November 04, 1993

YOU'RE THE DUDE ON TV

I got into Shreveport, Louisiana around 5:30 p.m. after riding about sixty-eight miles from Natchitochee. I needed a break so I pulled into a quick-mart so that I could maybe rest a few minutes and then ask directions to the police station. Right before I went into the quick-mart, this cable TV truck pulled into the parking lot. This African-American guy got out of the truck and yelled out towards me "I know you. You're the dude that was on TV."

I told him that I didn't know what he was talking about since it had been a long time since my last TV interview. The guy told me that his name was "Darryl" and he saw me on TV as being the dude who was riding around the country for G-D. I didn't really want to argue with him so I agreed with him. Maybe some local TV station did do a short story about me and got a picture of me somehow.

We talked for about six minutes. Darryl before leaving gave me directions to the police station and also his phone number if I needed anything while I was in town. When I got to the police station, I was just given directions to the local shelter. I didn't want to find it in the dark because of what happened a couple of days ago (my near robbery in Opelousas) so I called Darryl up to tell him that I needed a place to stay.

Darryl came by about ten minutes later and picked me up to take me to his apartment. When he got there, he told me that I should forgive him because of the mess since he was packing up to move to a new supervisory position at a cable TV company in Rochester, NY.

He also said that he had to apologize because he felt that he was a mess also himself for the way that he lived. He felt that he was junk. I told him that this wasn't the case because ADONAI doesn't make junk. It was just that Darryl might have wandered away from ADONAI for a bit. This brought a few tears into his eyes and he told me that nobody ever said that to him.