What About the Change?

 A few days later, I was heading back east to the relative familiarity of the Carlin Springs area of Arlington, VA. My biological mother had returned with Panayiotis and Carrie from Greece.  I wish I could say my life became suddenly and dramatically different because of my conversion experience. Perhaps there was a difference in my conduct that was obvious to others. I immediately quit smoking -- anything. I tried to be what I thought was "nice," but it was just as likely I had become judgmental. That's the thing about believing in God and heaven. If you're really serious about it, you've just implicitly condemned the majority of the human race. Of course you realize it isn't actually you doing the condemning, but deep down you have to believe every human being on earth is going to spend forever in either heaven or hell. Life has become an "all or nothing" proposition. If life was a poker game, becoming a Christian is like going "all in."

I traded in my smoking habit for chewing tobacco.  This was a habit I picked up while visiting with my Uncle Ranny in Manassas.  He was my biological father's brother, and since he only lived 45 minutes west down I-66, I visited him a couple times before school started.  He chewed Red Man, fished, and lived in a house on a lake.  He was also married and had two kids.  He was the sort of father figure I thought made a good role model.  Besides, chewing seemed a less obnoxious way to satisfy my oral fixation.  My first time chewing was while Uncle Ranny and I were fishing on Lake Jackson.  Having heard stories, I feared getting nauseous.  But I actually found I enjoyed it.  Dad used to say that spitting on the lure would take the human smell off the lure and help you catch fish.  Looking back, it was probably nonsense, but we did it anyway.

In the fall, I began school at Hoffman-Boston.  The school was designed for gifted students and allowed them much greater freedom than the typical school environment.  We only went to classes a few days of the week, and had free time when we weren't in class.  We referred to our teachers by their first names, and played poker in the cafeteria.  The school also had a computer, which quickly became a source of fascination for many students.  To grasp the impact of having a computer at the school, you have to remember that it is the fall of 1980.  The personal computer barely even existed, and very few schools had computers available for student access.  Several of us made it a personal project to begin learning how to program in BASIC.

Life began to assume some sense of normalcy and rhythm.  I had a paper route again, this time in the Carlin Springs area, which was very convenient.  And I started going to church on a regular basis.  It was made clear to me in no uncertain terms that I would have to walk to church.  So I began making the weekly trek to the only church I knew of within walking distance -- St. Andrews Episcopal Church.  The preacher went by the title "Father," which seemed rather pretentious to me.  But he was a very kind man who seemed to take a liking to me quickly.  It wasn't long before I became an acolyte, and eventually the head acolyte.  Basically, this meant I got to carry one of the flags up the aisle at the beginning of the service, sit up front and mix the Eucharist (communion).

In the Episcopal church, communion is usually referred to as "The Eucharist" and consists of melt-in-your mouth wafers and a mix of water and wine.  It didn't take long before I realized that no matter how much communion I prepared, the priest had to consume whatever was left after everyone else drank.  I found that if I made it mostly wine and nearly filled the cup with it, that his homily (sermon) was more entertaining and light-hearted.

However, at my core I was (and still am, to some degree) very self-centered and self-motivated.  This led to me feeling that my mother was controlling when she wanted to set boundaries for me.  The key moment happened one afternoon when she informed me when I got home after school that if I expected to eat dinner at home tonight, I'd better be there by 6:30 (I think that was the time).  I went and delivered the newspapers on my route, and when a friend of mine offered for me to have dinner with he and his family, I took him up on it.  When I got back home at about 9:00, my mother was quite angry that I was so late.  She asked me, "didn't I tell you to be home by 6:30?"  I pointed out that no, she hadn't really.  She had merely said that if I expected to eat dinner there, that's when I needed to be home.  At the time it seemed like a perfectly reasonable interpretation of her words to me.

She told me that if I didn't start behaving, she was going to send me off to live with my Uncle in Manassas.In anger, she sent me to my room.  There, I seized the opportunity to call my Uncle Ranny.  The idea of living with him seemed like a pretty good deal to me.  Especially since 1) there was a church there that was similar to the one where I had been baptized; and 2) there were a couple cute girls in the Youth Group there.  Uncle Ranny told me I was always welcome at his home, but that he didn't feel it was his place to get involved in this dispute.  But the experience planted an idea in my mind that later took root.

The next time I went to Manassas to visit my Uncle Ranny and Aunt Kathy was Valentine's Day weekend in 1981.  I was a sophomore in high school, and it was a three day weekend.  Part of the festivities of the weekend included a "Christian Skate Night."  Both of the two young ladies I was particularly fond of from the Antioch Church of Christ youth group were present, and I remember having a great time.  When Monday rolled around, Virginia and Panayiotis came to pick me up at the house Dad lived at on Lake Jackson near Manassas.  Without informing anyone of my intent, I announced that I wanted to stay with them rather than return to Arlington. What followed was an argument that lasted about six hours.  At one point my mother tried to physically remove me from the house, but neither Uncle Ranny (who would be happy if I stayed), or Panayiotis (who would have preferred I stayed there also) were willing to help her.  So eventually she got back in the car and drove back to Arlington without me.

That day I became part of a new family.  I stayed in the bedroom that used to belong to my older cousin Theresa.  She had recently gotten married and moved out.  My other cousin Mary had the adjacent bedroom.  As quickly as possible, I was transferred to Stonewall Jackson High School, where Mary attended.  We were in the same grade, and so orientation to the routine was fairly easy.  Behind the scenes, Uncle Ranny and Aunt Kathy and Theresa and Mary began to discuss with one another whether I would be allowed to stay and become a permanent member of the family.  All I knew was that for the first time since I was twelve years old, I felt like I was home.