During WWII, my dad had draft status 4F, which means he couldn’t be drafted, as there would have been no one to farm his Montana land if he had left.
His recruiting status annoyed Daddy. He was young and vigorous, and yearned to fight the enemies of his country. He knew he was working hard for his country in the field, but his life was devoid of drama. And perhaps he longed for military action most fervor on days when things were not going well on the farm.
Dad and other farmers in 4F Bitterroot Valley liked to talk about the war. They talked about it at the barbershop, of course, and after church on Sunday. What MacArthur and Patton should do to the enemy. What the army, navy and marines must do with the enemy. His male hormones were buzzing rapidly, doing what male hormones do.
The ferocity of the men was only surpassed by that of the little boys, who had no thought of taking down an enemy air squad on their way to Sunday school.
The youth in our Sunday school were especially fierce. In fact, these nine to twelve year olds were incorrigible, by the standards of the time and place. They whispered and laughed, elbowed and shoved each other. They never studied Sunday school lessons. And they chewed gum openly in church.
Several stalwart men from Corvallis Community Church had tried and failed to get these incorrigible into shape. The younger children were taught in the church auditorium, just feet from the adult male and female classes. And every time the teacher of the younger children lost control of those children, the entire audience listened to it.
Then even worse things started to happen. At the end of our class sessions, when we good elementary school kids walked out of our classroom and into the auditorium for closing exercises, we were faced with a terrible vision: the third graders had gone completely insane. They were making V-shaped paper airplanes out of Sunday school brochures. Large white projectiles flew everywhere in the auditorium, over the heads of the men’s and women’s Bible classes.
Every now and then a child would strike a direct hit on the pulpit and even once or twice on the Sunday school superintendent while standing behind the pulpit. And it seemed, from the expressions on the faces in the men’s Bible class, that they were focusing more on the memories of his own childhood than the good Christian example of the Sunday school superintendent, who pretended that nothing had hit him.
The worst thing, of course, was the example he set for the little ones: pure-minded children who had not known, until then, that you could do anything with a Sunday school brochure other than read it. Previously innocent elementary school children were seen examining paper airplanes to see how they were made. It was easy to imagine the effect these illegal missiles were having on their sensitive infant minds, thus sowing the subtle seeds of corruption.
Strong action was needed, and the church leadership turned to Dad to get the youth in shape.
They probably felt that in Dad they had found a disciplinary tiger. But sadly, Dad was not a person who liked to get other people in shape, not even little people. Of course he couldn’t say. After all, he was a member of the church board, and the kind of young man young people should look up to.
The European trenches may have looked especially attractive that week.
Dad had problems for a while, and then lo and behold, he didn’t.
I remember walking into the auditorium after my own Sunday school class, and finding Daddy’s younger kids following his every word. They didn’t want the class session to end. Daddy’s hand seemed to be an American plane constantly moving on its just mission. His other hand, he said, was “Look, this Zero comes up and tries to shoot down the B-29, and the P-38, look, go in there with their guns on …”
He and the young men had come to an understanding. If they paid attention to the Sunday school lesson and behaved well, there would be time to talk about airplanes, real airplanes, at the end of the session. If the boys cut themselves and he had to spend time getting them to behave, he would spend the entire class period fighting with Jonah and the whale.
Your choice.
