Going Home for the First Time as a Christian

December 1971

I went home to Milwaukee, WI for Christmas 1971 with a suitcase full of witnessing material. I had grown accustomed to handing out pamphlets called "tracts" to people. Many of them were dire warnings of hell, fire and brimstone, others promised great rewards, but all of them were about Jesus. When I got home I put the tracts on the dining room table for all to see.

I found out that during the last few weeks my younger brother David (4 years younger than me) joined up with Cindy in going to church, bible studies and all. David was the artist in the family. Indeed, we were all very gifted in art, my mother taught art, and every one of us kids had a crud load of creativity, but David's cartooning abilities stood out. In art class David blew the teachers away. While other kids faithfully followed the teacher's instructions, David took those instructions to new levels with humor and talent and a taste of rebellion in his work. Years later, during art college he teamed up with two good friends, one of which designed the Porsche Boxter (Grant Larson). David now designs figures for McDonald's, Burger King, Warner Bros and so on.

David used to hang out with another brother, Eric (a year younger than David), and our next door neighbor Paul, but David's going to church began to strain their relationship a bit.

Going home for Leave, I had several goals in mind. I wanted to witness to my family, I wanted to witness to my friends and I wanted to destroy every one of my albums. I began with my albums - all 81 of them. I sat out in the back yard and with a nail I scratched through every one of them. My brothers watched me in horror and disbelief. But they always hated Grand Funk Railroad, so when I pulled out those albums my brothers grabbed the nail from me and went at it with pleasure.

My friends came over the 2nd night and we got into a heated discussion about Jesus and Rock and Roll. By the end of the night one of my friends, Pete bet me I'd be right back into drugs. We sealed the bet with a handshake (a year later he conceded the loss, but reminded me we didn't bet any money).