THE WAXHAW YEARS

COLD WATER BAPTISM

From 1984 to 1998 I was the pastor of the Gospel Way Baptist Church in Waxhaw, NC. The almost one hundred year old church building was located in a rural setting and had a large cemetery behind it. It was a picturesque church building with small arches over the windows and clapboard siding painted white. The steps leading up to the front doors were steep and the front doors opened toward the outside which made every entry and exit a small exercise in faith and agility to keep from falling down the stairs. There was a heating and cooling system installed but due to the lack of proper insulation the temperatures inside the building were pretty much the same as the outside. In the winter it was cold and in the summer it was hot.

Since the building had been built for a Presbyterian congregation, who practice sprinkle baptism, there was no baptismal pool. Since Baptists follow the practice of immersion baptism we just held our baptisms at other Baptist churches nearby that had a baptism pool built into their sanctuary.

Waxhaw Baptist Church, also referred to as Roundtop Baptist Church, was one of the churches nearby that allowed us to use their facility. The Roundtop name came from the round design of the building. The story was that when the church was built they did not want any corners inside the building where the devil could hide so they built a round shaped building! The pastor there told me they had a baptismal service planned one Sunday but the deacon in charge of filling up the pool with water forgot to fill it up. They called the local volunteer fire department to bring out their fire truck to fill the pool up just before the service started. People arriving for the service, seeing the firetruck and firemen, thought there had been a fire at the church but laughed with relief when they discovered the excitement was just caused by a forgetful deacon.

King Memorial Baptist Church was another church nearby that allowed us to use their building for baptisms. The internal water heater for the baptismal pool at King Memorial was broken and too costly for their congregation to repair so they just used an immersion water heater designed for cattle troughs to heat up the water in their pool. The water in their pool had to be manually stirred around with a boat paddle to evenly distribute the heat to avoid getting warm water only on the top few inches of the pool.

One cold, winter Sunday we had a baptism service planned at King Memorial Church and they had forgotten to turn the water heater on in time to properly heat the baptismal pool. When one of their deacons and I checked the water temperature before the service it felt warm as far as we could reach down into it so we figured it was warm enough to use. I normally wore chest waders under my clerical robe while baptizing folks so when the time came for me to step down into the pool I put on the waders and slowly walked down the steps into the water. As I entered the pool I could instantly tell that the water was only warm for the top few inches but frigid feeling after that. There were several people who were really excited about being baptized that day and not wanting to squelch their enthusiasm nor take away from the solemnity of the service, I proceeded. The first person baptized that day was a young girl who let out a small gasp when she first entered the water. Not wanting to rush through an important occasion but acutely aware of the girls discomfort I expedited her baptism then helped her make a quick exit out of the cold water.

The next person to be baptized was a man named Duane. Duane and I were friends and he had decided he wanted to be baptized. Duane entered the pool with a big smile on his face but as he walked further down into the frigid cold water he also gasped quietly. With an unwavering smile on his face he turned to me and whispered “Craig, I’m going to kill you”. Knowing Duane had a good sense of humor and did not mean it literally I smiled back and lowered him under the icy cold water. He came up laughing and gasping, gave me a friendly hand shake then moved quickly up the steps out of the water. As he got to the top step he turned back towards me still laughing and exclaimed “thank God that’s over”. We had many laughs together about his cold-water baptism for years after that.

 

It was at this same church, King Memorial Baptist, that I had the privilege of baptizing all three of our children. The water in the baptistry on that day was warmer, thankfully, and no one was freezing during the service!

THE HERDMANS COME TO VBS

Barbara Robinson wrote a book titled “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” in which she tells a story about the Herdman family and their first experience in a church Christmas play. The six Herdman kids show up at a church meeting for the free snacks and end up being the star players in the church’s annual Christmas pageant. It a very humorous story about the uncouth antics of the Herdman kids interacting with the church kids and creating multiple problems for the pageant. The story explains that the whole town was wary of the Herdman family because their six kids were so bad. From setting fires to bullying other children they are portrayed as rowdy and mean kids.

I pastored the Gospel Way Baptist Church in Waxhaw, NC for about 15 years. The church building was in a rural setting with numerous homes and farms scattered around the area. The church had an annual Vacation Bible School for the children in the church and surrounding community. We would usually have good attendance at these weeklong events with fun activities and Bible story lessons. One year we had some children from a new family in the community show up. When their parents dropped them off at the church the first day, they mentioned how nice it was for the church to “give them a break from their children” and seemed joyfully relieved as they drove away.

