Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

. . . Polly could hardly believe her ears. She had a drawer full of unpaid bills and her husband had
just blown all their money on a boat!
Ron's best friend in Bremerton was a thrusting young insurance salesman by the name of Robert
MacDonald Ford. 'Almost the first thing Ron did when he got the boat', Ford recalled, 'was to get
some letter-heads printed. Ron was always having letter-heads printed, always on the best bond
paper. The heading was "Yukon Harbor Marine Ways". There was no such company, but that didn't
bother Ron - he only wanted the letter-head so he could buy things for the boat at wholesale prices.'
Ford met Ron because he was always on the look-out for new business. When one of his policy
holders ran into a car owned by a Lieutenant-Commander H.R. Hubbard and caused $15 worth of
damage, he delivered the settlement draft personally at 1212 Gregory Way in the hope of selling
some more insurance. Ron's mother was home when Ford called. 'She was a funny little woman,'
he said, 'sort of wrinkled and dried up. When I asked her if she knew anyone who needed
insurance she said her son, who lived out at South Colby, didn't have any. She telephoned him right
then, offered to pay half the cost and we wrote the business over the 'phone. I figured if she was
going to pay I'd have a good chance of collecting the premiums.'
A couple of weeks later, Ford decided to pay his new policy holder a visit, accompanied by his wife,
Nancy. It took them a little while to find The Hilltop at South Colby and when they finally arrived at the
house Polly answered the door and said her husband was still asleep as he had been working all
night. She apologized and invited them to return for dinner that evening.
The Fords and the Hubbards liked each other on sight and quickly discovered they had much in
common. They had children of similar ages, both wives were avid gardeners and excellent cooks,
and Ron and Mac were the same age, keen on sailing and loved to talk. That first evening spent
together at The Hilltop ended with much hilarity when the two men skulked off to the County gravel
pile in the dead of night to fill ballast bags Polly had been sewing for the boat.
Thereafter, Ford was a frequent visitor. He used to sit in the cabin with Ron drinking China tea and
playing chess by candlelight, using the exquisitely carved chess set he said he had brought back
from the East - even the pawns were fearsome little warriors carrying swords. Sometimes they
would shoot at a target pinned to the cabin wall with Ron's air pistol; sometimes they would just
talk for hours on end, well into the night. They often discussed what was happening in Europe,
what Hitler was up to and whether or not there would be a war.
'He was a sharp guy,' said Ford, 'very stimulating and fascinating to be around. He was interested
in a lot of things and was pretty well informed. When he talked about the things he'd done,
sometimes I would think he was feeding me a line, but then you'd find out that it had actually
happened. He told me once that when he was gliding a guy wire had snapped and smoothed off
the ends of his fingers, leaving them very sensitive. I'm pretty sure that happened. When we went to
see Stagecoach - the original one with John Wayne - he told me he'd worked on the script. I looked
for his name on the credits, but didn't see it, although I didn't necessarily disbelieve him. It's
possible he exaggerated his exploits a little, but he was a writer and did have a very fertile
imagination. Certainly he got into a lot of things.
'He and Polly were on pretty good terms. She was an independent sort of gal, wouldn't take a lot of
crap from anybody. They had their arguments, yes, but by and large it wasn't that bad. She'd take a
drink, but never much. We didn't drink too much in those days. They were in fairly dire straits for
money; the grocer was always pressing them to pay his bill. It would take Ron two or three nights to
finish a novelette. Whenever he got some money in, he'd see the grocer was satisfied and then