I grew up in a small neighborhood. My street had 3 houses on it and what seemed like miles and miles of woods. At one end of the street was Lake Rd. Cars, trucks, and busses flew up and down that thoroughfare. My parents made sure that I understood that any attempted crossing of that barrier would result in my instant death. At the other end of the street were cliffs that led down to Lake Erie. Again, my ever-loving parents put the fear of God into me. Jesus may have walked on water, but I surely could not.
There was another street next to ours. It had a lot of small cottages on it. Apparently, the street had been a resort of sorts for folks from the Big City, Cleveland, to come to on summer weekends to get away from it all.
Living in one of those cottages was a family whose roots were in West Virginia. At that time there were 5 people in the family. Dad, Mom, and 3 little girls. I remember spending time there playing with them. The oldest was 5. She was something about her that made her special to 6 year old me. If I had to describe it, I was madly in love with her. (At least as a 6 year old could understand that!) She had braces on her legs and couldn’t walk well. I had no idea what caused that. And, I didn’t really care. All I did care about was making her laugh. And she did laugh! She was a very happy child who brightened by soul.
One day I went there and she was gone. I didn’t know for sure where she went. I do remember one time driving with my parents and passing a local hospital. My mom pointed at it told me that my friend had gone there. Later, they told me she had died. Six year old me really had no idea what that meant. After all, when our dog suddenly disappeared my parents told me that she had gone to live on someone’s farm. For all I knew, my young friend had simply gone to live somewhere that she could be cared for.
At the end of that street there was one of the few non-cottages. It was a fairly large house. The family that lived there had 4 kids, 2 boys and 2 girls. To get to their house I had to follow a path through the woods that grew next to my house. We were roughly the same age, give or take a couple years. I remember that their youngest daughter was my first real crush. Yep! Seven years old and madly in love! Ah…those were good times! I became friends with one of the boys. They had an old camper that the two of us used to climb up on and then jump off of holding on to an umbrella that we were sure would be just as good as a parachute. It’s a wonder that we didn’t break our legs…or our necks. Inside their house they had an old pump organ. It was one of those instruments that you had to pump pedals in order to build up air that would generate sound. My friend knew part of one song. But, he may as well have been a virtuoso to me. It was at his house that I learned the time honored practice of making prank phone calls. You know, “Hello! Is your refrigerator running? It is? Well, you better run and catch it!” Ha ha ha! We would also have carnivals at my house. All of us kids would hang in my back yard and devise carny games and side-show acts. My friend liked to be the ‘Man with a Thousand Shirts.’ He would put on six or seven t-shirts and act like he was at the doctor’s. His brother played the doctor. When he was told to take off his shirt he did. But, of course there was another one under it. For a bunch of 1st to 4th graders in the early 1960s this was great fun!
Eventually, all of my friends moved away and we drifted apart.
It was odd, though, that over the years we all came to embrace religion. And, we all came to it in its Evangelical form. My friends who had the daughter who had passed when she was 5 were devout Baptists. When I came to faith in my teens the Mom was glad and made sure to tell me that she had been praying for me. She was a super lady and I loved her deeply. Sadly for us, she has passed on to her Glory. My other friend who wore too many shirts went on to become a pastor. We have been able to reconnect through social media.
For anyone who knows me they realize that I no longer hold to the Evangelical way of following Jesus. Perhaps because I wasn’t born and raised in that tradition I had a different perspective. I came from a rock-n-roll rebel background. I am wont to say that “I once was a Hippie, then I was a Reagan Republican. Now, I’m a Hippie again.” That whole Reagan thing came about because of the Evangelical crowd I was a part of at that time. I remember in 1980 hanging a sign in my area at work that read, “Vote Republican for a Change.” The only reason that I felt that way, besides the conservative religious folks I hung with, was the single issue of abortion. Evangelicals changed the way they thought about that in the late 70s. Jerry Falwell, Sr. and his Moral Majority grabbed hold of that and so did the Republican Party. Since then, sadly, Evangelicals and Republicans have been together between the sheets doing the Monkey dance. I think that we are seeing the progeny of that coupling in our politics today. It’s not pretty.
So, I and my friend have grown apart when it comes to a certain way of religious practice and our politics. Yet, we still follow each other on Facebook. I think that we could sit together and laugh and drink coffee while reminiscing about those days way back when. Yes, we will not agree on a lot of things. But I am finding that if people put their minds to the task of trying NOT to be divisive and to respect the other’s opinion there can be healthy relationships.
People grow. People change. And, people are strengthened by diversity. Relationships come and go. Still, I find it refreshing that after so many years and such divergent paths, I can still find a kindred spirit to share with on the journey.
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