Bike

  The first bike I ever had was a red Schwinn.  It was big, heavy and not much fun.  So, I asked my parents for a lighter bike.  They got me a rust orange color with a banana seat.  The handlebars were in a "U" shape, and it had a 3-speed gear shift that sat between the seat and the handlebars.  It was cool.  

 I rode it everywhere.  The handlebars got loose sometimes.  Once, I was riding along a sidewalk, and the handlebars gave way.  I fell over the top of the bike onto the pavement.  I have a scar on my shoulder from that. It still got me where I wanted to go.

 One of those places was about five miles from my house, which was a movie theater.  I loved going to the movies there, because they showed a lot of foreign films.  I would park my bike in an alley between the theater and a drug store.  I had a bike lock, so no one would steal my bike, but it would always be there, when I left the movies.  Except once.

 I came out of the theater, and my bike was gone.  I walked back home not knowing where it was.  I was around 15.  When I got home, I told my father what had happened.  He suggested that we contact the police.  We went down to the police station to file a report.  I gave them a really good description of my bike.  It also had a name plate on the back with my first name on it.  They took the report and said that they would be on the lookout for it.  

 My father drove me around the neighborhood near the theater.  We saw my bike in the front yard of a house about two blocks from the theater.  My father called the police to report what we had found.  They told us that it could be anybody's bike, despite the fact that mine was unique, so they didn't do anything about it.  They said it would be my word against theirs.  So, I didn't have a bicycle after that.  Fortunately, I got my driver's license soon after that.  I hope the thief enjoyed the loose handlebars.

 

Snowman

 The first house I ever knew was on Seminary Place in New Orleans.  It was a modest home built in brick, and it had a carport next to the house.  My brother would use the adjacent roof of the carport to sneak out of the house.  I was too young to do that.  

 Although, I have just a few memories of that house like having to learn how to walk again after my hernia surgery and my highchair at the kitchen table, I do remember one very strange moment, when I was around 3 years old.  I saw my first snowfall.  Yes, it snowed in New Orleans.  My parents took me outside to experience this strange stuff on the ground.  They bundled me up with a heavy coat and hat.   I was pretty warm in this cold environment.  New Orleans was usually rather warm year-round, and we had a lot of rain but not snow.  

 It wasn't very deep, maybe 2 inches, but I was encouraged to build a snowman.  I really had nothing to go on how to do this.  I had seen pictures in books, but we didn't have enough snow to build one of those.  Fortunately, my best friend Paul had some experience in doing this, so we built it together.  When we finished, it was pretty short.   However, there was one problem.  We didn't have enough snow to make it in sections, so it was just short and thin.  I realized later that the reason my parents wanted me to make a snowman was to clear the yard of the snow.  They were clever that way. I have a picture of me standing next to the snowman.  I glad I do, because it melted the next day.  

Rain

  As I have said before, I used to have terrible road rage.  It wasn't until I started taking medication that the rage went away.  It was great to yell at people from inside my car, because most of the time they couldn't hear me.  I could have been killed several times had they heard what I was saying.  George Carlin used to say that half of the drivers are stupid, while the other half are morons, except for me.

 I had gone to see my parents in Laurens one day and was driving back on the two-lane road between Clinton and Newberry.  Right outside the small town of Jalapa, it began to rain.  It got heavier until it was hard to see.  There was nowhere to pull off to wait for the storm to pass, so I just kept driving.  I came upon a man in a car ahead of me.  He was just poking along.  I really didn't blame him, and I was following his taillights to see.  

 We were going past a farm, and out in the distance I saw a tornado spinning across a field.  It was heading toward our road.  I didn't know if the guy in front of me saw it, so I started honking my horn to get him to speed up.  He ignored my warning.  I started yelling and waving my arms at him, hoping he would see the tornado.  He kept going the slow speed.  As I was watching the tornado get closer, I started calculating when it would cross the road, and I figured out that we were going to meet.  The tornado wasn't very big, but it was big enough to flip our cars.  By now, I was honking, cussing and waving to get his attention.  No luck.  He missed the tornado, but it raised up and clipped the edge of my car.  I felt the bump.

 When we got to Newberry, the rain had stopped.  The road went to four lanes.  As I passed the car on the left, the driver looked at me and mouthed "What?".  I just gave him a dirty look and drove on.  After I pulled over and parked, I got outside to survey the possible damage to my car.  There was a small dent in the chrome near my back window.  It could have been much worse.  So word to the wise, if you see a crazy man waving his arms in your rearview mirror, look off to the side and see if a tornado is coming.  It might be, or he just might have road rage. 

Poppins

  Anyone who has seen the film "Mary Poppins" knows that she could fly using her umbrella.  It was magic, but I wondered if it would work in real life.  After all, I was a curious kid.

