I attended a variation of this program and I can't say i remember too much of it. However, i do remember these things:

  • the teacher was really excited that i had memorized the Hail Mary. I didnt understand why since it wasnt very long. To this day I still remember it word for word.

  • I was scared shitless at the start of the Gulf War because our 'teacher' was talking about ww2 and for some reason thought the gulf war would be world war 3.

  • I liked to climb around in a juniper tree around the church. Climbing down through its branches made the walk from the parking lot to the classrooms a bit closer.

  • Once I bitched out the lady in charge of the program .. i was a mean little kid.

  • Our church was near the beach and I perfectly remember the way the fog came over the hill moving so fast that if you ran as fast as you could to the east and looked straight up it seemed like you werent moving at all. However, sometimes this would cause me to crash into the chain link fence. Also, sometimes when it rained there would be a huge 'waterfall' off the edge of the terraced parking lot. I saw a lot more of God in the weather those Wednesday afternoons than i did in that class.

  • the lady teaching my brother's class told him that he had 'black marks' on his soul for every time he had sinned. I argued and fought with my brother as much back then as anyone does with a little brother but even back then it made no sense to me that hed deserve/need to have black marks on his soul. That was one of the many things that killed organized religion for me