Comments by Joan Boney:
Then it was time for me to go to college.
I was very young since I began school at a young age and graduated a year early from high school.
My parents told me I would have to go to Eastern New Mexico University, a small school at Portales, New Mexico, about 49 miles from where we had lived in that little village of about 10 houses.
I had seen a great many movie pictures at the theater in Clovis from the time I was born and felt I belonged in New York City!
A compromise was made.
My Church of Christ aunt said I could go to ACC, a Church of Christ school in Abilene, Texas. (about 280 miles from the village where we lived)
I had never seen Abilene, but I had seen Portales, so I chose Abilene.
The ACC Band came to Clovis that year on tour and my aunt took me to hear them. They seemed OK to me. I wanted to be in music.
So I agreed to go to ACC.
Abilene had a population of about 35,000 at that time, and 3 colleges: Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ.
It seemed a lot more desirable to me than Portales, New Mexico (USA), which had about 10,000 people ... although Abilene was not NYC!
So I enrolled at ACC. (I was 17 years old)
The first day at the dormitory the house mother explained the rules:
There was no way I was going to stay there after hearing those rules.
But then I realized all I had to do was carry my clarinet case with me each time I left the dorm and she would think I was at band practice.
My dad bought me a car to take to college for he said he would not have his daughter catching rides with all types of boys and men.
So when I left the dorm, I carried my clarinet case and locked it in the trunk of my car and when I returned I took my clarinet back into the dorm with me and the house mother said to me, "You work so hard." I replied, "Yes, ma'am." And walked past her and went directly to my room.
I could go any where I pleased without any restrictions at any time, day or night!
But there was one problem at ACC to work around.
You were forced to go to chapel 6 days a week from 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
I hated going to chapel.
They had very long prayers.
Matthew 23:14 Jesus said: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
(From a very young age, I had in me a very strong sense of wrong doing in religious settings.)
Another complication: I was seated next to my best friend and during prayers she pinched me and it hurt a lot. (I think she was trying to make me cry aloud during prayers. Many years later she called me and apologized for doing this. She thought she had cost me my salvation. I told her not to worry. God saved me and I was fine.)
So I quit going to chapel and after a few days I was called to the dean of women's office and asked why I was not attending chapel.
(I did not tell her about my best friend pinching me during prayers.)
But I did tell her this: I was assigned a seat next to a man I had dated. He had been in World War II and smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes. He smelled bad.
The dean of women said she understood the problem and would assign me another seat at chapel.
In a few days, I figured another way out of chapel.
I went to the local music store in Abilene and told them I wanted to teach clarinet at their store, but I could only be there on Monday's through Saturday's from 10:00 am to 10:30 am. They agreed and assigned me a room to use for my students. And above all they gave me a work permit! (Which I forwarded to the dean of women.)
I had no clarinet students at the music store so I never went there again that I can recall.
But no more chapel!
I was then very happy at ACC the first year. I was in band and orchestra and had met a young man I wanted to marry.
But there was one problem. Buddy would only be attending ACC that one year and then he would transfer to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. That was 180 miles away. I was very impatient at 17 years old.
(Buddy's dad was an elder in Church of Christ and later, after I was born again and called into offices of apostle/prophet to exhort the church, I think that would have been serious trouble! But it never reached that point for we broke up and I was extremely depressed and unhappy the remainder of my college years in Abilene, Texas.)
A strange side note: I took a job my first year of teaching in an elementary school in Abilene, Texas. I was so bad as an elementary school fifth grade teacher and so unhappy, that I decided to go to ACC and be tested to see what I should be doing in life.
I took their tests and returned for the results and the young professor said to me as I entered his office, "Where are you going to be preaching?" (he was laughing)
I was shocked and horrified!
(Women can't speak in the church!)
Then he said, "If you were a man we would put you in preaching school so fast it would make your head swim. Your aptitude scores went through the roof in preaching!"
"But since you are a woman, you should be a lawyer."
Again I was shocked.
In mid-1950's women were teachers or married, or perhaps were secretaries. I'd never heard of a woman as a lawyer. I had never thought of law in any form.
Then he said, "The one thing you should never be is an elementary school teacher." (I was pretty sure that was right!)
In the 1980's, I was on radio from coast to coast in USA exhorting the church.
I travelled from city to city where I was on radio and spoke to the radio audiences.
I now had an itinerary.
I thought of that young professor at ACC who asked where I was going to preach.
If I had known his address, I could have sent him my itinerary.
(Sometimes jokes aren't jokes at all!)
To be continued ...
To read Chapter 6, please click here: Attending Church! - Chapter 6
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