Fun at Baptist Bible College

Another thing I keep posting that I just need to blog about. This happened about 8 to 10 years ago when one of my good high school friends, Brett, was attending Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri.

I went to visit him on a Friday for a long weekend. I attended classes with him for the first half of the day before we blew off the second half.

Some interesting things about BBC...

Every student knows Silver Dollar City (an amusement park that's nearby) like the back of their hand and has bragging rights on how well they do on a boat ride that involves shooting targets with light guns. This is because every student has to sign something that says they won't watch TV, listen to certain radio stations, won't go to the movies or rent them, etc. Silver Dollar City is just about the only thing they can do for weekend entertainment, and I think this symbiotic relationship between BBC and Silver Dollar City is the only thing that keeps the latter in business as it's quite dull.

This ban of popular entertainment didn't sit well with Brett who is a movie and music junkie (he is a naturally gifted musician who built a recording studio inside his campus apartment out of scrap wood and carpet) so he signed it and ignored it.

The other thing that he was supposed to do was shave his beard, but for that he went to our hometown doctor - the only Jewish guy in town - and asked him to write him a note that said he had a skin condition that made him sensitive to shaving. The doctor looked at him and said, "So... you want me to lie to Baptists... No problem!"

Anyway, I attended classes with him. The women all have to dress in modest skirts and the men in ties and coats, while I walked around in tennis shoes and a Superman t-shirt. One of his classes was Spanish, which was a major of mine in college, so when the teacher split the class up into groups to work on an in-class assignment, I joined Brett's group, and we got done first.

So one of the guys in the group started up a conversation that went something like this:
BBC: So where did you go to college?
Me: I graduated from Pittsburg State in southeast Kansas then did some grad work at Oklahoma State.
BBC: Ah, OSU. Good ol' Eskimo Joe's (a bar/restaurant).
Me: Oh, you know it?
BBC: Yeah, I'm from Tulsa, and friends of mine and I would drive to Stillwater if they had an interesting band playing there.
Me: That's where I am now, in Tulsa.
BBC: Oh, really? What church do you go to?
Me: (forgetting where I am) Oh, I don't attend church. I like to sleep in on Sundays.
- Uncomfortable silence while he digests this statement, and I realize the silence between us is indeed uncomfortable -
BBC: Well, if you're interested, there's a church at 101st and...
Me: That was your church, wasn't it?
BBC: Well, yeah...
Me: (Realizing my way out of this) Actually, sometimes I do go to church at St. Francis De Guadalupe, a Catholic church with a large Mexican congregation so I can practice my Spanish.
BBC: Oh.

And nothing more. My friend, Brett, was trying hard not to laugh, and later, he complimented me on my ability to use Baptists' inherent dislike for Catholicism to my advantage and shut the guy up (Brett said he was a pain).

Later on that day, we went to Silver Dollar City and went on a water ride where you shoot various targets with light guns. I got a 118.