As the VBS week unfolded all the teachers and I began to clearly understand why these parents were so glad for time away from their kids. To be fair these new kids apparently came from an unstable home life situation with little instruction on manners, civility, and decorum. Despite their rudeness, rough ways, and salty language the teachers and I decided it was a good opportunity to express true Christian love, grace and patience with these kids. Toward the end of the week, I walked past the men’s restroom and saw smoke curling out from under the bathroom door. I knocked on the door but got no answer so tried opening the door and found it was locked.  The sound of scuffling feet and coughing came from behind the locked door, so I asked who was in the bathroom and was anything on fire? The response from the three little boys came in unison, “we are fine, and no one is smoking in here”. After asking them to please unlock the door the three spilled out of the bathroom together smiling innocently. Cigar smoke was thick in the room and the unpleasant aroma flowed out of the bathroom quickly spreading into the rest of the small church building. Although the teachers and I found it amusing we tried not to laugh and checked to be sure the trash can was not on fire. The VBS week ended without further incident but from that time on we all secretly referred to the rowdy kids as the Herdmans. That family did visit the church occasionally after the VBS week but thankfully, they refrained from smoking cigars in the bathroom again.  

SNAKE IN THE BATHROOM

During my years as pastor of the Gospel Way Baptist Church in Waxhaw, NC we had many church workdays to repair, maintain and remodel the 100+ year old church building. Being a small congregation of able-bodied people, we did almost all the work ourselves. On one of these workdays a deacon named Frank was working on a plumbing issue in one of the restrooms. Frank was a very talented and skilled man in many areas and excelled at home and building repairs and remodeling. Frank was also deathly afraid of snakes. He never shared why he was so afraid of them but even the mention of the word “snake” would give him goose bumps. At some point during the plumbing repair Frank discovered that a small black snake had crawled into the bathroom and was curled up in the corner behind the toilet. Frank fairly exploded out of the bathroom door screaming as he ran out of the building toward his truck. Still screaming he reappeared seconds later with his pistol and raced back into the bathroom. Several gunshots were heard which brought everyone else running toward the noise.

Frank, still shaking and now pale as a ghost, slowly exited the bathroom muttering “snake” and walked back outside. Another deacon named BJ and I went into the bathroom to see what had happened. We found the small snake, now dead and with several bullet holes, laying in the corner. BJ calmly exclaimed “well I guess the good Lord called that snake home”, picked up the serpent’s corpse and carried it outside. After Frank had calmed down he went back into the bathroom, fixed the plumbing issue and patched the holes in the walls where the bullets had ricocheted off of the concrete floor. Thankfully only the snake was injured during the shooting although we did kid Frank about being the church’s official snake killer from that time on.

HOBO AND THE POSSUM

During the years we lived in Toccoa, Georgia we acquired a cat we named Hobo. The desire for a cat was due to some suspicious noises Becky had heard under our house that sounded like mice. One of my professors at Toccoa Falls College had recently announced in class that their cat had some kittens and he needed to find homes for them. We agreed to get one and picked out a cute black and white one. Since it was around Halloween the professor suggested we name him Hobgoblin. Our family thought that was a nice name but shortened it to Hobo. We fixed Hobo a bed with food and water under the house for a few nights and the noises stopped. Although Hobo was mostly an outside cat he was soon allowed to come inside most nights where he slept in Matthew’s room.

Following our years at Toccoa we moved to Waxhaw, NC and hobo came along with us. Our vet in Toccoa had suggested we use a cat travel crate for Hobo to ride in, so we purchased a cardboard one. Hobo did not like the idea of riding inside the cardboard crate and soon clawed his way out of it and proceeded walking back and forth in the car meowing loudly. Hobo and I were both glad to arrive at our new home in Waxhaw that afternoon.

A few years later we bought a house near the J.A.A.R.S. Center in Waxhaw that had a deck off the second level with stairs leading down to the driveway. We fed our dogs, Zach and Maggie as well as Hobo on this deck, so they were accustomed to finding food and water there. Apparently other creatures were aware of food being available there as well.

