The Stranger (Not-So-Quiet Friend)
The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind, but sometimes Mum 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, huh?)
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