I saw it once... the 'speaking-in-tongues' -thing at a Pentecostal church near to where I used to live.
It was 1974 and I was wanting to learn how to play a guitar. My friends had purchased one and being near Christmas,
I asked my mother if I could have one as a present.
Giving my weekly milk-round money to assist in the cost, my small-world Mum agreed and on the morning of 25th December,
I tore the wrappings away to reveal a plastic three-stringed toy that promised that it was an actual acoustic guitar!
Bless her.
A week later, the error had been corrected and my wooden instrument waited for it's owner to breathe music into it.
My friends were in the same predicament and being reluctant to ask the Music Teacher at school on how the hell these things
worked, we sat on a local grassed-area and pondered on buying a self-help manual.
That's when a young man called John appeared.
Actually, there were three of them and I recognised the two behind him because they were older pupils from the school I went
to. The one who did the talking, a guy I would learn later with the same surname as myself, talked about what were doing and
how we could make better use of our time.
He mentioned that a church just down the road doubled as a Youth Club twice-a-week and maybe we could visit to lessen
our chances of getting into trouble. I now believe that if he hadn't mentioned that on other evenings, he and his friends enjoyed
a semi-type of happy worship by playing his guitar and singing, we'd have just nodded and forgotten the whole episode.
After a chat about learning to play that particular instrument, John suggested that if we came along, he could give us some
lessons and after looking at each other, we said we'll see.
A couple of nights later, we waited until the Youth Club-part was over and then carrying our guitars, wandered into another room
and hesitantly sat down in a circle of chairs. The young man called John entered and said that he and some others were going
to have a prayer meeting and we were welcome to join in.
A friend asked about the guitar lessons and John loosely indicated that aftewards, he'd maybe help us out.
So after a few minutes, a group of adults and the two I recognised from school came in and sat down. Remember, we were
just kids and so all of this was a bit embarrassing, seven men, three young male adults and four street-running kids isn't the
best recipe for religious discourse!
After constantly closing our eyes, holding the hand of the persons next to us and mouthing the words of prayers we'd never
heard of, it occurred to me that maybe we'd been used to inflate John's position in this little club. That was when the two
older boys from my school stood up and started gibbering.
It was terrifying, they loudly called out a strange language and held their arms high. It must have gone on for a whole minute
until one of the men carefully led them out of the room and looking around at the remaining people, it seemed it was a normal
event for them.
We left not long after and ignored the pleadings of John and his assurance he would teach us how to play the guitar.
We felt used and agreed we had just been 'filler' for the slick-tongued John to gain credit with his peers.
One of those who had presumably spoken in 'Spirit voice' had a younger brother and at school the next day, I asked him
if he'd known about his older sibling behaving so strange. I was surprised when he snorted and assumed I was just being silly.
I explained the events of the previous evening and he said he'd ask him about it after school.
When I approached the boy again about the incident, he just said his brother shouted at him and told him not to be so stupid.
Like most things at that age, other distractions moved me away from the subject and I never got to know what the real truth
was in regards of those strange accents.
That was forty-three years ago and I still can't play the guitar.
It was 1974 and I was wanting to learn how to play a guitar. My friends had purchased one and being near Christmas,
I asked my mother if I could have one as a present.
Giving my weekly milk-round money to assist in the cost, my small-world Mum agreed and on the morning of 25th December,
I tore the wrappings away to reveal a plastic three-stringed toy that promised that it was an actual acoustic guitar!
Bless her.
A week later, the error had been corrected and my wooden instrument waited for it's owner to breathe music into it.
My friends were in the same predicament and being reluctant to ask the Music Teacher at school on how the hell these things
worked, we sat on a local grassed-area and pondered on buying a self-help manual.
That's when a young man called John appeared.
Actually, there were three of them and I recognised the two behind him because they were older pupils from the school I went
to. The one who did the talking, a guy I would learn later with the same surname as myself, talked about what were doing and
how we could make better use of our time.
He mentioned that a church just down the road doubled as a Youth Club twice-a-week and maybe we could visit to lessen
our chances of getting into trouble. I now believe that if he hadn't mentioned that on other evenings, he and his friends enjoyed
a semi-type of happy worship by playing his guitar and singing, we'd have just nodded and forgotten the whole episode.
After a chat about learning to play that particular instrument, John suggested that if we came along, he could give us some
lessons and after looking at each other, we said we'll see.
A couple of nights later, we waited until the Youth Club-part was over and then carrying our guitars, wandered into another room
and hesitantly sat down in a circle of chairs. The young man called John entered and said that he and some others were going
to have a prayer meeting and we were welcome to join in.
A friend asked about the guitar lessons and John loosely indicated that aftewards, he'd maybe help us out.
So after a few minutes, a group of adults and the two I recognised from school came in and sat down. Remember, we were
just kids and so all of this was a bit embarrassing, seven men, three young male adults and four street-running kids isn't the
best recipe for religious discourse!
After constantly closing our eyes, holding the hand of the persons next to us and mouthing the words of prayers we'd never
heard of, it occurred to me that maybe we'd been used to inflate John's position in this little club. That was when the two
older boys from my school stood up and started gibbering.
It was terrifying, they loudly called out a strange language and held their arms high. It must have gone on for a whole minute
until one of the men carefully led them out of the room and looking around at the remaining people, it seemed it was a normal
event for them.
We left not long after and ignored the pleadings of John and his assurance he would teach us how to play the guitar.
We felt used and agreed we had just been 'filler' for the slick-tongued John to gain credit with his peers.
One of those who had presumably spoken in 'Spirit voice' had a younger brother and at school the next day, I asked him
if he'd known about his older sibling behaving so strange. I was surprised when he snorted and assumed I was just being silly.
I explained the events of the previous evening and he said he'd ask him about it after school.
When I approached the boy again about the incident, he just said his brother shouted at him and told him not to be so stupid.
Like most things at that age, other distractions moved me away from the subject and I never got to know what the real truth
was in regards of those strange accents.
That was forty-three years ago and I still can't play the guitar.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.