One night as I walked past the dining room door that opened onto the deck, I caught sight of something furry near the pet food bowls. I turned on the deck light and saw a large Opossum eating from the bowl. Thinking I would just scare him away I started to open the door but then noticed Hobo slowly easing up the last step onto the deck. Hobo was not a huge cat but was usually big enough to take care of himself, so I decided to just watch what happened. Even with the light on and me standing at the door the Opossum continued to calmly eat as Hobo slowly approached. When Hobo got about four feet from the Opossum it turned around and loudly hissed at Hobo showing its rows of sharp teeth. Hobo froze where he was then very slowly began walking backwards away from the Opossum. The Opossum just turned back around and started eating again. I decided that Hobo had the right idea to just leave the Opossum alone, so I checked to be sure the door was locked and backed away slowly as well.

We enjoyed Hobo for many years, and he was a good mouser who took care of his people.

THE CHURCH MOUSE

During my years as pastor at the Gospel Way Baptist Church in Waxhaw, NC we normally had at least three meetings a week. Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Wednesday nights. Most Sunday mornings I would preach from the podium on a raised pulpit area but Sunday and Wednesday evenings I would usually preach from the floor area closer to where the congregation sat in the pews.

One Sunday evening as I was preaching from the floor area, I was in the process of emphasizing a point and several people on the front row of pews emitted a collective excited sound and stiffened their bodies. Unsure of what had caused their reaction I continued talking thinking that perhaps something I had said suddenly encouraged them. I spoke for a few more minutes then noticed that the collective excited sound and sudden body stiffening was now manifesting itself throughout the whole congregation.

Thinking that perhaps the church was on the verge of some great spiritual awakening I continued. It was then that I noticed several people were pointing to something behind me and whispering excitedly to others around them. As I paused to figure out what was happening a lady in the front row exclaimed “there’s a mouse”!  Turning around I saw a small brown mouse running back and forth across the pulpit area looking for a way to escape.

With the whole church now nervously laughing and with many people lifting their feet from the floor in fear of the mouse the rodent ran off the platform and up into the choir loft. Since I was at the end of my presentation and since the mouse was now the primary topic of conversation the service concluded. A deacon set a mouse trap under one of the pews in the choir loft later. He never reported back if a mouse was caught in that trap, but we never saw another mouse attending a service again so assumed that “the good Lord had called the rodent home”!

MAKING MOLASSES

During our rural Waxhaw years Niven and Ruth Robinson were neighbors that had a small farm just up the road from us. The Robinsons were an older couple that had farmed on their land for many years. One of the annual Fall events on their farm was making molasses. Niven and Ruth would invite family and close friends to help make the molasses and enjoy the day together. The adults and older kids did the “skimming” of the hot syrup and we all got to sample the finished molasses at the end of the day. Niven always tended the cooking fire and juice temperature himself as too much heat too quickly would scorch the molasses. He would usually call me over to watch him load the fire to show me how it should be done and would often comment that “seeing these roaring flames would make a good sermon illustration about hell”. 

The planting of the cane, harvesting, stripping the leaves off then squeezing the green juice from the stalks were just a few of the many steps it took to produce the finished product.  Niven used a mule powered cane mill for several years before retiring his mule and using the power-take-off (PTO) from his John Deere tractor to turn the mill. As the long, green stalks of sugar cane were fed into the mill the crushing wheels would extract the watery, green liquid which would drip into buckets under the mill.  The green juice would then be carefully poured into the long steel trough with baffles that was placed over the fire. The juice would then slowly flow down the hot trough around the baffles while people referred to as “Skimmers” would scoop off the green foam that rose to the top of the juice. As the steaming, raw green juice slowly made its way down to the end of the trough the result was delicious, sweet, dark molasses.

Many family dinners and church suppers in the community were enhanced by the presence of dishes that used Niven’s molasses in them. Molasses days at the Robinson’s farm is a fun memory for our family and I still think of them every time I see a jar of molasses.

Niven was generous with the use of his big John Deere tractor and would loan it to me when the fifteen-acre field around our house needed mowing. We had lawn areas close to the house that we used a regular lawn mower to cut but used Niven’s big tractor with a Bush Hog mower for the large fields surrounding the house. Although it took several hours to cut the fields, I never got tired of driving the big John Deere tractor around and enjoying the sweet smells of the fresh cut grass.

Niven and Ruth were good neighbors to our family during our Waxhaw years. We moved away from Waxhaw in 1999 and later learned that they both died within four months of each other in 2002. Niven and Ruth are buried in the Tirzah Presbyterian Church cemetery in Waxhaw, NC.

