Those moderately familiar with the New Age know the theory of evolution lies at the central core of this ever expanding philosophy. Many level headed people, who would laugh at certain aspects of the New Age, are staunch adherents to evolution. Yet, many of these would be surprised to realize they themselves are New Agers—to a certain degree—simply because they are adherents to evolution.

As with most people in my age group (around forty) and younger, my first involvement with the New Age started with me being taught evolution in the public school system. This so-called "theory" has often been taught as accepted fact in the public school system for the last three or four decades or so. Therefore, I will put my finger on the rewind button and take you back to this turbulent time in my life.

As far back as I can remember, I have always been intrigued with the enigmatic bogeyman; glittering stars and planets against a mysteriously cool black velvet sky; fleeting ghosts; creaking haunted houses; God; outer space; science fiction, flying saucers and men from Mars; and judgment day. Personally, I do not think I was so unique in my mental ramblings. If honest, most would admit to having dwelt upon a few of these thoughts as a child, teen, or adult—even if it was in passing. A few have even had enough spunk to pursue their strange wonders openly. However, many prefer to keep their unorthodox pursuits hidden from those who live in "the real world." They do this to preserve their outward appearance of being rational and normal human beings with nominal thinking patterns.

Admittedly, either of the previously mentioned groups can go to the extreme. So it is probably safe to say both groups have their good and bad virtues. Think of the people who have made great contributions to mankind by daring to consider ideas which lie outside the realm of the normal. There was Copernicus who did not believe the Earth was the center of the cosmos and Christopher Columbus who did not believe the world was flat. They too were at times thought to be eccentric or living in a dream world as opposed to reality. One may wonder what great ideas and inventions mankind has missed out on because somebody gave in and conformed to the so called "norms of sociological reason." However, when I was in elementary school in the mid 1960s even the norms of society were traveling upon turbulent seas of variance.

As a child it was no problem for me to believe in Santa Klaus—or that God created the world. But when I was in elementary school I ran head-first into a wall of confusing uncertainties.

The first bit of confusion encountered was when my science book and teacher began telling me about the "Big Bang Theory" and the "Theory of Evolution." This was confusing to me because my mother had told me God created the world and mankind, but the state educational system was now telling me science had somehow determined an explosion and natural selection did the creating. I believed my mother would not lie to me but I began to wonder rather or not if the old book of accepted truth which gave her such information could in fact be in error. This opened one enormous can of worms for me.

The worms which crawled out of this can led me to wonder from where the world had come and rather or not if mankind had evolved from apes as scientists were proposing. These questions carried a lot of weight with me because I held scientists in the highest regard. It seemed they were always the hope for solving the great problems facing mankind. Whenever something great was discovered, scientist were those who discovered it. Looking back, I have to say I had put scientists on the same pedestal with God. They had become my idols.

To add to the confusion which began to flood me, I discovered Santa Klaus was a hoax. Man, if Santa Klaus was not real, what about God? Could God be a hoax as well? If there was a God, was He just as the Christian Bible said He was—or was God just some misunderstood myth? Or was God something simple which had been misunderstood all together?

During this same period of my life I was shocked one Sunday morning by a newspaper headline heralding, "GOD IS DEAD." This only confounded my worries and wonders about everything in life.

I wondered how somebody could positively say God was dead. If He was really dead, did this not mean He really existed at one time? Did this mean someone had found His grave? Did someone actually see Him die? If He did die, what did that mean for the world He had created? Lastly, was someone going to replace Him? All these questions where a natural consequence of such an assertion concerning the so-called demise of God.

All this took place in the mid to late sixties. Admittedly, some of my confusing "worms" became licenses of convenience. I reasoned if God turned out to be an archaic hoax then the Bible itself could not be true as well. If the Bible was not true then certain concepts contained in the Bible were not true also. To be specific, I hoped hell and judgment day were possibly myths.

