My Dad, Daniel James O’Rourke Jr. and me (Daniel P. O’Rourke) shortly before his death.
Where do I begin? This is going to be long winded…I guess I would like to start by saying that the person in the Bible that I identify with the most is Paul the Apostle, who was once Saul, a hunter and murderer of Christians, who God struck blind on the road to Damascus, Syria, and who God told in that moment that he was to become Paul and the Lord’s greatest Apostle and testament to God’s power to change people. Paul also went on to write 2/3 of the New Testament. While I cannot claim to have written anything that amazing, or say that I am anywhere near Paul’s status, something I have in common with Paul other than that I used to be a violent and hard man is the fact that even after I was saved, I am brash, opinionated, and in your face. I used to not be able to stand Paul’s attitude in the Bible sometimes. Knowing myself, I understand that when I do not like that quality in someone, it is because it reminds me of myself. Well, I guess I better get started on my testimony and stop beating around the bush. Here it goes…
I was born on the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Barstow, California. For those of you who are not familiar with the area, it is smack-dab in the middle of the Mojave Desert, you know, Death Valley? Anyway, it is a hot, miserable little place with not only the heat to contend with, but rattlesnakes, tarantulas, scorpions, and all manner of things that creepeth and crawleth across the land.
My mom did not like it there. On top of that, she was only 19 when she got pregnant with me and was a young bride to my father who was much older than my mom, and a man who had joined the Marine Corps late in life (28 is old to go through Marine Corps Boot Camp). My mother did not like the desert, did not like the heat, and did not like the boring life of a new mother and house wife to a Marine that lived a very structured life. She informed my father that she was leaving with me when I was three months old to move to my grandmother’s house in the San Francisco Bay Area. My dad did not put up much of a fight and we moved.
My parents were divorced when I was two years old. My Daddy still wrote me almost everyday and came and saw me when he could on leave. My mom was not done sowing her wild oats, so she left me with my grandma and aunt most of the time, while she got into the Biker Lifestyle and drug, and bar scene in the 80’s era of California’s most violent time in modern history. While my mom was out doing her thing and I did not see her for months at a time, I was being sexually molested by my grandfather. My grandmother knew what my grandfather was doing, but she looked the other way just like she had done with her daughters a generation before.
Sometimes, my mom would come and get me and take me into these crazy situations in the Biker World that she was involved in (not all bikers are bad people and I just want to note that here), and I do not remember much but some flashes and glimpses of craziness. Anyway, my mother got involved with my father’s old friend, and was married to him by the time I was three. He was a Vietnam Veteran of the 101st Airborne, having spent his time in the Mekong Delta. He was now a long-haired Biker, with a Cocaine habit and a drinking problem, on top of severe PTSD. I remember flashes of my early childhood with them. Some good, some bad, the most memorable was my step-father chasing my mother around a truck in the middle of the night with a knife, the blade flashing in the moonlight, my mother yelling at me not to unlock the doors no matter what. I do not remember what happened, but apparently, no one got killed.
Then my real dad got shot and killed in an accident in the middle of the Mojave Desert’s Owl Canyon Area. He succumbed to a single gunshot would to the base of the spine from a .22 Long Rifle that ricocheted and came out the top of his head. His last words as he put his hand to the top of his head and then looked at his hand covered in blood was, “Oh, shit. I’ve been shot.” Then, for all intents and purposes, he died. I have been told that his body fought to live for hours, but that he was brain-dead almost immediately. The San Bernardino County Sheriffs did not keep very accurate records back then as it was all paper. He was still in the Corps, but it happened off base, so it was wrapped up as an accidental shooting. I have never gotten the whole story and probably never will. But that is not the end of it. Continue reading
Radical Righteousness 