If all this sounds a bit archaic, out of touch with reality, maybe even a little silly, it very well may be all of those.  But it happened in another time—a time when values and culture were not as they are today.  A time when the character of those close to us rubbed off on us, and vice versa.  A simpler time, when authority figures were always right…always.  Just because.
        My sister, Karen, three years older and much smarter than I, was cruising through Wellington High School with perfect grades, perfect attendance, perfect everything.  Even perfect teeth, thanks to the braces she had paid for herself by working after school and on weekends at Steve’s Drive-in, and which had been removed about the time these events began.
        She was a very pretty girl, with an average social life for that place and time; she attended parties, went to ball games, and other sporting activities. She also entered many competitions—typing, shorthand, home economics and the like—most of which she won.  Like other girls her age, she occasionally dated, the local good guys, if and when they met with our father’s approval.
        And she went to church.  Our whole family went to church…a lot. And that may be an understatement.  We went to Sunday School and stayed for Worship Service every Sunday morning.  We went to Bible Study and another Worship Service on Sunday night, and to a prayer meeting every Wednesday evening.  Our church had revivals fairly often and, on those occasions, we attended every night of the week.
        Karen played piano for every service, unless she was singing a solo, and she did that often, in the most glorious soprano voice I have heard even to this day.  When she played accompaniment for the choir and congregation, few if any of the parishioners sang louder than I did, her very proud brother.
    
Church attendance was more important to some than to others. For me, it was a pleasant
way to wile away a few hours in the company of mostly good folks.  It might have seemed an inconvenience had there been anything else to do in the way of entertainment; but there was only the Chevy dealership, where we could go to watch the bumpers rust, or television, and no one in town had one.  There was one local movie house. And that was sort of what started all this.
    
Wellington was, and likely still is, a small town, ‘way down close to the tip of Texas, a long way from almost anywhere.  That may have been why at least a decade passed after the release of the movie, Gone With The Wind, before it was finally scheduled to be shown one weekend in the Spring of 1951.
        Mr. John Ghaust was history and math teacher at the high school.  If rankings were up to me, he was easily the most arrogant, self-important human being the world has ever known.  And yes, that’s redundant; he was worthy of both.  He attended Wellington First Baptist Church, which had comparatively liberal guidelines defining a life pleasing to our Lord and Savior, and that may be why he felt it was proper to have his history students see the movie and write a report on it.
        Now the Nazarene Church, where my family went, believed that movies were Satan’s handiwork, every bit as bad as dancing, smoking cigarettes, or drinking alcohol.  They were as evil as using profanity or—Heaven forbid!—mixed gender swimming.  Doing any of those things could and would send your soul straight to Hell, complete with fire and brimstone.
    
Karen was no fanatic about her religion but she was firm.  As in any endeavor, she put forward only her best.  Compromise might be considered, but only on the periphery.  She discussed with Mr. Ghaust the beliefs she held and those of our church, and he explained that he understood, but that watching Gone With The Wind was, in truth, not going to a movie at all.  It was instead completing a history assignment.  Surely anyone could see that.  Right?
     Well…no.  Not according to Mr. Ghaust.  It seemed to Karen, in relating the story afterwards, that the teacher took umbrage with the idea that his beliefs—those of his church—might be in error.  Impossible.  If Baptists have no rule against

 watching movies, then movies cannot be inherently evil.  The all-important and irrefutable fact that theassignment was made by a God-fearing individual such as himself should wash away any latent sin.  Providence would most certainly approve, and she should do as she was told.     

Karen discussed the situation with Brother Jasperson, pastor of our church. She repeated, as near verbatim as possible, the things her history teacher had told her. The pastor said pretty much what she expected: that a “sin is a sin” even if a Baptist says it isn’t.  The all-important and irrefutable fact that a man of God had explained the whys and wherefores of the sin, made the sin, should it be committed, even worse, since it would be with her eyes wide open, so to speak.
     
I hated to see the turmoil Karen was going through, because of things that made little sense to me.  My grasp of religion was nothing  compared to hers, and her quest for perfect grades was equally alien to me.  Still, I felt I should help if I could, so I suggested that I go see the movie for her, pay close attention, take notes if necessary, and together we could write a report and no one would be the wiser.
        Just trying to help. 
        One problem: I was proposing this to a girl who had never cheated at anything, for any reason—ever.  The same girl who destroyed perfectly good school work—term papers, essays, even her butterfly collection for biology class—all earning an A+—so that her younger brother would not be tempted to use them when he took the same classes years later.
     
No, her only acceptable course of action would be to finish reading the book and do the best report possible, and hope that Mr. Ghaust would relent, knowing all the while that it would not happen.
        It was a difficult weekend.  She read and reread, looking for salient passages, taking notes, making and revising outlines.  Of course, she made the requisite appearances in church Sunday morning and evening, with no visible signs of annoyance—a good soldier to the end.  Through the night she wrote and rewrote until finally it was done.
        To no avail.  Mr. Ghaust told Karen that she had written an excellent paper, truly beautiful work, easily the best he had received, but she had not followed instructions and so, should have received an “F.”  Out of the kindness of his heart, he gave it a “C.”
     
That Wednesday, Karen stayed home while the rest of the family went to church, and later on, from time to time, she slept in on Sunday.  Little was left of that spring semester and her grades were decent, but the Coleman boy edged her out for valedictorian.  If it bothered her, she didn’t let it show.  Little changed outwardly, but we who knew and loved her could see a lessening of the passion she had felt for school, and for church.
        She gave her “Gone With The Wind” paper to me, and I used it as a book report in English class.  I got an A+.  
       
 
                         About The Author
  
        New SIG member Buddy McDougald, is a sixty-three year old high school teacher with a BS in Education.  He teaches math, science, and social studies in Wichita Falls, Texas.  He lives with a black Lab and a varying number of barn cats in a log home on a small acreage a few miles from Wichita Falls.
        Buddy enjoys shooting and has a rifle and pistol range behind the barn.  He also likes to fly occasionally, and keeps a small plane at the Kickapoo Airpark.
        He has a novel in progress that has been in revision for a year or so.  “Pomp & Piety” is his first publication credit.  As for his reaction when notified of his placement in the Calliope Fiction Contest: “This has been quite an experience,” he said.
      
    
    
                             Copyright © Buddy McDougald