A Spring Break Adventure with The Wife

Spring Break 2011 is past us now. The Tall One had five baseball games scheduled during the week so we didn't travel at all. For those of you past the age of 21, Spring Break may not mean the same thing to you as it used to. But you've probably got some stories – some of which you'd rather not have anyone know about. I remember one Spring Break back in 1989….(this is where the harp music begins and the picture fades out to signify a flashback sequence, you know like on Wayne's World).

The Wife (actually she wasn't the "Wife" then, she was just the "Girlfriend") and I were leaders at our college in a group called Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship. For Spring Break 1989 the plan was to take a group from our chapter and join others at South Padre Island, Texas for a week and evangelize the spring-breakers. It was a bold idea anyway.

The Wife and I had both lived fairly sheltered lives growing up. I once gave her a hard time when she told me she went to a high school party where wine coolers were present - she didn't drink any, but they were there! (And we all know wine coolers are the devil). So, we were not prepared in the slightest for what we'd see that week.

It was 1989 and 2 Live Crew and Tone Loc were playing on every radio and cassette deck on the Island…except for ours. (That Amy Grant can rock though right?!). The first night there, we were told to walk up and down the beach to get familiar with the area. So we broke up into small teams and off we went with clear eyes and full hearts.

We spotted a festive gathering of people right away and closed in to see what was going on. Turns out this was something sort of like a beauty contest – Miss South Padre Island Spring Break 1989 or something. Turns out the emcee was not at all like Bert Parks, Mario Lopez or Bob Barker. Turns out this local disc-jockey-turned-emcee was actually dumping water on the contestants (okay, so maybe he was a little like Bob Barker). Turns out that these contestants didn't like wearing wet t-shirts at all (Vickie Vallencourt had to be on that stage). We quickly moved along with full eyes and jaws dropped.

As the week went on we looked for ways to minister to the fully-clothed amongst the Spring Breakers. We stumbled on the idea of cruising the strip (based on the last paragraph, let me rephrase that). We stumbled on the idea of cruising the main drag in our passenger van and helping lone drunks or abandoned dates find their way safely back to their hotel. The first guy we picked up nearly barfed all over the van, so it was christened "The Puke Mobile" (not quite the same as "The Mystery Machine", huh). Before we took on our next passenger, we stopped at a McDonald's and got a few dozen bags to use for "sickness containment".

We also learned that opening the van's sliding door and having two or three dudes ask one scared and inebriated female as she stumbled down the street if she wanted a ride was not really effective – especially since there had been abductions of college students in the area around that time. So after a few threats of mace to our guys in the van, we had the Wife and the other girls offer the rides.

While providing free transportation to drunks wasn't what we envisioned when the Wife and I went on the trip, it wasn't a total loss. Some of our passengers were just happy to have a safe ride back to their hotel (or, yes, in some cases to a bar down the street). Some were really scared, lost and needed the help. We had a chance to share the love of Christ with everyone we met in that van. We also had the chance to show them a bit of that love by giving them a condemnation-free ride in The Puke Mobile.

I doubt if any of our passengers would remember their ride with us back in Spring Break '89. I barely remember many of the details (other than Vickie Vallencourt and The Puke Mobile). But, I do remember The Wife and the group of people I was with were committed to finding some way to help people that week. There's a lesson there somewhere. I mean a lesson other than that our kids are never going on Spring Break.