I Remember Getting Into Trouble With My Parents On This Occasion:

The most trouble I was ever in during my teenage years was one night when I didn’t come home. I had gone driving with some friends of mine – Dick Steed was one of them – and after we had driven to the Lower Valley, we were caught in a blizzard. We made our way to Alpine and stayed at the Alpine Lodge that night because the roads were so bad. This was in the days before cell phones and, though there may have been a pay phone around somewhere, I didn’t look for one and so didn’t try to call my parents. Many times when I had been out late, my parents had not missed me, but unfortunately for me, this was not one of those times. The next morning, my friends drove me to school and I would have just gone on with my life, but since my father had missed me during the night, he called the school. When they reported to him that I had shown up for class, he came up to get me and take me home. Man, was I ever in trouble. If I had had an abusive father, he probably would have beaten me black and blue. As it was, he just yelled at me and made me feel ashamed of myself. How could I have been so thoughtless? But this was during my black sheep phase (when I was sixteen) and I didn’t much care anymore whether my parents approved of me or not. They always suspected me of being a lot worse than I ever was. Even as bad as I was, I rarely missed church and never did take up smoking, drinking or drugs. I just wanted to be liked and to hang out with my friends, who were people that my parents didn’t like. I got it together again about the time I turned seventeen. I went on a European concert tour with an All-American Band and Chorus the summer after my senior year and then managed to get accepted to BYU. That made them feel more like good parents and made them think I was going to turn out okay. The jury is still out on whether I turned out okay. :)