"A few months before I was
born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small Tennessee town. From
the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon
invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted
and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later.
As I grew up I never questioned
his place in our family. In my young mind, each member had a special niche.
My brother, Bill, five years my senior, was my example. Fran, my younger
sister, gave me an opportunity to play 'big brother' and develop the art
of teasing. My parents were complementary instructors-- Mom taught me to
love the word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger was
our storyteller.
He could weave the most fascinating
tales. Adventures, mysteries and comedies were daily conversations. He
could hold our whole family spell-bound for hours each evening. If I wanted
to know about politics, history, or science, he knew it all. He knew about
the past, understood the present, and seemingly could predict the future.
The pictures he could draw were so life like that I: would often laugh
or cry as I watched. He was Iike a friend to the whole family. He took
Dad, Bill and me to our first major league baseball game. He was
always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to
introduce us to several movie stars. My brother and I were deeply impressed
by John Wayne in particular.
The stranger was an incessant
talker. Dad didn' t seem to mind-but sometimes Mom would quietly get up--
while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway
places-- go to her room, read her Bible and pray. I wonder now if she ever
prayed that the stranger would leave. You see, my dad ruled our household
with certain moral convictions. But this stranger never felt obligation
to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house-- not
from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime visitor, however,
used occasional four letter words that burned my ears and made Dad squirm.
To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My dad was a teetotaler
who didn't permit alcohol in his home - not even for cooking. But the stranger
felt 1ike we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life.
He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes
look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (probably
too much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes
sugestive, and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts
of the man-woman relationship were influenced by the stranger.
As I look back, I believe it
was the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time
after time he opposed the values of my parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked
and never asked to leave. More than thirty years have passed since the
stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. He is not
nearly so intriguing to my Dad as he was in those early years. But if I
were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting
over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him
draw his pictures. His name?