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THE STRANGER
A few months after I was born, my dad met
a stranger who was new to our small 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 welcomed quite easily around town.
As I grew up I never questioned his place
in our family. 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 spellbound for
hours each evening. He was like a friend to the whole
family.
He took Dad, Bill, and me to our first major
league baseball game and he was always
encouraging us to see movies and even made arrangements to
introduce us to several movie stars.
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) leave the room, and go to her
bedroom; 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 an obligation to honor them.
Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house - not
from us, from our friends, or adults. But our
longtime visitor 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 tea-totler who didn't permit
alcohol in his home - not even for cooking,
but the stranger felt like 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 (too freely)
about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant,
sometimes suggestive, and always pretty
embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the
man/woman relationship were wrongly influenced by the
stranger.
As I look back, I believe it was the grace of
God that the stranger did not influence us
more. I really think mother was praying for us, as time
after time he opposed the values of my parents, yet
was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave.
More than thirty years have passed
since the stranger moved in with our
family on Morningside Drive. But if I were to walk into my
parents' living room 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?...
We always just called him T.V.
(Makes you stop and think, eh?)
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