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 like a friend to the whole family. The stranger was 

our storyteller. 

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 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 (probably too much & too freely) about 

sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes 

suggestive, 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? We always just called him T.V.