When I was growing up in the Nazarene Church, we spent a lot of time at Olivet, our college on the prairie of eastern Illinois. The church wanted to make sure that we went there after high school instead of some secular university where we would be taught liberalism, atheism, and evil-lution.
So there were ball games and special concerts for high school students, plus an annual Olivet Weekend, with a party, a nature hike, a church service, classroom visits, a lot of "come to Olivet" sales pitches, and a night in a college dorm.
It was actually sleeping bags on the floor of the lounge in the freshman men's dorm, but still, I was surrounded by cute college men!
When I was in ninth grade, our host was David, a senior religion major (and baseball player) who told us how he was hoping to be called to a church near his home town, and his girlfriend Ruth, who mostly bragged about how she had scored the "handsomest guy on campus."
Only about half of the boys on campus wanted to become preachers, but almost all of the girls wanted to become preacher's wives, leading to some hefty competition.
On the Saturday night of our visit, David took us to a basketball game, and then to the Student Union for hamburgers.
The Red Room, Olivet's student restaurant, was packed with other kids and their escorts, so he took us to a nearby lounge: six couches and about a dozen chairs, most full, but one empty right next to the monitor's desk. It looked into a little alcove with a yellow couch, where two college couples were kissing.
"Hey, what's that -- a kissing booth?" I asked.
"Kissing corner!" David said with a grin. "The only couch the monitor can't see. Boy, I've had some good times there!"
He told us that at Olivet, boy-girl relations were strictly regulated. You couldn't set foot in each other's dorm rooms, and in common areas, kissing was forbidden. They had monitors watching all the lounges, but that couch was hidden from the monitor's view, and so very popular.
We sat down facing the kissing couples. Kissing girls -- gross! But I was interested in one of the guys -- cute, dark haired, broad shoulders, handsome preacher's face. He leaned toward his girlfriend, put his arm around her, and they started kissing.
He had a sizeable bulge in his pants.
And he began to rise.
And rise.
And rise.
And rise.
And rise.
More rising after the break