Part Two

Wow, two posts in one day. Well, I am trying to get a running start. Okay, I was born in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina destroyed our house a couple of years ago. But, we moved to Columbia SC, when I was five. I remember some stuff about New Orleans like green lizards, Audubon Park, the lake, and Mardi Gras. When we moved, I had to say goodbye to my best friend Paul Price. That was the first of many goodbyes later on. My father taught at New Orleans Baptist Seminary. I am a preacher's kid. That is a crucial bit of information, because preacher's kids are very bad people for the most part. I know there are exceptions to every rule, but I am the rule. We moved to Columbia, so that my father could become the director of the Sunday School Dept. for the SC Baptist Convention. He was gone a lot with his job, so my Mother basically raised me and my older brother. My brother is about 8 years older than me, so we pretty much were raised separately. I often say that my parents had two only children. Other folks would have said that I had a great childhood. We went to Disneyland in CA, when I was 5. We travelled all over the US. I met Billy Graham, when I was 10. My father had a lot of friends in religious circles. They all knew my name. I knew them as my father's friends. I didn't realize until much later in life how much of a pioneer my father was in Baptist life. By the time I had reached high school, I had been to 29 out of the 50 states. My father used to say that travel broadens one. It does. I don't want to brag, but it does. If you can just get in the car, and ignore the gas prices for a while, drive through the countryside. You'll be amazed what you'll see. Until I was about 12, I had a pretty much "Leave It To Beaver" childhood. Life changed, when I hit 6th grade. (oooo, tease for next time).