SNAKE KILLERS AND AWESOME PETS

Over the years our family has had several pets that we enjoyed the company of. When we moved from Toccoa, Georgia to Waxhaw, NC in 1984 our dog, Kasha, and our cat, Hobo, moved with us. We have actually had three dachshund dogs over the years all named “Kasha”. Becky and I got the Kasha 1 during our first year of marriage.

We had traveled up to Virginia to visit some of Becky’s relatives one weekend and ended up buying a dachshund puppy. Kasha 1 was a great dog and when our first child, Laura, was born Kasha would lay at the bedroom door as if guarding her. Anyone coming to visit and see the new baby would be cautiously greeted at her bedroom door by Kasha who would sniff them then look at Becky and me as if to get permission to allow them in. After telling Kasha “it was okay” she would wag her tail and move back to allow the visitors to enter. Kasha 1 continued to be a wonderful pet for our family for many years and was also protective of our second and third children, Matthew and Ashlea.

Sadly, Kasha 1 died in 1980 and was buried next to our neighbor’s rose bush in Hendersonville, NC. Our neighbors, Carl and Nikki Setzler, had loved Kasha 1 almost as much as we had and since we were selling our house and moving to Toccoa, GA they wanted her buried in their yard and put up a small marker.

Kasha 2 joined our family while we were living in Toccoa and was another great pet addition to our family. In addition to being a gentle watch dog for us Kasha 2 was also a great snake dog. After I finished college in Toccoa we moved to our home on Waxhaw Creek Road near Waxhaw, NC. We had about 15 acres of fields and woods and a small pond near us. With all that open woodland around us also came the usual number of wild animals and creatures, one of which was snakes.

Kasha 2 loved to hunt snakes and would track them, burrow down into their hole and drag them out of the ground shaking them furiously as she did. She had a unique bark she used when she was after a snake, and we knew from the tone of her bark when she was after one. One day she killed a large copperhead snake but got bit in the lower jaw in the process. The snakebite caused her jaw to swell up quickly and she looked like a major league baseball pitcher with a large wad of chewing tobacco in her jaw. We rushed her to our vet to see what could be done and the vet cleaned out the wound and checked her out. Fortunately, the snake venom did not adversely affect her, and the vet said that an infection at the bite site was usually more of a concern, and we should just keep the wound clean. Kasha 2 recovered in a couple of days and went right back to killing snakes again.

 We got Kasha 3 shortly after Kasha 2 died in an accident. Kasha 2 was getting old and could not hear well anymore. I went to drive my truck one day and did not know that Kasha 2 was under it and she apparently did not hear me start the engine. We all cried at her loss and Laura buried her near the NC/SC state line next to our house.

I don’t remember where we got Kasha 3 from but do remember that she was a very goofy dog from the beginning. She would constantly nip at your ankles, chew on things, harass us and bark at seemingly nothing. We tried several things to help her improve behavior to no avail. When visiting Becky’s Aunt Jackie in Sumter we mentioned that Kasha 3 was being difficult, and Jackie said she wished she could have her. Not wanting to disappoint Jackie and looking for a kind way to find Kasha 3 a new environment we gladly agreed to give the dog to Jackie.  Both Jackie and Kasha 3 looked very happy when as we left them and drove away with a relieved sigh. Jackie renamed the dog to “Tasha” and seemed to enjoy her for many years.

Our dog was not the only snake killer in our household in Waxhaw. To get to our house on Waxhaw Creek Road you would get off the paved road then drive about a mile down a dusty gravel road to our quarter mile long gravel driveway. During that long, dusty drive it was not unusual to see snakes slithering across the road. Becky became famous for her snake killing attack mode of speeding the car up when she saw a snake then slamming on the brakes to skid across the snake, spinning the tires in reverse and repeating the action several times until she was certain the snake had been dispatched. The kids thought it was great fun to experience their mother’s vengeance on the unsuspecting snakes although I’m sure her head count hardly put a dent in the snake population of our neighborhood.

 We inherited our dog Zachery, a golden cocker spaniel, from Becky’s sister who lived in Indiana at the time. It seems that Zachery had growled at her three young daughters a few times and she wanted to rehome the dog to someone with older kids and a big yard. Since we had older kids and a 15-acre yard we decided to make him our dog. Zach was a good dog and loved to run around our property and greatly enjoyed retrieving a tennis ball. We found out that Zach would only growl at us if we tried petting his head while he was eating so made it a practice to leave him alone while he was eating.

