It started with a photo that my sister sent. In 1950s black-and-white, there is a bespectacled man standing in a mountain river with water up to his waist. He is wearing a white dress shirt with sleeves rolled up and dark pants. Some called him “Preacher.” Folks around town called him “Honest Ralph” because his integrity was admirable. We called him Daddy. Daddy was a bivocational preacher, meaning that he owned a mechanic’s garage and farmed through the week, then stood in a pulpit for the Lord on Sundays.
Column: Truth was black-and-white for the mountain men I looked up to
