A Story Worth Telling Twice

Today is Comment Day.  Read all the blogs you can.  Comment on each blog you read.  Encourage the writers- and feel free to start here!


The other night I was sitting at Tijuana Flats enjoying Taco Tuesday with Marilyn and our dear friend Lisa Jewett, and as often happens we began to talk about New York trips.  I never come out looking good in these conversations.  In 2002 Lisa accompanied myself and a group from Wesley Memorial UMC to the city, and while there we saw the musical Moving Out on Broadway.  Marilyn was not with us for this trip, and seeing as how she is one of the world's biggest Billy Joel fans it did not go over well that we saw it without her.  She still has never seen the show, and I am still in trouble.  Two years later Marilyn got to go but Lisa did not, after I messed up and told Lisa her son was too young to go and then let another young man the same age go with his Mom on the trip.  Lisa reminds me constantly that I still owe her a trip.  Again, I am in trouble.  But I digress.  The point is that we were talking about New York trips when I discovered Lisa had never heard the tale of the great shower escapade.  As I told the story and she laughed hysterically, I realized that while some stories get told too often, others can never be told enough.  I related this episode on this blog back on January 4, 2010- along with a few other stories from that trip.  Today I tell it again.  Because it is definitely a story worth telling twice...

Charles & Mike show off their artistic side
at The Museum of Modern Art, NYC

Mike Mercadante and Charles Freedle were among the great characters I ever had in any of my youth groups.  They joined us on one of our New York trips in the early 199o'sn and I knew before we ever left that having those 2 in NYC would me memorable.  Among the many other unique people on this trip was a young man from Yadkinville, NC named Josh.  Yadkinville is a small, rural town in the foothills of NC, and Josh was a stereotypical citizen.  He spoke "Yadkinese" (a dialect that even the rest of us with southern accents have trouble interpreting!), was a little shy, and was a family oriented young man (read Mama's Boy!).  We discovered on the long bus ride to NYC that he was a huge fan of TV, and that is his humble opinion Full House was the best show ever and one of its characters, Kimmy Gibler, was the most beautiful woman on TV.  Josh was ready to go home before we ever got out of the Lincoln Tunnel; New York scared him to death.  He was about to get the most terrifying news of all- he was rooming with Mike and Charles at the Milford Plaza Hotel!  The story you are about to read is true, because quite frankly I couldn't make up anything this good.

Our days started early on those trips, and the first morning our shy, frightened young Josh was first in the shower.  He took quite a long shower, and it began to be close to time for everyone to meet in the lobby to head out for the day. After asking Josh to come out on a couple of occasions, my guys began to get frustrated.   Finally, Charles could take no more.  The tall, string-bean skinny country boy grabbed a towel, stripped naked, entered the bathroom, pulled back the shower curtain and announced to Josh, "You can stay or you can go, but I'm coming in!"  Josh left, of course, and within minutes I had a call from a woman from his church saying Josh wanted to go home, or at least get a new room.  I calmed her down, and (laughing hysterically as she told me the story) kept them together all week.  The event did nothing to ease Josh's fears of life in the big city, and he stayed close to the adults the rest of the week.  Mike and Charles went on to share many other adventures with myself and our ministry.  I heard many years later that Josh was the Mayor of Yadkinville (or some small town in that same county).  Charles now spends most of his time in southeast Asia running an import/export business.  And Mike is a hotshot business man in High Point.  I guess students do survive these crazy adventures and move on with their lives.  But for me, they will always be connected through that trip and one very funny moment in the shower!


Because of Jesus,