How did you wind up here?

There is a woman who comes in quite often to buy lottery tickets. We talk about this and that. I must’ve mentioned my upcoming trip to Hawai’i because she asked me something about it and I told her I used to live in Hawai’i. “Hawaii?? How did you end up here??”

How did I end up here? There are two ways to look at that question: (1) How did I end up living in South Carolina? (2) How did I end up working at this store? I’m pretty sure she meant #1. So, how did I wind up living here in Rock Hill, South Carolina?

I was born in New Bern, North Carolina. As East Coast as you can get! Shortly after I was born my family began migrating West. We lived in New Bern, Sanford, and Fayetteville, NC; Jackson, MS; Nashville, TN; Dallas-Fort Worth (yeah, back then that’s how it was known!) and El Paso, TX; Tucson, AZ; and at some point made a winter stop in the Boston, MA area. People used to ask me if my Dad was in the military. No, he was a disc jockey. Eventually he got real good at it and wound up in the San Jose Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but not while he was married to my mother.

Anyway, my Mom and father divorced, must’ve been while we were living in Arizona. After a while she met and married another man (who I came to consider “Dad”) and he convinced her to sell all and move to Hawai’i. I was in the third grade when we moved to Hawai’i. That’s as far west as you can go in the US! We lived in Honolulu, then Kahaluu, then finally Kaneohe. Lived there seven years. Back then, that was the longest I had ever lived anywhere.

My Dad died while we were living in Hawai’i. We continued for a brief while but then the landlord decided he wanted to do some work on the house and raise the rent. My Mom couldn't afford this so we left Hawai’i – and thus began my eastward migration. We moved to Nashville to stay with my Grandparents. That first summer in Nashville I slept in a small travel trailer parked in my Grandparents driveway. Then we rented our own house and after a while my Mother was able to buy a house. It was while living in Nashville that I became a Christian.

I graduated from McGavock High School in Nashville and eventually went off to collegein Martin, TN. I was trying to go west. Mary and I met and married while in Martin. When she graduated (RN) we moved to Memphis so she could work and I could go to school. Mid-South Bible College.

Upon my graduation we began to trek eastward. My first pastorate was in Pensacola, FL. Then we moved to Macon, GA. Then York, SC. I pastored the church in York for 20 years. Basically raised our family here. When, in the course of time, I left the church (like how I put that? That’s the other way to take the question – I’m not going into that), we moved to Rock Hill. East again! I was born on the East Coast and here I am in my old age living on the East Coast.

And that’s how I wound up here in Rock Hill, South Carolina.