This is an opinion column
I bought a bag last week that I will probably never use.
It is small. A simple zipper change bag. I don’t need it and it doesn’t particularly suit my taste. Not my shade of rose. Typically, I think it might appeal to someone much younger, but I touched it. I felt the texture of the beadwork… and it reminded me of a similar beaded changing bag I had as a child.
The church my family attended would have an annual Family Day. Or at least that’s what we called it. It was meant to have a bit of a carnival feel. It would be held during the fall of the year and was intended to serve as a substitute of sorts for Halloween.
Churches still struggle with the question of whether or not to celebrate Halloween. They find it difficult to give Satan an eye and a head even one evening a year. So harvest festivals have become increasingly popular and Family Day was our version of that. I would look forward to it every year. All the kids did.
Church members would volunteer to design a game booth, or run the booth, or supervise an activity, including my parents. Then they would give tickets to everyone who played the game, participated, or competed and at the end of the day we could exchange the tickets for different prizes.
Every year my mother would walk across the country with me once or twice. Those were fun times for me. Between her work and me going to school, the days spent just having fun together were special.
I didn’t label them separate at the time. Only in retrospect can I understand the value of such days.
She was standing there looking at me looking for apples. I never understood bobbing for apples. I mean I get the concept of grabbing apples with your teeth, but who the hell ever came up with that idea? It’s messy. It is borderline gross. And it is a game better made for mules, horses, and jackass perhaps. I don’t know, it just didn’t make much sense to me. But for a couple of tickets… I was all in.
Then she’d wait in line with me to throw darts at balloons and play ring toss and I’d hear her reminiscing about back when she was in school at Sweetwater.
She faithfully stood at a distance with the other moms and dads as we played tug-of-war, and she was there waiting for me at the end of the obstacle course.
We walked over to the prize booth that was set up like a concession stand. I could barely see over the counter. Again she waited while I took my time deciding which of the trinkets and treasures I would choose in exchange for tickets.
She suggested the changing bag. I think she realized that it was a little more practical than a pair of plastic fangs or a Chinese yo-yo. She told me I could keep my school lunch money in it. It was beaded and I loved the feel and pattern of the beadwork.
That was years ago.
The bag last week just reminded me.
It doesn’t matter if I never use it…as long as touching the beads brings me back to Family Day.
Amanda Walker is a columnist and contributor with AL.com, The Birmingham News, Selma Times Journal, Thomasville Times, West Alabama Watchman and Alabama Gazette. Contact him at [email protected] or in https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist.
