For my grandmother, who was born in 1889, the Sunday School picnic in August was the social event of the year. During my pre- and early teen years, it was quite an occasion for me as well.

In late July, Dad would nail a poster on our shed door announcing the picnic, the date, and the featured band. Because our church was a "union church" with German Reformed and German Lutheran congregations alternating Sunday services, we had two Sunday School picnics in adjacent picnic groves, although the congregations did share the same cemetery. The Lutherans held their picnic on the Saturday before the Reformed service and vice versa. That way if you didn't get home until 11 p.m., you could sleep in on Sunday morning.

The picnic began at 2 p.m. with a religious service. The local Parryville Band would have already tuned up their instruments. The minister preached a brief sermon, followed by a hymn or two, usually including "This Is My Father's World" that has an outdoorsy theme. After the service the wooden benches remained for people who forgot to bring their lawn chairs.

Next came the kids' games organized by the Sunday School teachers. We had peanut scrambles, three-legged races, a fishing pond where presents in paper bags would be tied to a pole that you stuck over a blanket draped over a rope, and watermelon eating contests divided into boys' and girls' divisions.

The watermelon contest was messy. Large slices of watermelon were placed on paper plates, and contestants had to eat the watermelon while holding their hands behind their backs. Much to the embarrassment of Mother, my sister Kay and I always won our respective divisions. The trick is to swallow the seeds, not pausing to spit them out.

After the sponsored events, the kids would move to an open field across the road for a game of softball. These were country kids who never had enough players in one place to play a softball game with two teams except before 4-H meetings and at church picnics.

Purchases at the picnic were paid for with tickets. You could get a ticket for ten cents; buy three or four dollars worth and you'd be set for the day. Since you paid for everything with tickets, the servers had no need to make change. You could spend the tickets at the food stand, ice cream stand, drinks stand, or candy stand. Men always dipped the ice cream, teenagers ran the candy booth, the drinks booth was mixed, and women served the hamburgers and hotdogs.

One of the food items was labeled "chicken barbecue." Imagine the surprise of visitors who ordered this item and found it to be cooked shredded chicken in a bun with not even a hint of barbecue sauce.

After the sun went down, kids took crates to collect the empty glass soda and chocolate milk bottles scattered around the picnic grounds. For every full crate we would get a free bottle of Bear Creek Dairy chocolate milk, possibly the best ever made.

The evening brought the high point for many attendees—the cakewalk. A large circle was roped off with an arrow spinner in the middle along with tables full of cakes, pies and watermelons, sometimes a hundred or more. The band would strike a lively John Phillip Sousa march and participants would start walking, paying a ten cent ticket for each spin. When everyone had paid, the music stopped, people faced the center, the arrow spun, and some lucky winner would take home a cake.

When I went back in the 1990s I was appalled to find that the cakewalk had become a "cake stand." Some people actually sat on lawn chairs in the circle, and no one moved. A stickler for keeping folk traditions alive, the following year I printed up instructions on how a cakewalk was supposed to work, made a hundred copies, distributed them, and watched in disgust as nobody walked anyway.

The Lutherans built a new church some years ago, so the two congregations now meet separately every Sunday. They still have picnics, but I no longer attend. I wonder if they ever learned to make chicken barbecue.

~ Roy Christman