WINONA LAKE, IN chapter 49

(This story should have appeared before Graduation, but its a good one and needs to be included. So better late than never - I guess.)

The summer before my senior year I was encouraged to attend the National Youth for Christ conference held at Winona Lake, Indiana. About 10,000 were in attendance. I was one lost little puppy.

Our YFC director packed three of us in his VW bug and off we went to the middle of the country. The place was huge. The center had a huge auditorium and houses with rental rooms as far as the eye could see. Rusty, John and I found a room on the second floor with a porch like affair out front. Pete warned us to keep enough money set aside to buy bus fare back home. I found out the cost and put that away immediately. Pete left after getting us settled.

The three of us mostly went our separate ways. Rusty chased women and John, well John… I don’t know. I was pretty committed to finding out what was going on, but O dod meet a girl, Beth from Chattanooga, TN. This was the first camp/conference I attended and actually went to most of the meetings. The energy was overwhelming. It was hard not to be excited.

I watched a lot of the Bible quizzing and got hooked. What we did in Omaha was kids stuff compared to the quizzers on this level. They were up and ready to answer almost before there was a question. I wanted to be able to do that.

The Palarmo Brothers, an Italian American accordion players and singers were the entertainment. They were very funny and mixed with the crowd. Speakers were the best the nation had to offer. I left the conference walking on air, mostly.

The night before we were to leave the three of us sat down to make sure we had enough money to get home. I had enough for my ticket and some food along the way. The bus trip was going to take two days. My buddy’s didn’t have enough for one ticket between them. All for one and one for all. Great, but how do we get home.

Rusty at met a girl headed with her brother to Kansas City so he talked them into taking us east until they turned south. When they pulled up to load us in, they had a VW Bug and their stuff filled the trunk. I still don’t know how we got us and out things in that bug, but we sat on and held the luggage we had. The ride was dreadfully uncomfortable, but off we went.

They took as us far east as Bloomington, Illinois. We arrived in time to pool what little money we had and buy three tickets on to Omaha. Virtually nothing was left for food. Where were we going to stay? Maybe in the local jail! It was a thought so we found the police station and asked. The Sergeant smiled and grinned and said he was sorry, but couldn’t do that. Instead he gave us three tickets for entrance to Home Sweet Home Gospel Mission.

We were disappointed, but had no intention of staying at a mission with all those drunks and stinky men. I’m pretty sure we didn’t smell like roses. We walked around the block, parked our luggage in front of a jewelry store and left John standing guard. Rusty and I went in search of a park.

About half a block away from John, we saw a huge tractor tire leaning against the wall of a dead-end alley. The tire was crying out to be rolled. We did and then walked on trying to find a park. We didn’t get very far when a taxi came screeching around the corner, slammed on his breaks near us and screamed, “Did you roll that tire down the alley?” “What tire down what alley?" “The tractor tire down that alley just a few feet behind you.”

Oh no, what had we done? “Get in my cab.” As stupid as that was, we got in and he drove up to the police station right past John who saw us waving at him. He looked bewildered. The Sergeant said, “Weren’t you guys just in here?" “Well, yes.” The cab driver explained what happened and demanded that we be put in jail until we paid for the repair of his cab. The entire back door on the driver side was caved in. The policeman said, “I’m not going to put them in jail. They look like nice boys, (adjust halo) I’m sure they will send you the money for the cab — won’t you?” “Yes sir.” “Look they have no place to stay so pick up their buddy and take them to the mission.”

We picked up John telling him we would explain later. We were told there was no park with benches and the best outdoor spot to sleep would be at the bus station. He took us there and we tried to settle in for the night.

An hour or so later, the car driver had turned in his cab, which was right across from the depot. We watched him get in his car and rive over to where we were. “Get in the car.” Huh! We were bewildered. “I’ll take you home and you can sleep on the floor. At least it will be warm.” We slept on the floor woke up to the most wonderful breakfast ever. Of course we were starved. The last time we ate was at breakfast the day before. We had at least an 8-hour bus ride before us, and insufficient funds for travel food. He took us back to the depot and made sure we got on the bus and handed us sack lunches his wife had made.

That rolled tired was certainly worth the repair costs. Neither Rusty nor my parents were very happy with us and we both paid the repair cost out of our own earned money (32.50 each).