One day as I was playing ball with Zach, I threw the tennis ball over the house. Zach quickly figured out how to run around to the back yard, retrieve the ball and bring it back to me for another throw. After doing this several times I threw the ball in another direction toward the barn. A straight line to get to the ball led across the lower driveway that had a nine-foot retaining wall on one side. As Zach eagerly ran to get the ball, he apparently forgot about the nine-foot drop off down to the driveway and sailed off from the yard side, flew through the air for a couple of seconds then crashed into the gravel driveway below. My first thought was that I had unintentionally killed another dog but, much to my relief, Zach plowed through the gravel with his chin and kept running. He brought the ball back to me from that throw and seemed unfazed by his fall and crash. From then on whenever I threw the ball in that direction he would run up to the wall, slowly walk around it, then run after the ball again.

Over the years our family pets have included gerbils, fish, cats, dogs, and a pony. Notable additions to the Kashas and Zachery were:

Hobo – our black & white cat

Princess – our pony

Orville – Matthew’s parakeet

Maggie – our female golden cocker spaniel

Marilla – our coffee drinking chihuahua

Charlie – our rescued main coon cat

Josie – our really spoiled 6-pound shichon, who, on our cross country camping trip, was officially sworn in as a U.S. National Park Bark Ranger at the Petrified Forest National Park.

 

Each of our pets have added greatly to our enjoyment of life and brought many hours of entertainment and joyful remembrances.

THE BAT WHO CAME TO DINNER

During our years in Waxhaw, we often had guests over for dinner. One evening, while we lived in the Waxhaw Creek country house, we invited Gil and Marge Cardwell to dinner. They were an older couple, and Gil was a deacon at our church. The Cardwells were very friendly, rather refined and had retired from Pennsylvania where he had been an architect for many years. They shared some of their interesting life experiences during the meal that evening.

As Becky was serving coffee and dessert, we all heard a funny sound coming from the stairway leading up from the basement. As she walked over to the top of the stairway to see what was causing the curious sound a bat flew up the stairway, through the hall and into the dining and living areas. As Becky exclaimed “it’s a bat” everyone else at the table began to move around rapidly to get away from the unwelcome intruder. The bat fluttered around for several seconds before landing on the wall over a window. As we began a plan to extradite the bat from inside the house a few options were mentioned. The thought of shooting it a pellet gun was discarded as that would be too messy and the ricochet might hit someone. Catching it in a towel was mentioned but Becky preferred not having bats rolled up in our good towels.

Dashing around the house looking for ideas I saw a baseball glove and grabbed it. With the bat still clinging to the wall over the window I slowly approached with the baseball glove on my hand. The ladies in the room had retreated into the kitchen across the room from the bat. As Matthew, Gil and I got closer to the bat it started to move a little, so I quickly trapped it against the wall with the baseball glove keeping it from flying off. Now the quest was how to keep the bat in the glove long enough to get it out the door. Matthew ran over to the back door, opened it and moved back. I slowly closed the glove over the bat and eased over to the opened door. As I stepped outside onto the back deck Matthew closed the house door and I opened the glove releasing the bat. The bat’s return to the wild was indeed a relief for all of us in the house and we returned to the table to enjoy our dessert.

I’m not sure which of us was more relieved that night, the bat or the 7 people eating dinner, but it made for a humorous story for our family and the Cardwells. 

CHURCH MEMORIES FROM WAXHAW

From 1984 to 1998 we lived in Waxhaw, NC. During those years I was the pastor of the Gospel Way Baptist Church. The century old white wooden church building was located off Tirzah Church Road in Waxhaw at the end of a long driveway with several huge oak trees around it. It was a picturesque location for the small country church and reminded me of old Christmas cards I had seen growing up. Although the church itself was not what I had envisioned during our years in Bible college and our journey getting there had been somewhat circuitous it was, all in all, a relatively pleasant community to live in during those years.

One of the highlight seasons there, for us as a family, was Christmas. In addition to tastefully decorating our home with wreaths, garland, candles, lights, ornaments, luminaria, and trees, some inside and some outside, we helped decorate the church building as well. During the weeks leading up to Christmas day our church services would center around celebrating Advent. The Advent themes of hope, preparation, joy, and love were represented each week by lighting a series of candles arranged in the Advent wreath followed by music. On Christmas eve the church gathered for a candlelight service where everyone would hold a candle and share the flame starting from the center candle of the Advent wreath, the Christ candle, with the person next to them. This was symbolic of sharing the love of Christ with others and there was something encouraging about standing in a circle holding a lit candle with my family and others while singing “Silent Night” together in an old, wooden church building that had stood for over a century.

