Three goofy boys sitting on the back row counted the seconds until church was over. I prayed. Lonnie prayed. Ray prayed. The clay…….stayed.

When the final amen was said, the three of us bolted out the door of the church and ran to the parking lot, relieved. We had made it. No one knew about the clay. No one, well almost no one but us three boys knew how that clay got stuck on the ceiling. Surely the clay would fall during the week, before the next Sunday service. All we had to do was stay away from Mike, say nothing to anyone and things would turn out okay. When we arrived for church the next Sunday we went into the auditorium to check on the clay. Miraculously, the clay was still there, still clinging to the ceiling. Ray, Lonnie and I couldn’t believe it. How could that piece of clay stay there? As you can imagine, we sweated through another Sunday service worried the clay would fall. I felt like Mike was staring at us, plotting against us, ready to tell my Dad about the clay. We couldn’t keep worrying about this situation week in and week out. We couldn’t keep worrying about Mike telling our parents. What could we do?

Everyone is a sinner. Especially three mischievous, adventure-seeking boys growing up in a small South Louisiana town in the 1970’s. But, not everyone is a criminal.  Not every criminal is in jail. Not every convict who is released from prison manages to stay out of trouble and live a life absent of crime. Not even criminals who show up at church out of the blue seeking a fresh start. Not even a man by the name of Mike. Because the following week, Mike was picked up by the police for writing bad checks and sent back to jail. I know three boys who breathed a sigh of relief that week. The piece of clay? Well, it stayed on the ceiling for months and months, even discolored the tile around it and at some point it fell. Once again, three mischievous, adventure-seeking boys growing up in a small South Louisiana town in the 1970’s breathed a sigh of relief.

From Son of A Preacher Man, by Steve Achord