Our Singles group at church did so well in 1980 going to Philadelphia to do Vacation Bible School for the kids, they invited us back for another week in the summer of 1981. We took more people this time. Some of those from the year before went, but most of them were newbies, so us veterans could tell them what to expect.
We stayed at the same church as the year before. However, they had us set up one VBS site at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. I did the puppets. I only had three people doing puppets rather than the four the year before, so I had to rewrite the scripts for just 3 puppets. It wasn't too hard, although I only had one female, so her lines were a bit more than the two males. We used another refrigerator box for our stage, and we did 3 shows per day. The kids seemed to like it.
One of the kids who came was named Zoom. I don't know his real name, but he ran everywhere. He had more energy than anyone. If anybody knows Zoom now, tell him hello.
One night, our group went downtown to look around and have a steak dinner at a restaurant. I ordered the cheapest steak on the menu, and the waiter brought a steak that was much bigger than the picture. I started in on it, and got about a quarter eaten, when the waiter came over and told me that he had mistakenly given me a steak ordered from another table. He asked me to give him the steak back. I asked him what was he going to do? Serve an eaten steak to someone else? The waiter then said I would have to pay the difference for his mistake. That would have been close to $50. So, I asked to speak to the manager. He came to our table, and I told him what had happened. He said it was the waiter's fault, and I could have the expensive steak at the price I should have paid for the cheaper one. Good customer service kept me from having to wash dishes to pay for the bigger steak. Good call, Mr. Manager. I hope the waiter wasn't fired.
Another trip we took while there was back to Amish country. We ate at a restaurant there which was out of this world. If you ever get to go to Amish country, bring an empty stomach. One guy in our group ate an entire chicken, or maybe 3. He couldn't eat anything for a couple of days.
One afternoon, the kids in the neighborhood challenged us to a stickball game. We had never played stickball, but we had played a lot of baseball, so we knew we would win. After all, most of us were in our twenties, and these kids were in like 6th grade. The stick was a broomstick, and the ball resembled a small tennis ball. If it hit anything, it wouldn't break it. We played the game in the street with cars on either side. Everyone had a nickname, so the kids named me "Walt the Stalt" after the basketball player Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain. We found early on that you couldn't just swing the stick as hard as you could to hit the ball. Their pitching was relentless. They knew that if they hit the ball under a car that it would be a homerun, because we couldn't get to it in time. They beat our socks off. It was rather humbling. But, we had a good time interacting with the kids on their home turf. We definitely didn't let them win. They were just too good for us.
I did have a scare while in Philly. I had to eat a Hoagie. It was a requirement. I don't know what sauce they used, but it turned out I was allergic to it. My tongue and lips got swollen. Thankfully, it was our last night before leaving to go back home, so the puppet shows were done. The swelling went down by the next morning, and I was okay, but I think I won't be getting a Hoagie again.
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