i was not a wild young man, but i was fringe at times

Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth. Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O Lord. (Psalm 25:7)

I was not a wild young man, but I was fringe at times. There was within me a need to express myself and a desire to not have anyone tell me what to do. I had a bad temper and was strong and those are two things that don’t really go well together.

It wasn’t that I was rebellious in the sense that I went around looking for fights. It was just that I was rebellious enough that I tended to make people uncomfortable.

My hair was always too long and I dressed in a way that set me apart. My favorite outfit in my early 20’s was tan Levis bush jeans, a black shirt, a wild tie I had gotten in Germany, buckle suede shoes (also gotten in Germany), topped off by an Army dress green suit jacket. I loved that outfit and wore it to church whenever I could.

This attitude got me in some trouble at times. No one tried to fight me or anything. I was a little too big to have a lot of physical argument. But people didn’t know how to take me, nor what to expect from me. So they tended to go behind my back. They still do.

I was large and loud and boisterous and confrontational. I was definitely not a company man.

Yet I had friends in the church where we went in Houston when we were first married. There were people who liked me. I suppose they saw the regular young man underneath and knew that I loved God and the church.

In fact, often my best friends were the ministers of the churches we attended. That was one thing that pushed me into the pastorate: just a plain old identification with them and acceptance by them.

And since they liked me, the church usually liked me. I guess they viewed me as the congregational eccentric.

And I carried it out a long ways, even to my vehicle of choice.

I had a 1956 Chevrolet pickup, light faded blue, with a Ford bed. It had bars all over it for hauling lumber. And it’s name was Ralph.

I loved that pickup and went everywhere in it. It was a great fit for me. It just looked like me.

It had a foot starter and a couple of holes in the floor and I bought it for $60, a great deal even in 1972. It had been taken care of by its previous owner and served me well until winter of 1974 when it got too cold and the block cracked.

That hurt. It was almost as if a part of my life was over. I gave it to a guy who always liked it. He put in block stop leak and painted it purple with a roller. He also wrote RALPH on the door in yellow paint.

It was almost as if someone had taken the body of a friend and painted it up and put it on display.

I have never had a vehicle since that I loved as much as that truck, even the new 1981 Mustang with T Tops that bought me. That truck was me. I drove with the radio blaring (an AM radio, of course). Whenever I hear Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie, it shoots me back to 1972, driving to the shop where I worked for the telephone company in Houston over on Bissonet.

At that point, I guess I changed some. I went to seminary, and started dressing more regularly, cutting my hair more, shaving more.

But the internal man – the one that a woman told me once reminded her of a wolf/dog mix: dog on the outside with the wolf coming out occasionally – stayed for a while. It was just kind of submerged.

The motorcycle helped when I finally got one at 30 years old.