How I was Sort Of Kidnapped by Jimmy Swaggart Ministries and Lived to Tell The OT About it

CSB-Alert.

The year was 1975. Maybe 1974. I was but a wee lad. It was a hot summer Saturday early morning in the working class River Oaks area of Baton Rouge. Turning on the tv, I found myself flipping between Hong Kong Fooey and Sigmund and The Sea Monsters before finally settling upon The Shazam Isis Super Hour, when much to my surprise I heard a knock at the door. I got up and went to the door and a teenaged girl who looked like an angel had a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and she asked me if my parents were there. I said, "yes ma'am but they are asleep" and she said "here these donuts are for you" and she asked me if I wanted to go to a fun camp the next week where I could eat more donuts and play games . I said "neat-o, super-cool" and she told me I needed a permission note from my parents.

Knowing that my father had a seething hatred for televangelist holy roller types but yet still wanting to go to this one day super cool camp where there would be many donuts and 3rd grade foxes, I formulated a plan. I asked my older brother (RIP) if he would write a phony parental permission note for me and he agreed if I would give him my three boxes of lemon heads and a new black light poster I had just purchased at Spencers. The genius of this plan, was that my brother was going to my grandparents house in New York for a few weeks and would not be there the next week to be held accountable for his misdeed.

Sure enough, the next Saturday as I sat down to watch Run Joe Run or Land of The Lost, there was a knock at the door. I rushed to the door, noticed a big school bus out front full of kids and handed the lady the permission note before being handed a donut and getting on the bus . They took us to Audubon State Park and I have very weird memories of them singing their songs and being really touchy-feely and weirdly-smiley. Not like the priests at St Thomas More at all .

Returning home around 6 pm , I had that "oh shite Imma die now" moment all kids experience as I noted the police car and crowd of neighbors that were on in the driveway. The bus let me out and I took the walk of shame and sheepishly entered the house where my Mom was distraught and crying and I confessed the whole plot. She had been convinced I had been kidnapped. I was punished for a week-confined to my room-with nothing but WLCS top 40 radio, my record collection and books for me for a week.

TLDR-I didn't tell my parents I went to a Swaggart Church camp and they thought I was kidnapped and called the police, down vote now.