Bring ‘Em Young

Steve read the Book of Mormon to me until I wanted
to vaporize the Angel Moroni with a fire extinguisher.
(Would that work?) Those jokers in university housing
must have had a hoot pairing me, an avowed atheist,

with a devout member of the LDS church. Steve couldn’t
drink alcohol, caffeine, or use tobacco, substances that
I abused with abandon. One morning, after too many rum
and Cokes, I burst into our room, turned on the lights,

and woke up my roomie. “A voice spoke to me out of the
heavens tonight,” I bellowed. Steve, a big believer in miracles,
rubbed his eyes. “What did it say,” he asked. I paused, and in
my most biblical baritone intoned, “It said, ‘Don’t bring ‘em old;

bring ‘em young!’” Some days later I caught Steve dripping
a few pathetic drops of rum extract (12% alcohol) into a bottle
of Coke—an apostacy to both his religion and the rule against
alcohol in the dorms. I immediately reported him to Mr. McCall,

our hideously tall dorm director. Steve’s tiny bottle of rum extract
looked lonely in McCall’s ginormous hand as he carried it out
of our room. He managed to keep a straight face while warning
Steve that he could be expelled for using alcohol in the dorm.

And then, Lloyd Eaton, the football coach, threw the black
players off the team. They wanted to protest the Mormon
prohibition against blacks becoming priests in their church
by wearing black armbands in their upcoming game with

Brigham Young University. This temerity resulted in their
immediate expulsion. One of the ejected, Mel Hamilton,
a guard raised in Boys Town, and I became close friends. Mel
and his teammates made national news as the Black 14. Fifty

years later, Mel’s son, Malik arrived in Pittsburgh to attend
graduate school. My wife and I took him out to dinner. Malik,
married, with three kids, had become, wonder of wonders,
a Mormon! The church had long since lifted its ban on Blacks,

the ban his father had protested. I wondered aloud where Malik
was staying. His truck, it seemed, was his home. I sensed
the struggle, the tiny family back in Utah, the faltering
finances. We offered our house. He stayed with us for

three months. After Malik left, Mel called, “I owe you,”
he said. “You don’t owe me anything,” I told him, and
thought about my old roomie, Steve—his puny bottle
of rum extract, his Book of Mormon.