Our annual church drop-in was always a much anticipated social event. Becky would bake, cook, and create sumptuous Christmas delicacies to serve our church and community friends who would always rave about how beautiful the house looked and how delicious the food was. We would place luminaria along the edges of our driveway and light the candles as it got dark. The country house on Waxhaw Creek Road was especially pretty with its long, winding driveway past the pond being softly lit up with the glow of the candles.

When Easter time came around in the Spring, we always had an Easter sunrise service. The early morning service time with its corresponding early morning dew meant we had to have towels to dry off the folding metal chairs to keep from getting our clothes wet! After the service we would all eat breakfast together in the small fellowship hall/classroom area inside the church. Becky’s famous breakfast casserole was always a much anticipated dish to eat at these gatherings.

“Eatin-meetins” were held one Wednesday night a month. This was a covered dish meal where most people would bring some prepared food from their home to share collectively with everyone else. The general suggestion was that every family would bring enough food for their family plus one. Most folks complied with the suggestion but there often were those who would bring a small bag of potato chips along with their large family because they knew others would bring extra food. Somehow there was always plenty and usually enough left over to send home with those who could use it.

At one of the “eatin meetins” I brought a venison roast that I had made into BBQ. A neighbor had been deer hunting and brought us a venison roast as a gift. Our family was not used to eating game meat and while appreciative of our neighbor’s kindness Becky was not sure what to do with it. Not wanting to be wasteful, Becky was very happy when I decided that I would assume ownership of cooking the roast. I started by cooking it in the slow cooker for several hours then shredding up the meat and adding a hefty amount of BBQ sauce. Since we had an “eatin meetin” scheduled for that night I thought I would take some of the venison BBQ to share. When we got to the church that evening, I got busy talking to people and forgot to mention that the BBQ was deer meat. Toward the end of the meal someone commented on how much they had enjoyed the BBQ. As I thanked them for their compliment, I mentioned that I had forgotten to mention that it was venison. “Venison” several of the young people exclaimed and then someone said, “Oh no, I was eating Bambi”! And just like that the delicious BBQ became unpalatable and suspect. Most of the other BBQ eaters in he room just laughed but as far as I know venison was never served at another Wednesday night “eatin meetin”.

BEACH  BUCKETS

During our years in Waxhaw, I had a few different jobs to help support our family. The church I was pastoring there, Gospel Way Baptist, had a small congregation and not much money coming in to pay for things. The lack of church funds necessitated me being bi-vocational, or “having a job to support my preaching habit”, the whole time we were there.

One of the jobs I had was as a sub-contractor spraying texture on sheetrock ceilings. The work was hard, hot/cold, dirty and a bit dangerous but paid pretty good. My son, Matthew, would often work with me when school was out. During those days the sheetrock finishing compound, (a.k.a.”sheetrock mud”), came in 5 gallon plastic buckets. These empty buckets would be left inside the houses and buildings for the cleanup crew to pick up and throw away.

Through a contact at the church, I found out that the Pier Manager at the Springmaid Pier in Myrtle Beach, SC was looking to buy large numbers of these buckets to resell them to fishermen. I called the guy and he said he wanted all I could get to him and offered to pay me a fair price per bucket. The only requirement he asked for was that the buckets be reasonably clean without any leftover sheetrock mud in them. Thus began our family vacation fund business of washing buckets!

I began collecting the empty buckets and it was not unusual for me to bring home 40-50 dirty buckets per week. We would line the dirty buckets up down near the barn and fill them up with water to loosen up the dried sheetrock mud before scrubbing them out with brushes. On “bucket scrubbing days” our family of 5 would put on old clothes and scrub away until we got tired. It was a messy job but we laughed a lot together as a family during the hours we spent scrubbing the beach buckets and talked about how much fun we would have on our beach vacation.

The clean buckets would get stacked up in the barn until it was vacation time. It was a comical site to see the buckets loaded up, tied on and hanging off my old 1977 Ford F-100 pickup truck headed to the beach, but we enjoyed the extra vacation money the beach buckets brought in.