I came across this poem if it is a poem? in a sermon by Moses Stoltzfus.The StrangerAuthor unknownA few months before I was born my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning Dad was fascinated with the enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months latter. As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. Mom taught me to love the Word of God and Dad taught me to obey it, but the stranger was tour story teller. He could weave the most fascinating tales, adventure, mysteries, and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spellbound for hours each evening and was a good to the whole family. He took Dad, Bill and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangement to introduce us to several movie stars. The strange was an incessant talker. Dad did not seem to mind, but sometimes Mom would quietly get up while the rest of us were enthralled with one of the stories of faraway places go to her room and read her bible and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave. You see my Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions but this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them. Prophanity for example was not allowed in our house not from us from our friend or adults. Our long time visitor however used occasional four letter words that burned my ears and Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My Dad was a teetotaler who did not permit alcohol in his home not even for cooking. But the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes look tasty cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely much too freely about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant sometimes suggestive and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man woman relationship were influenced by the stranger. As I look back I believe that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. More than forty years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on morning side drive, But if I were to walk in my parents den today you would still see him over in the corner waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures. His name we always just called him T.V.
