PROVERBS 13:20 - REMEMBERING BOBBY JOHNSON

I met Bobby Johnson in the eighth grade, the same year he moved up here to Michigan from a small town in Tennessee. Bobby had some problems with authority in his town in Tennessee with both police and his teachers. He was a little older then the rest of the class at 15 years old. He said the reason for the age discrepancy was that he had some problems with his teacher back home. She went out of her way to see that he did not pass. My friend Jerry and I along with a few others found him likable and began spending time with him . We spent time with him out by the ice pond just off school grounds at lunch and after school. We would listen to his words of wisdom which he was more than glad to give between puffs on his cigarette. I remember him saying he could write an absence note to his teacher and get away with it. He bragged that he could write answers on his sleeve for a test and hide it by curling up the sleeves of his shirt. Bobby was also connected. He didn't have any problem coming up with a six-pack of beer. None of us tried to be like Bobby. We simply admired him. We admired him for these things because we were too frightened to do them ourselves. Bobby turned 16 toward the end of the school year. His uncle had just taken over a car wash, and Bobby quit school to begin his career at the car wash. He exchanged his education for a wash rag at the car wash. To us, it sounded like a pretty good plan - not having to get up the morning to go to school - the car wash didn't open until noon. After about a month of this, the whole thing unraveled. His uncle suddenly left town in the middle of the night with the owner of the car wash and a few others hot on his trail. The last time I saw Bobby, three years later, he was flipping burgers at Top Hat. Bobby said he was married at 17, a father four months later, and divorced a year after that.

None of us ever intended to be like Bobby; but in some ways, Jerry and I picked up some of those traits. I dropped out of school at 17, and my friend Jerry dropped out at 16. I often wonder about some of the bad decisions that I made, like dropping out of school at 17. These were decisions that I made, but I often wonder how much influence Bobby had on me by my associating with him.

Note: The greatest impetus for change comes from those we associate with and from what we read. See also: Proverbs 19:27.

If we are responsible for the decisions we make, we must also be responsible for the people that we associate and bond with.