Now, if I lied, cheated, or stole for a good cause—i.e. my cause—there was no longer a God who was going to punish me. Being sneaky and not getting caught was a part of life I found challenging anyway. I was beginning to enjoy this new found "freedom" from being held accountable by an all-knowing God.

However, there was another side to this new found freedom. I could no longer count on God to help me in those impossible situations. I started counting on "luck" as a helper to fall back on in emergencies. Thus, I no longer saw any need to thank an ethereal and intangible God for helping me to accomplish something considered worthy of praise. Thus, I became quite good at patting myself on the back.

Due to my continually inflating "inner-self," I began to consider my thoughts, ideas, and theories to be just as good as anybody else’s. I specifically considered any concepts about God I came up with to be as plausible as anyone’s. At this point, my basic rule of thumb in life was to keep an open mind while giving secret preference to my own yet unsubstantiated concepts.

As most others my age, I soon found myself traveling through junior high and high school life dealing with the wonders and complications of adolescence. Some people my age even began having "deep philosophical discussions" about such things as sports, current events, the future and—occasionally religion.

In my schools it seemed if one was not into sports you had better have some pretty deep or mature ideas and opinions about something. I say this because those not into sports could possibly be looked upon by others as wimps or persons who had been given heads just to have a place to rest a hat. However, if you were good with the books you were excused, especially if you helped some of those who were participating in sports. I will not say how you helped, but I will say some of the "macho" into the sports scene were not hip to being tutored. You figure out the rest.

During high school I began to get active in religion, and I do mean active in—but not interested in religion itself. It seemed a lot of good looking and decent girls went to church. They were the kind of girls most level headed guys would have been proud to have as a steady. I figured I was a natural for the religious scene since I was afraid of cancer sticks and booze, did not care to use profanity, and prided myself on treating young ladies with respect. It seemed all I had to do was keep my nose clean and I would fit right in.

What ever I was doing seemed to be working. I was elected president of my church’s Baptist Youth Fellowship chapter. I called it my church because it was were I had "joined" and been "baptized" at age twelve.

Baptism was something very serious with me for two reasons. First, I was afraid of drowning in any amount of water. Every time I rinsed my hair after shampooing I could have sworn I was smothering to death when the water drained down across my nose and mouth. This was not an exaggeration. Secondly and foremost, baptism seemed to be the only thing I heard I could do to earn favor with a God who may exist.

At age twelve my visualization of God was of a shrouded old man setting on an old Victorian styled throne while looking down at me from a cloudy, gray heaven with a furrowed brow. I thought He was always ready to punish me for something bad I was either doing, thinking, had done, or was getting ready to do—which for me seemed to be a constant state of affairs.

It was this concept of God I feared more than drowning, because this Character could send me to a fiery Hell if I didn’t get baptized—at least I understood it as such.

"Have you been baptized? When are you going to be baptized? You need to be baptized! You better get baptized!" These were all very familiar and frightening questions and statements I remembered hearing which encouraged me to get baptized.

One thing was for sure. Even though I had braced the theory of evolution, I still was not sure there was not a God. Being the type of person who liked to play things the safe way and never took dares, I figured on covering all bases—just in case.

Furthermore, if there was a God, I figured my being baptized would entitle me to some fringe benefits. To be specific, I thought any God who could create the world in six days could surely find one good looking girl who would find me attractive. And if that request was beyond God’s scope of power I would settle for a car. I could have explained to God how a car could be used to get me and my friends to church in rough weather. That was the type of reasoning I could use with God—so I thought.

It seemed whatever my concept of God was, I somehow thought I could outwit Him. I thought I was smarter than He and I could manipulate Him for my own benefit—much like some brat of a child trying to get his senile but wealthy grandparent to grant him some of the inheritance ahead of time.

