Tales From The Temple by James T. Spurgeon PAGE 6

lunch room was considered a date. One-on-one conversations between members of the opposite sex were frowned upon. Girls were not to wear jackets, rings, or any apparel that "pertained" to a man, namely their boyfriend. Suffice it to say that the dating rules at TBC were an ever-growing, ever-more complicated maze of regulations designed to discourage relationships between the sexes altogether. The best that I could tell, many of the dating rules at TBC were derived from the vast fount of wisdom which found its source in Mrs. Bowen, wife of then college president Dr. Bob Bowen. A more bitter woman has never usurped the name "Christian." Anything that remotely resembled communication between male and female was considered a date, and thus subject to being tightly monitored and restricted by the staff.

The ultimate determiner of whom should date whom, I was later to learn, was Bob Gray himself. If a couple did not have his approval, they were not to be a couple. The man of God had ultimate authority in these matters.

Everything was going fine until about a month into the semester when I was called in to the office and informed that I was no longer to have anything to do with Miss X. When I asked why, I was told that her parents did not approve of our relationship. I had never met her parents, and they had never met me, but that made no difference. From then on, I was no longer allowed to speak to her.

To understand what was going through my mind at that time, you have to try to go back and put yourself in the frame of mind of a nineteen year-old. For no apparent reason, I had been told I could no longer speak to a girl whom I had begun to think very seriously about. The one (her mother) who had made that edict, I had never met, and the enforcers were very adamant about keeping her intent.

But the communication continued through notes, letters, and messages relayed by sympathizing third parties. Absence made the heart grow fonder. My grades faltered, partly because I had taken way too much upon myself and partly because of my pre- occupation with this distressing break in my relationship. What I needed was a slap to bring me back to my senses, and I was about to get it.

The TBC Gestapo learned of the continuing relationship that had been ordered to stop. Things got desperate in my nineteen year-old mind, especially since I knew from her letters that the twenty year-old Miss X was equally distressed and heartbroken. I was called into the office again and warned not to write any more letters, not to communicate any more in any way with her. I was further informed that because I had not obeyed the first command to break things off, that I would never be allowed to date Miss X again, ever.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

With visions of Romeo and the balcony scene in Romeo & Juliet, I sent off another letter to my Juliet and asked her to elope. Yep. Pretty embarrassing now that I think about it. But then again, I'm older now.

Juliet (Miss X) held onto the letter for a week before succumbing to pressure and tearfully taking it into the office and turning it into Bro. Bowen. The jig was up. The noose was out. I was about to be summoned to the scaffold and didn't even know it.

I arrived at chapel that day feeling pretty good. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 1988. I take a moment to reflect back to that day every year now on the day before Thanksgiving. I was given no warning. Naively I thought that my troubles would soon be over. They would be, but not the way I expected.

Dow Allen was preaching that day. Dow Allen was the college "character" specialist. He was always looking for new and innovative ways to expose the lack of character which so much epitomized the preacher-boys at our college. Though he never held a steady full-time job himself while he was there, he was always preaching to us