Black-Robed Stranger Comes Home

The cold wind whipped along W. Trade St. this morning and rippled the black robe of a stranger turning the corner onto Church.

A little boy stopped his roller-skating to watch the tall figure pass. “Holy Smoke,” he said to himself.

The man wore ankle-length pantaloons under his robe and earrings and a broad turban-like hat. On his sleeves was the gold braid on a Navy admiral.

He walked into the lobby of a hotel, set down his cloth traveling bags and looked about him.

A bellhop looked up from polishing the brass door handle across the lobby and spoke to the room clerk. “Well,” he said, “he takes the cake.”

The graying old traveler introduced himself: “Dr. Ralph Hill, pioneer evangelist,” he said gravely.

The bellhop ambled over to listen.

“I was born in Charlotte,” the stranger said. “And I hardly know the place. I was born right over there on Pine St., but in 1904, I went down to the Panama Canal to watch them dig the big ditch.”

“What’s your faith?” he was asked.

The old man fingered a bronze cross hanging around his neck, and he smiled. “I represent ALL faiths,” he said. “I represent 207 faiths, and I do not belong to any of them. I am not encumbered by a board of directors. I go about doing good.”

The bellhop looked at the emblem of pearls on the man’s great white hat and at the earrings that weighted down the ears.

“Why do you dress up like that?” he asked.

“Everybody would like to to dress differently,” the man answered. “But they feel compelled to dress alike. I do not feel that compulsion.””You going to stay her long?”

“I stay nowhere long,” the man said.

“How do you travel?”

“In all possible ways,” the man said. “I own a 16-cylinder Cadillac, but I find it hard to park. I intend to leave it in the custody of a friend in Myrtle Beach, S.C. until something is done about the parking situation.”

The bellhop walked away. He seemed vaguely troubled by the conversation. He watched the old man walk up the stairs.

“Boy, I don’t know whether he’s crazy or not,” the bellhop said. “He don’t talk funny . . . There is a man I just do not know about.”

Charles Kuralt's People (Kenilworth Media, copyright 2002)
ISBN 0-9679096-1-9 | Hard cover | 384 pages with photos | $25.95

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