I went to a couple of different Bible Colleges before seminary. The first college was in Tennessee. I went there in January of 1975 after graduating from high school in June of 1974. I was unmarried and I had the pleasure of living in a men’s dorm. Actually, ‘pleasure’ doesn’t quite express the feeling. ‘Death sentence’ is closer to the fact. It was a very strict school and the dorms were more like lock down facilities. The women’s dorms were much more so than the men’s, but neither was very pleasant. It struck me, though, that the kids from super strict homes thought they had freedom at last, particularly PKs and MKs. (Preacher’s kids and missionary’s kids.) Those from the super strict environments who thought they had freedom at last tended to get into trouble pretty quickly because they were so naive. Other students would talk them into doing stupid stuff. I hadn’t come from a strict home and was hardly naïve and I had no desire to get other students in trouble for my own entertainment, so some of those kids who were overwhelmed by school gravitated to me.

          One girl from a strict home was named Elaine. She was from Georgia and had a sassy attitude. She was cute and funny and so naïve it almost hurt to talk to her. She had a job working at a local restaurant as a waitress. On one occasion my roommates and I came into a little money and we went to the restaurant to eat, since one of my roommates kind of liked Elaine. We all came away angry. Elaine was a favorite there because she had no clue. Some of the young local men would harass her, saying rude and lewd things or swatting her on the behind as she walked by. She had no idea what they were talking about and she thought the swats were to get her attention to get more water or whatever. I know it seems impossible that someone in this day and age could be so naïve, but that was not this day and age. That was over 40 years ago and she was that naïve. Dusty, the roommate who liked her, jumped to his feet the first time someone said something. Steve, another roomie, grabbed him and reminded him that if a fight started, all four of us guys and Elaine would be kicked out of school. So we spoke to the manager instead. To him it was all fine. The young locals only came in the evenings Elaine worked and Elaine was oblivious to their action, so what was the problem? Again, a different time.

Elaine’s guy, though, wasn’t Dusty. She was in love with Pastor Ken, the youth director at her home church. Almost every day she would sit down across from me in the school library and tell me all about Pastor Ken. It was a larger church and had around 150 youth in the youth group. Elaine was in love with Pastor Ken, but to him she was just a young lady who had moved on after her Youth days. But Elaine had it bad for Pastor Ken

We had a week off from school at Easter. And when we all got back to school Elaine caught up with me in the library. You could almost feel the excitement radiating off of her. She dropped into the seat across from me and practically shouted, “Larry, I have figured it out! I know how to make Pastor Ken marry me!” Now, as it happened, I already had some demerits (my secret and you don’t need to know) and I couldn’t risk getting tossed out of the library, especially for something I really didn’t care to much about.

“Lanie, pipe down! You’ll get us tossed!” She acted like she didn’t hear me, but she did quiet down.

“Larry, listen to me. I have figured how to get Pastor Ken to marry me. Isn’t that great?!!?” I just looked at her and made a face that said, ‘go on.’

“I want you to show me how to get pregnant.”

          I could have sat there and guessed for eight weeks and never have come up with that one. I wasn’t shocked or stunned or anything like that. I was blown away. Virtually speechless, as you will see.

          “WHAT?” Real smooth.

          “WHAT?” Like I said, real smooth.

          She gave me that exasperated look women reserve for men who are not quite up to speed. “Shush! Not so loud. Somebody will hear and you’ll get in trouble. Let me explain.”

          “Okay,” I said. If nothing else, the explanation would be interesting.

          “Okay, I was thinking about this last night. Back home in Georgia there was this girl who really liked this guy. He liked her, too, sort’a, but not near as much as she liked him. He would never have married her as it was, so she went and got herself pregnant somehow and he had to marry her. So, I figure that if I get pregnant, Pastor Ken will have to marry me.”

          No kidding. That is what she told me. For a moment or two I didn’t even breathe. I was waiting for the punch line. But Elaine just sat there and looked at me, waiting for the light to come on in my thick male mind. It finally dawned on me that she was serious. To her the reasoning of the argument was sound. 

          I leaned across the table and so did she. Our noses were inches apart.  

          “Lanie,” just a whisper now. “I know how you feel about Pastor Ken and I know you want to marry him more than anything else in the whole world, but this isn’t the way to go about it.” I was using the reasoning, confident tone I imagined a pastor would use.

          “Larry, you must really be dumb. Give me one good reason why my plan won’t work. Just one.” Honestly, she was serious.

          Actually, I could have given her a dozen. The most obvious, however, is what I went with. “Lanie, in order for Pastor Ken to have to marry you, he would have to be the one to ‘show’ you how to get pregnant.”

          She blinked her eyes a couple of times and said, “But he would never do that! That’s why I need you to show me!”

          Now when you stop and think about that reply, you see something else about her thinking. Pastor Ken was so good and pure that he would never show her. Evidently, she thought I wasn’t so good and pure. She didn’t know the procedure, but Pastor Ken would not step off of his pedestal to show her. I was her choice. I was convenient. This was confirmed in the rest of the conversation.

          “Lanie, it doesn’t work that way. If I show you how to get pregnant, you would have to marry me.”

          Her eyes got wide. “Ewwww! That’s gross! I don’t want to marry you!” Yes sir, she had a way with men.

          She left school at the end of the semester and I never saw her again. I do hope she got straightened out.