Ricky Comes Home

Ricky Shawmate came home yesterday. He's the boy that ran away from a practical joke over fifty years ago. I told about that yesterday. After he was gone we found out a lot about Ricky. He had an overpowering daddy that wouldn't allow him to have a lot of friends. Seems his daddy belonged to this small church that believed everything but breathing was a sin. Yesterday, we learned from Ricky that he knew about the prank before he went out on that country road. He went along with it because it was part of his plan to escape his daddy's harsh rule. But it turned out Ricky was more running to something than running away from something. He had met this girl at a church camp that his daddy had approved of. She had driven over from Selma, Alabama and was waiting in a car on a little country lane that hooked on to the road where the shotgun toting poppa gag was to take place. Ricky knew all about the place and plot of the scheme. Turns out the girl in Ricky's life had an uncle that owned a banana farm in the Canary Islands.
Tomorrow: Fifty Years in the Canaries