There was no real gender definition in the sense of how you treat people in those days with gender differences. You avoided them. My parents always told me that you do not make fun of anybody, and so I didn't see anything funny about it.

It was my notion that teaching had to be thorough, it had to be well done, and it had to connect to something beyond the classroom; life.

When I became an adult, I had absolutely nothing against drinking alcohol. Many of my friends drank. I would often make wine and offer it, but I never sat down and drank it myself. That affect my religious practice.

In 1951 I took my first art course. And one day I looked over my shoulder and there was this tall gentleman standing, very well-dressed and groomed, and he asked, "What is your name? I don't know you. What is your major?" I said history. And he looked at my drawing and looked at me and said, "You don't belong over there; you belong here." He was James A. Porter.

There was this judgmental sense of what was good and what was bad in my father's words. You couldn't necessarily shut the people out who were not considered good. But on the other hand, as children we were told, you don't do those things, which means that you don't really mix with that crowd as much. You don't go to town on Saturday night and hang out and go to the beer parlors. Even though it was a dry county, there was plenty of moonshine and beer and liquor being brought in from other counties.

Personally, I think that my father's ministry does have some effect on one. I perhaps thought I wasn't listening that well, but I could almost recite his sermons. He had the old-fashioned preaching style of chanting. He would explain a point and then there would be this pitch to excite the audience because people would eventually shout and respond to what he was saying.

I remember an experience once of a young man in our home who was gay. We just assumed it, based on his outward appearance. Gay people had a hard time in those days, in fifties since the police would create situations to lock them up.