KEEPING THE YOUTH OUT OF TROUBLE

Youth of the LDS church participate in many organized group activities.  Back in the olden days, there a several activities that I remember fairly well.  Unlike today when you have to be 14 or older to participate in most coed activities, anyone over the age of 12 could go.  The only thing that was age restricted was girls camp.  You had to be a MIA Maid to go to camp.  Go figure.

I remember a stake swimming party that was held at the Congressional Country Club.  Someone in the stake must have had connections to be able to reserve the entire facility for an evening so that a bunch of LDS kids could swim and party.

I also remember an activity where all of the youth stayed overnight at the ward.  I'm not sure if it was a ward or stake activity.  But I certainly remember sleeping on the floor in the gym....guys and girls were in the same room.   It must have been some kind of youth conference.

There was a trip by chartered bus to the Palmyra pageant.  It was at least a three day trip considering the travel time.  I also think that this was one of the few times when I went to the pageant that I didn't get rained on during the pageant.  We also went to the Sacred Grove, the Smith farmhouse and walked up the Hill Cumorah.

When I was in high school, we had a day outing at Andrews Air Force base.  Again, there must have been some connections by a stake member.  We toured the base and ended with a dinner and dance on the base.

We had a youth conference at Galludet College in Washington D.C.  It was an overnight activity where we stayed in the dorms on campus.  I remember swimming and, of course, the big dance the last night.

Our stake had a welfare farm back then.  We had one activity where all the youth from the stake went to the farm to pick feed corn.  We spent most of the day working our way up and down rows and rows of corn.  The corn was loaded into big dump trucks.  Many of us rode back from the fields sitting on top of the corn in the truck.  At the end of that activity, we went swimming in the small lake on the farm.  The lake was more like a large pond with a very, very muddy bottom.  I'm not sure how we all got cleaned up enough to get back in cars to go home.

At Girls Camp, we stayed in log cabins with cots that had mattresses. All we had to do was roll out a sleeping bag.  The camp had a central lodge for group meetings.  A central kitchen with a dining hall.  There were also bathrooms with hot and cold water. There was also a lake on the site. As a child and teenager, Girls Camp was my only exposure to camping.  It wasn't very rough.  It was my only camping experience until at twenty five years later when my husband took our family camping.

Then there were the Roadshows.  Every year, the youth and their leaders were given a general theme for the show.  In each ward, a 10 to 15 minute skit was developed including some original music.  We made our own scenery and costumes and practiced, practiced, practiced.  Back then the Roadshows traveled between ward buildings.  You had a certain amount of time to get on stage, set up your scenery, perform your skit and get back off stage.  Awards were given for various categories.  I think that there was an over all honors award too.  It was pretty competitive.

One year the theme of our ward's Roadshow was "Why is the Mona Lisa smiling?".  I had the role of Mona Lisa.  Most of the action went around me while I posed behind a picture frame as Mona Lisa.  I had the final song of the show.  It was short, but answered the question why the Mona Lisa was smiling.  Here are the words,  "Now my feet can be much chipper since I have these fluffy pink slippers.".  At that point, I showed my feet wearing fluffy pink slippers.  Cheesy, I know.  But that's what roadshows were - definitely cheesy.