I was eleven years old, sitting in the Principal’s office

In Lincoln Grade school, Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

 

I was liquefied in in the middle section of my body

if you know what that means.

Thinking of what he knew that brought the intercom call,

“Mr. Peterson, would you send Curtiss Mortimer

to the principal’s office.”

Maybe it was beating up Jimmy Sievert after school yesterday,

Or was it hocking those candy bars at Gordy’s Grocery

Why was I so scared?

Because I needed my parents not to know

about this side of my young existence.

 

Well, you know and I know now

that they knew

 

But I didn’t know it then.

I thought I had my Mr. Hyde well hidden

behind Curtie Dr. Jeckle Lynn, hero of the Sunday School.

My teacher, Mr. Peterson was trying to reform me

I could tell.

We had some nice talks

that I’m sure he felt good about.

But it didn’t change me.

 

Then came the second week in November,

our church, the Wesleyan Methodists

held revival services the second week in November.

I guess they thought God got heated up

Every second week in November.

I know the preacher was hoping

I’d get a little burned over

with revival fire

 

before the week was done

because on the second day of the meetings,

out in the vestibule

he asked me

“Curt, how long are you going to let the devil

Have control of your life?”

I was totally speechless.

How did he know?

 

The veil between my two lives was rent

just as surely as the veil in the Temple

when Jesus died.

The unholy of unholys was open to view.

I felt ashamed of what I was doing

in my other life

That was the night I went to the altar.

That’s how they did it 60 years ago.

 

I wrote this poem many years later

about that experience,

 

Altar Rail Tears

 

 

Which of you molecules tumbled,

Through the tear in the Titanic?

And were you drawn down,

That deathdark whirl?

 

 

And who has had the joy of running red,

Mashed beneath merry feet?

Do you know the remembrance you hold,

When solemn church bells chime?

 

 

Who has known the slavery,

Of ferrying filth down to the sea?

And did you think that you were free,

When flung into the filthy heavens?

 

 

Perhaps you all learned patience,

Captives of the polar ice.

Silent power slowly slipping,

O'er a mountain's leveled plain.

 

Oh,you riches of wisdom and knowledge,

That fall so lightly down my cheek,

Is it you, that make me feel so clean?

 

 

I won’t go into detail

about the sobbing little boy

down at the altar.

 

He had a lot to talk to God about.

But afterward. . . afterword,

it was like going back to Genesis 1.

I was a pure, young, new Adam

exploring a world that was brand new.

My best pal was God.

 

They had a testimony section

in every service.

I was one of the first to jump up

and tell what new thing I was experiencing in God.

I didn’t know why I had wasted so much of my life.

I never knew sermons could be so interesting,

and now I loved to read the Bible

and my bad friends at school were losing interest in me

and I in their ideas for fun.

And even though I didn’t share this in church,

Mr. Peterson must have thought

those talks really did some good.

That old psychology class back in Normal School

had been beneficial after all.

Curtiss Mortimer was a brand new boy.

He never had to go to the principal’s office again.