Throwback Thursday: The people who made me

My parents were just kids when they met in college at Cal State Hayward (in a music theory class) and married after graduation.

Wait, that sounds a lot like my story too…

Anyway, after they got married they headed up to the Northwest where my dad attended seminary.

While they were there, they participated in a touring group called Song of Praise.

Apparently my parents were paid to go on these tours because they were the older, more mature, chaperone-type people for the undergrads.

Can you hear the skepticism as I write that?

Read on.

Can you spot them?

Need a hint?

It looks like the Bieber haircut was somewhat popular in the 70s too.

Here they are!

Also, this hottie with the flute (one time at band camp…) is my aunt.
And by her own confession has admitted to encouraging and partaking in the incident described below.

Those Pappas girls are trouble.

This is what I remember of the story as it's been told to me.

The group had been touring and were in transit from one city to the next. Whichever cities they were, they had to travel up a rather large mountain.

The bus was going about 15 miles an hour and everyone was bored.

Somehow, someone had the idea that my dad should jump out of the bus, run alongside for awhile, and then hop back on.

And somehow my dad, a young 22 or 23 year old, newly married, decided that it would be a fun thing to do.

So, he gets next to the open door (Wait a minute, what about the bus driver? It just occurred to me that he's an accomplice in this whole thing as well) and just kind of jumps out.

No tuck and roll, just jumps out a moving vehicle with the weight firmly distributed between his two feet.

Not surprisingly, it didn't go too well.

He was knocked off his feet and rolled to the side of the road, bloody with scrapes all over his arm.

He was actually really lucky that he didn't break anything or get seriously hurt.

Did I mention that he was wearing earth shoes?

You know the ones that are angled so it feels like you are always walking uphill?

Of course the bus couldn't stop because of the incline and so my dad had to limp his way to the summit of the mountain where the bus was finally able to pull over and wait for him to catch up.

As my dad approached the group, humbled and wiser, he saw a pool of liquid under the bus.

Turns out some line to the brakes had been leaking.

If they hadn't caught it, chances are the trip down the other side of the mountain would have been disastrous.

I asked my dad what on earth he had been thinking.

He kind of laughed and said "I don't know. I just thought I'd step out, jog next to the bus, and then hop back on. What I didn't realize was that I'd have to be running a 4 minute mile pace to keep up. From a dead start."

I looked at my mom, sure that she must have been beside herself and asked what she thought of the whole thing.

She kind of giggled and said, "We were just so bored. I was kind of egging him on."

It was at this point they revealed to me that they had been the ones in charge.

I can't believe I let them watch my children.

Then they said that I had been conceived on a tour the next year and people were always so shocked by that news, "but weren't you on tour?!"

I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said "What's the big deal? You guys were married."

Well, different people from the churches they visited would house the different members of Song of Praise for the overnight visits.

Um, GROSS.

So, mom and dad, if you're embarrassed by this story, I'm sorry, but really

1. You should be glad there wasn't any instagram or Facebook back then

2. We can call it even for all the times Dad embarrassed me by honking the horn as he dropped me off in front of the cool kids in junior high.

And to all of you reading this, you never know what those crazy Christian college kids you are housing are really up to.

I don't think this is the same group, but it's a fun picture all the same.

My mom is to the far right and I think my dad is the one next to her.

Or maybe she's on the far left.

I don't know.

That Jan Brady hair was pretty popular.

Actually, I think she's the one on the far left and that might be my dad next to her.

I think I've seen him do that hand position before.

Anyway, happy throwback Thursday!