 We lived on an incline.  The hill went down for a block.  Our house was the second house on the hill.  I had fantasized about using an umbrella as a parachute and jumping off of the house, but I heard stories about people hurting themselves, so I didn't do that, despite the dares from the other neighborhood kids.  I didn't weigh a lot, so I could have succeeded in that dare, but I was kind of afraid.  No other kid in our neighborhood did it either.  However, I did wonder about flying with an umbrella.

 It had rained a lot one day, and it was very windy.  I figured to give it a try.  I got the biggest umbrella I could find, which was really the only umbrella I had.  I went outside to the street and went running down the hill hoping for an updraft.  Nothing happened on the first few tries, but then a big gust of wind took me up.  I was flying about six inches off of the ground, as I went down the hill.  It was pretty cool, until I got scared.  What if I went far enough up and then fell to the ground hurting myself?  So, I let go of the umbrella and fell the six inches to the pavement.  I wasn't hurt, but I did have to go find the umbrella which had blown down the street.  

 I never told my parents.  I knew that I would get a spanking.  I got a lot of spankings for various things.  I was 11 years old and didn't want another one.  I never understood the phrase:  "This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you".  At least, not that time. 

Time

  I suppose that one is supposed to find a job related to your major in school, but I couldn't do that after I graduated from seminary.  I was getting some job offers from a variety of colleges and other stuff related to my major of Religious Drama and Communications, but I was in love and didn't want to leave Fort Worth.  Call me crazy, because I could have gotten a job in my field.  I was going through an emotional and professional upheaval.  Do I stay?  Do I go?  It got to the point that I realized that I needed to go.  

 I wrote the following song: (By the way, if anyone wants to steal the lyrics, please be advised that this song has been recorded by The Cobbwebs and is copyrighted through BMI.)

"One More Time"

Are we touching just a little,  

Can I see you in my mind,

Are you saying that you're sorry,

Or just following behind?

Is there just an open season

On the love we once both shared,

Or has time quickly passed us

And left us where we cared?

Can I see you in my mind,

Just a little longer than before,

Can we touch one more time,

Can our hearts beat like one again?

Will you see me--take my hand,

Can you love me with what you know,

Is it true that you are leaving,

Please tell me it's not so.

Won't you give us another chance,

It will be better I promise that,

We would dream and soar to eternity,

Won't you love me just a little bit,

One more time.

Thanks, Kare, for loving me one more time.  She still lives in Fort Worth.  A lot of time has passed since then.  I still smile, when I think of her.  One more time.

Pope

 When we were in Nazareth, Israel in 1973, we gave a basket of fruit to some children who were begging on the side of the road.  They fought over the fruit.  One boy was proud that he had gotten the peel of a grapefruit.  It was a shocking and moving experience for me.  A couple of days later, we were in Jerusalem.  I wrote "The Children's Song".  Coming back from Europe, I worked out the music for the song, although it has never been officially recorded.   Years later, I saw that Pope John Paul II paid special attention to little children, so I sent a copy of this song to him.  He blessed it and sent it back to me.  The words are timeless:

 

Save the world for the children,

They've got to live here, too.

See them starve in the ghetto of life, 

And no place to go.

Save the world for the children, 

Stop the war and the bombs.

Hey everybody, look around you,

And see their faces staring at you.

You see the happiness on their faces,

When food is dropped their way.

You see their families helped,

When money is theirs to stay.

Save the world for the children,

Black, Yellow, Brown, and White.

Please look around you and see their faces,

Because their world won't be here to see,

You'll die, and where would they be?

Rattlesnake

  Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly was a special place in the mountains of North Carolina.  I spent many summers there growing up, because my father conducted many seminars involving Sunday School work.  Many of our family vacations revolved around going to Ridgecrest.  It was kind of near Asheville, and it rained almost every afternoon.  Black Mountain was the nearest town.  We heard about an antique auction and went to see what was being offered.  One strange item they had was a wristwatch that ran on your pulse.  When you died, everyone would know what time it stopped.  I wanted one, but they cost $10 which was too much money.

 There were a lot of hiking opportunities in the mountains around Ridgecrest, and one such mountain was called Rattlesnake.  It was a little treacherous going up the mountain, but the view at the top was spectacular.  The hike is a little over a mile, and it is over 3000 ft. tall.  

 On one occasion, I had gone to Ridgecrest with some friends from my church.  By now, I was in high school.  I told my friend Sonny about Rattlesnake, and he agreed to hike it with me.  There were other churches that had brought their youth to Ridgecrest, and many were making the trek up the mountain.  When Sonny and I got up to the summit, there was a boy resting at the top.  He was probably in junior high.  We decided to play a practical joke on this unknown boy.  He and I started talking about shooting up heroin.  We showed the boy what we said were our needle tracks.  They were really moles.  The boy's eyes got big, and he literally ran down the mountain to get away from us.  To run down the mountain like that was pretty dangerous, but I guess we scared him out of his wits.  We had a good laugh over that.  I hope the boy didn't get hurt.  And for the record, neither Sonny nor I have ever really done heroin.  We were just dealing with a natural high up in the mountains that day.