Tom, The Wino

 

Tom, the Wino

 

He was a wino on the streets of north Tampa. He lived in a dinky apartment on Ninth Street, just off Waters Avenue.  Tom lived in the same block where our church was located, so I saw him on the streets around the church several times before we ever met.

 

Tom was not the only wino on the streets around the church, but he seemed to have “marked his territory” much as an animal does.  He was the one that I saw most.  The others seemed to keep their distance, but I knew that sooner or later Tom and I would meet.

 

Because of the area where the church was located, and because I was usually at the church alone during the week (we had no secretary), I kept the doors locked.  From the pastor’s study I could not see any of the outside doors, so I felt it advisable to keep the doors secured.  There was a doorbell at the side door in case someone really needed to get my attention.

 

However, not long after becoming pastor, Tom caught me in the parking lot as I arrived one Tuesday morning.  Being a tall and large-boned man he was somewhat intimidating to say the least.  While a large man, he was thin, and his wrinkled face and sunken eyes told the story of a wayward life.  He had something in his hand he wanted to show me.  It was a cigarette lighter.  He wanted to sell it to me.  Evidently he had found it or perhaps stolen it.  I was kind but explained to him that I had no need for a lighter and that I was hesitate to give him money for I felt he would go immediately and spend it on alcohol.  I could smell it on his breath.

 

He did not get upset as some beggars do when refused money.  It was as though my response was what he expected.  He had evidently been turned down many times before.

 

One morning a couple of weeks later the buzzer on the church’s side door sounded.  As I walked down the hallway to the door I noticed that it was Tom, and he was holding something in his hand.  This time he had a small transistor radio he wanted to sell me.  It was apparent that it was well used.  I did not need nor want the radio, but I thought perhaps this was my second opportunity to witness to him.  Perhaps this was a “God Moment.”  After all, I was a minister!

 

I invited him into the hallway and somewhat reluctantly took him to the study.  I was concerned about his seeing everything I had in the pastor’s study--not only the many books, but my souvenirs from the Holy Land and various other items that were valuable to me.  We had recently had a burglary at the church when someone broke a rear window, entered the sanctuary, and took all the expensive microphones.  I tried to put aside my fears however and treat him as I would anyone else.

 

As I tried to witness to him of God’s forgiving grace he told me an amazing story. He said that he knew all about church and had attended college with Billy Graham.  In addition, for a few years he played the organ for a large Presbyterian church in Ft. Lauderdale.  It so happened that I was familiar with the small Bible college north of Clearwater, Florida, where Billy Graham had gone to college his first year.  (In fact, as a senior in high school my friend Roy Edwards and I visited the college.  Their claim to fame was that the famous evangelist Billy Graham had once been a student there.  My friend Roy was thinking of going there to college himself.)

 

Thinking I could catch Tom in a lie, I began asking him questions about the name of the college and its precise location.  To my shock he told me details that only a person who had been there would have known.

 

I then asked him about “the large Presbyterian church” in Ft. Lauderdale.  I was familiar with the Coral Ridge Presbyterian where Dr. James Kennedy had been pastor for so many years.  Without giving him the information that I knew, I asked Tom the name of the church and the pastor.  He immediately told me that it was Coral Ridge Presbyterian and that Dr. Kennedy was his pastor.  I could not believe what I was hearing and thought surely his information came from watching the television programs from the Coral Ridge church.

 

Tom told me how alcohol had been his downfall.  He became an alcoholic and his wife and children had left him.  He had lost his job as organist at the church and ended up on the streets of Tampa.  This, my second meeting with Tom, ended with my being puzzled as to his veracity. I could not match what he was telling me with his appearance.  His face was wrinkled, worry-lined, and unshaven.  His hands and fingernails were dirty-looking with gnarled fingers.  It did not seem to add up in my mind.  He was “playing me” somehow, but I gave him a few dollars for the radio and he left.

 

His third visit came two or three weeks later, and I thought I was ready for him this time.  He met me in the parking lot, again with something to sell me.  I invited him into the church, but this time I took him into the sanctuary.  I asked him how our church organ compared with the one at the Coral Ridge church in Ft. Lauderdale.  He opened it and told me the one in Ft. Lauderdale was much larger.  I flipped the “on” switch and let the organ warm up and then asked him to play.  I thought this would be the ultimate test of his truthfulness.  He explained that it had been a long time and he was out of practice.  “Ah, ha.” I thought, “Now I’ve got him.”

 

As kindly as I could, I said that I realized that it had been a while since he had played, but I wanted him to pick out a song and play it.  His exact words were, “You pick one out; any one in the hymnal.”  The hymnal was on the organ, so I flipped it open.  He began to play and did so perfectly.  I turned randomly to another and again he played it flawlessly; then a third and a fourth.  I was nearly speechless!

 

During the remainder of my time at the Sulphur Springs church Tom was a regular.  No, he never attended a service, but I could count on seeing him every couple of weeks.  I never felt that I had any success with him spiritually. He often expressed his feeling that he was too far gone for God to ever forgive him.  I tried my best to assure him that God is able to forgive even the worst of sinners.  And, yes, I gave him money from time to time presumably for food to eat, but I suspect it was for liquid nourishment.

 

After my experience with Tom, I never again looked at street people the same.