SALVAGED!

I was born in Los Angeles CA in 1947. My formative years were split 70/30 between the California Mojave Desert and the Arkansas Ozarks. Route 66 became a connecting land bridge for our family to cross whenever dad's freelance work would take him from one place to the other, which periodic uprootings I glumly protested, but to no avail. Although I don't have a surplus of early memories to wax nostalgic about, there are a few. For instance, I believe the "Mother Road" deserves part of the credit for the good scores I got on my grade school geography tests. I also recall the sets of rhyming Burma Shave signs that were posted at intervals in either direction along the entire way. The chuckle-worthy jingles always prompted an impromptu family recitation each time we drove past them. It's only speculation, but that repeated exposure to sound and sense in the wild may have contributed to my later interest in poetry - albeit the non-rhyming kind. CUT to my teenage years. A domestic dispute following my baptism in 1962 set the stage for a raging bull charge into the post-60s counterculture. By then there was no question that the parable of the prodigal son was mine to reprise. Looking back on those years I have no doubt that I'd still be "wallowing with the swine," or worse, if I hadn't caught myself in a lie by way of an old civil rights/AA saying. In mid-1981 I finally came to the conclusion that I wasn't as "sick and tired of being sick and tired" as I had been telling myself. The prayer that would grow out of that reality check may not have equaled the Nephite prophet Enos' in duration, but in terms of intensity, apparently it was enough of a match for the Lord to know I was ready to surrender - unconditionally -- which is what I did, on the evening of November 8, 1981, a "veritable time stamp on when I was born again." True, Religious, Survival, Dramatic, Candid, Unconventional, Well-Documented, Inspirational, Testimony, Literary