It's official - my roller coaster riding days are over; when you're over 40, getting your head bashed around at high speeds is no longer thrilling. As I look back on our trip to the music festival, which was conveniently located in an amusement park, that's one of my big takeaways. The other, is that teenagers are more fun than I thought. Thank you all for covering us in prayer - we had a great time and I managed to stay awake for 22.5 hours (this is like a miracle).
I met the girls at 4:30 in the morning and to my surprise, I was chaperoning 9, not 6 like I thought. I knew some of them and Kacy was very polite - addressing me as "Yes ma'am" although it clearly pained her to do so. She later told Miss Sassy that she was trying very hard to control her anger because she didn't want to get kicked off this trip - a big deal for her as she'd been kicked off previous fun trips.
An odd thing happened though and I'll leave you to ponder it....We stopped for breakfast at a planned stop between a McDonald's and a Bojangles. Chaperones were allowed to eat first, so Little Mama and I chose to go to McDonald's. As we ordered, we realized all the computers were down and they were doing everything by hand. Because we were in a time crunch (and the McDonald's people couldn't do math), we herded 75 kids into Bojangles. My group staggered in the door and were doing this quirky teenage thing where they cluster together in small groups and collectively cut in front of people. There was an old man in his late 70's or early 80's standing in line and I watched them form a cluster and scoot in sideways. "Hey guys." I yelled. "Please get BEHIND the gentleman in line." They did so and Little Mama and I sat and waited for them to order and eat. I observed him because he was wearing a distinctively crisp blue uniform of some sort and I was trying to figure out where he could possibly work. When he'd gotten his food, he approached my table and said, "Are you the leader of these young ladies?" I warily said, "Of some of them." There were, after all, over 75 kids in the restaurant and I was waiting for him to tell me about some infraction he saw while in line with them. "Hold on." He said. "I have something for you." He left and walked out to his car. Just then, one of my girls, Lisa, rushes to my table and says, "Miss Erika, he gave us gum." "What? He gave gum to who?" I asked. "To me and Kacy. He gave me and Kacy gum!" At that point, Kacy takes a pack of Juicy Fruit out of her pocket and smiles. "We're not gonna eat it though, cuz what if it's poisoned!"
I was thoroughly confused. I peeked out the window, saw him walking back in and went to the door to meet him. He was carrying 3 huge bags of candy - I mean industrial sized unopened bags of wrapped candy and he thrust them toward me. "Well, thank you." I said. "What's this for?" He just nodded, smiled, turned around and left. By this time, the whole restaurant was watching and the kids and teachers were fascinated. Now what are the odds that out of at least 100 people in that restaurant, I get the candy and the only people he gives gum to is Lisa and Kacy? It turned out to be a great icebreaker and a huge hit on the bus. We all agreed that ordinarily we wouldn't take candy from strangers, but this wasn't an ordinary stranger. I have not been able to stop thinking about him.
We finally made it to the park and I ended up with 3 more girls somehow. The kids got an "Excellent" rating on their performance and personally, an "excellent" behavior rating from me. I rode a high thrill coaster with Lisa (because everyone else was too scared) and Little Mama did witness Kacy steal a piece of candy from a store, (a tiny piece she assured me) but she was too afraid to say anything to her. That was wise on her part because I could tell Kacy was struggling to hold it together by the time we got back. All in all, it was a great experience and when they get to high school next year, I'll already have a relationship with 11 of them. Thanks again for praying!
Glad your trip was a success :) Miss you and hope to chat with you soon...love reading your blog...
Posted by: Jodi | 05/20/2010 at 08:39 PM