In either case, I enrolled in technical education during this time in my life. This happened when a school counselor told me about a new program where I could take the necessary classes to graduate with a college preparatory diploma. In this program I could simultaneously take a skill at the county vo-tech school which would equip me with a usable skill upon graduation. Since I was not sure I was going to want to go to college when I finished high school, I thought it sounded like a step in the right direction. This way I would be able to get a job with some meaning—and hopefully money—instead of having to work as a bag boy at some grocery store if I decided to give the school scene a rest for a year or so after graduation.

School for me was generally something I was enduring till I finished "paying my dues," as some put it. The idea of committing myself to another institution of learning—at my expense no less—was not my idea of post high school life and new found freedom. Yet, I figured I might as well milk the system for all it was worth while it was free and I was locked into going.

Therefore, in the fall of 1969, I not only enrolled in high school, but also in a three year curriculum in Electronic Technology. Those last three years were choked full of academics. I had advanced biology, physics, and I think chemistry. I enjoyed all of these subjects except chemistry which I found very difficult. These special courses were taken along with the regular ones most students took. For half a day I was at the Woodrow Wilson High School preparing to go to college by taking the curriculum described above, the rest of the day was spent at the Raleigh County Vocational Technical Center. At the technical school I spent half of my time in geometry, trigonometry, technical drafting, computer programming, and etc. The rest of the day at the technical school was spent in electronic theory and lab. Most of the time I really enjoyed my classes at both the vo-tech and high school. They were interesting and I felt they had real meaning for my life. Generally speaking, I had very good teachers who knew how to get me interested in what I was supposed to learn.

My high school physics teacher and English teachers really knew how to get me to apply myself. My electronics theory teacher had a knack for good jokes on top of communicating the academics well. My other vo-tech teacher was equally good. However, there was something different about him.

He was a very respectable father type. I do not ever remember him telling off-color jokes and he would not tolerate a student cursing in his presence. Yet, he seemed to display a real concern for his students which went beyond that of most teachers. Once in a while he even talked about things he said were in the Bible. I think he even told our class he taught Sunday school in his church. I remember him one day talking about things the Bible said were going to happen before the end of the world. Even though I found what he said interesting, it frightened me for some reason. It seemed to me this teacher had a lot more to say. Yet, he seemed to hold back a lot, perhaps because of the public school system being bound to keep church and state separate. In either case, looking back on it now I believe this man was possibly a born-again Christian. I also recall that I never remember him saying anything that promoted the theory of evolution as a viable belief system.

In either case, there were a number of good and exciting things which happened during my high school years. Late in 1970 I was elected president of the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America, known also as VICA. Early in 1971 I went to the state convention and ran for one of the three vice president positions. For a reason I am not sure of even to this day, I was elected state president!

In April of 1971 I was appointed, along with another student, to represent my high school at the Junior Executive Conference held at West Virginia University. It was quite an honor as my school had around 1500 students and I am sure there were some who had better grades who should have gone instead of me.

In June I got to go to Indianapolis and I ran for the National President of VICA. Out of some ten to twenty vying for this office, I was one of three nominated to run. However, I did not win. Well, you can’t win them all and—so was life.

However, in late October I went to Washington D.C. to attend a National Leadership Conference sponsored by VICA. I got to meet most of my state’s representatives, including Senator Robert Byrd, who would later serve as senate majority leader from 1977 to 1981 and minority leader from 1981 on for quite a few years. A photo was taken of this event and it appeared in my hometown newspaper. Later in the year the Honorable Jennings Randolph, U.S. Senator, sent me a copy of the Congressional Record for December 2, 1971, page E 12917. I found my name in the record where Senator Randolph had addressed the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, concerning vocational education. To say I felt honored is an understatement. I don’t think I will quickly forget the special year of 1971. If only every young person could have such a year.

It was also during this time I landed a part time job at WSWP-TV, a public television station in my hometown of Beckley, West Virginia. Actually I did not really land the job, but I got it because a friend and classmate of mine got busted up in a motorcycle accident and I happened to be next in line for being recommended.