The summer of my second grade we moved from Lebanon Junior High School to a brand new red brick school. It had lots of windows and was all on one floor. It was built down over the hill past where the little red and white trolley came to take us to town under a huge concrete underpass. The trolley ran on electric wires along a line. Sparks would fly from the lines when it would make turns or stops. We didn’t travel on the trolley often because we never really went to town much or shopped for that matter. Only on a special occasion. I think maybe two or three times we rode the trolley, and it was fun. I loved getting to get my little paper ticket from the conductor. I recognize it now to be the pass to change from one trolley to another.
My new school was called Walnut Grove. My new teacher was Miss Manandez. She was a very nice school marm like person, quiet and kind. I no longer would have to have a watchful eye open nor be run over by those horrid junior high students anymore. For some reason, we took a cab everyday down the hill to school and back. I guess they had no buses. I just remember getting into a yellow cab with other students heading to the new school. We all came from the trailer park. The memories of the past year, my horrible first grade experience now were all over.... but not forgotten.
That second grade summer was one of the most remarkable times of my life. A summer I will never forget. This summer would be a building block for the rest of my life. One of the ladies in the park held a Summer Bible Time. To this day ..I don’t know her name, nor do I remember her face...but I do remember every Bible story she told... Adam and Eve, Moses and the burning bush, Joseph and the coat of many colors, and more. She used a flannel graph board, with colored figurines. The big flannel board had backgrounds on every page and when one story was finished she flipped it over to the next background for the next Bible story. The cutouts stuck to the board...and as she told the story, she animated the figurines...telling the story!!! Looking back I realize now...this women was doing what God had laid on her heart. She was spreading the gospel to the children in the park. She was the first person to tell the truth of Gods word. She knew that words spoken to a child heart are never returned void. I attribute and count her a huge instrument of my salvation. A salvation I would experience years later. At the end of the summer, I had learned much of the Old Testament stories...and was rewarded with a glow in the dark, light blue colored cross. It had a braided white tassel...Imprinted in the cross was the saying.."GOD IS LOVE"...I held that cross under the lamp every night and tucked it under my pillow to go off to sleep...I wonder just what happened to that cross, somehow, some where I lost it along the way, but the memories it brought will forever be burned into my heart, into my soul!!