I know that the decision I made back in 1980 in Hammond, Indiana was very wrong. But at the time I could not see an alternative. The most difficult question I have been asked is why I did not contact my family. I did keep up with where they were, driving to Indiana and Pennsylvania on a number of occasions. However, I feared making any contact, believing that there was always the possibility that it might lead whoever was responsible for my abduction directly to me and to them. It was my hope that in 15 or 20 years enough time would have passed that I might be able to be reunited with my family. Two thing, however, changed that. The first was something I saw on one of my trips to Northwest Indiana in 1986. The other was something that happened to me in 1992. But we will look at those later.
I arrived at KAMO Radio in Rogers, Arkansas in the wee hours of the morning about a year and a half after having peddled out of Hammond, Indiana. I crashed on a couch in the lobby area. About 5:00 the morning shift began to arrive. I was introduced to Olie Olson, a DJ from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He called himself Boss Hawg on the air. He was filling the morning drive time on the FM side. A fellow by the name of Gary did the AM drive time. Since I was to be the morning drive DJ on the FM side, my training on the board began immediately. At the end of the shift, I went home with Olie. He was renting a three bedroom house about three miles from the station. I took one of the bedrooms and shared the rent and utilities. About three months later he quit the station and returned to Minnesota and I took over the lease.
Almost immediately I was presented with some very uncomfortable situations. My experience with radio was mostly in Christian radio, in the control room as an announcer, and in the office. But now I was in secular radio. I hadn't counted on remote broadcasts in places of business where hundreds of people would come to be introduced to the voice they heard on the radio. But I had no option; for it was a part of the job. Unfortunately for me, apparently I did such a good job for the businesses at those remotes that many of the stores began requesting me to do their remote broadcasts, meaning that I was out in the public eye virtually every Saturday, fearful that someone would recognize me. By this time I had gotten a hair cut and trimmed my beard to look more presentable. My stomach sank one afternoon when I suddenly remembered that one of the board members from Hessville Baptist Church in Hammond had relatives in Rogers, and that they made an annual trip to the city. I had not thought of that before.
I was in Rogers only a few months, when the station was contacted by a local TV station asking for some "celebrities" from the radio station to help host a Cerebral Palsey Telethon. KAMO would be responsible for filling two ten minute sections in the hour from 10:00 to 11:00 on a Sunday morning. The station's News Director, the late Bob Rohrs, and I were chosen. I tried everything to get out of it. But the manager said it was a part of the job, and Bob and I would do the best job for the telethon. I was scared to death that someone would recognize my face and/or voice, and it would all be over. I rather hoped that everyone would be in church and no one would be watching. Of course, I knew that would not be true. The telethon had begun at 11:00 on Saturday night and had run all night long and into Sunday morning. Yet, during this one hour, Bob and I rasied more money than all of the previous hours combined. We were requested to stay over for a second hour. Again, I tried to get out of it, but to no avail. Apparently no one made the connection.
A third close call came a short time thereafter. I worked at the radio station from 6:00 to noon. I had nothing to do all afternoon, so I soon became bored. After all, you can only mow your lawn so many time in a week. I went to work as a delivery driver for the Benton County Daily Democrat in Bentonville. Each afternoon (except Saturday) and early Sunday mornings, I drove my 73 miles on the north side of Bentonville and the southeast side of Bella Vista throwing newspapers in driveways and walkways at more than 400 homes. One of the customers in Bella Vista had the same first and last name as the President of a Baptist Bible College in Iowa who had been guest speaker at my church in Hammond. He only received the paper certain times of the year. With such an unusual name, it had to be the same man. One day my worst fears came true. As I came around my route he was out in the driveway playing with his grandchildren. He waved me down to tell me he would be stopping the paper for awhile, because he was going back to Iowa for a few months. I couldn't believe he did not recognize me.
Shortly after arriving in Northwest Arkansas, I became aware that one of the members of the Siloam Springs City Board of Directors was a Mike Flynn, and that he also was a professor at John Brown University. Mike Flynn had been a student one year ahead of me at Moody Bible Institute back in the 1950's. Mike had been a student announcer on the staff of WMBI. I had been a volunteer announcer and bit part player on the station for three different programs. While our paths didn't cross frequently, he knew me. About two years after beginning work at KAMO, the station manager told me that I was going with him to a special presentation of a radio station automation system that was being demonstrated in one of Mike Flynn's classes at John Brown University. Again, I couldn't get out of it. After the presentation the station manager and I talked personally with Mike for some time, yet he never recognized me (sigh of relief).
Almost immediately upon arriving in Rogers, I became involved in a local church. What I am about to tell you may seem a bit strange but not nearly as strange as what you have already read. When I was in Wyoming, I attended the Episcopal Church. So, when I came to Rogers, I went to the Episcopal Church. To my amazement, the priest in Wyoming and the priest in Rogers had been roommates in seminary. However, they were not at all alike, not even their Biblical beliefs.
After about a year, with the money I was able to save, I put a down payment on thirteen and a half acres in Barry County, Missouri, just north of the state line about 13 miles from Rogers. I also bought a used travel trailer in which to live. I quit the paper route, although I did substitute rather regularly on another route during the next year, because the regular driver was having health problems. I began to live a little easier, because no one had recognized me up to this time. I did notice that my appearance was different than when I lived in Indiana. Upon leaving Oklahoma City I had trimmed by beard down. But I still kept a full, well trimmed beard. My eye sight was not bad enough that glasses were required, so I ditched the glasses I formerly had worn. My eyebrows, which I had previously kept trimmed and thin, were now back to their normal German style bushy. I was still fearful that someone might recognize my rather distinctive voice. However, as time went on, that became less and less of a concern. One thing that never did diminish was my concern for my wife and family back in Indiana. There wasn't a day that went by when I had a moment in which I was not busy that I did not agonize over them and go over and over in my mind what had happened, how frantic I was at the time, and rehashing my choices. It was during this time (I believe it was sometime in 1985 that I made a trip back to check on my parents in Pennsylvania, and my family in Indiana. I watched them from a distance, but was afraid to contact them because I felt we were all still in danger. Looking back, I have my doubts that they were being watched; but at the time, I was still quite paranoid.
I had no close friends, either male or female. Of course, I had people around me whom I considered friends: people with whom I worked at the radio station and people from the church with whom I frequently went out to breakfast following early Sunday morning mass. But when I left the radio station or the church family, I went back to my sanctuary in the mountains of Southwest Missouri. Except for work, church and shopping, I went no where.
About a year into my employment at KAMO, I did a three day remote broadcast at a new tire shop which opened in Rogers (4 hours each day). At remote broadcasts, it was not unusual for women and girls in their 20's and 30's to hang around not hiding the fact they they would like to have a date with a radio personality who was an eligible bachelor. The fact that I was well over 40 didn't seem to make any difference. I ignored them. However, the owner of the tire shop told the station sales manager that he would like her to fix me up with his sister. When the sales manager broached the subject, I declined. However, I was told that I was not going to jeopardize a good account; that I was going to go out with her. The request (or more accurately, "the demand") was blatantly illegal. But I surely was not going to make any kind of official complaint because of the fear of being discovered. The date was a disaster! I took her out to dinner on a Saturday evening, then on to one of the many country music shows which dot the Ozarks. The last time I had been on a date was half my life ago. I didn't know what to talk about. It was embarrassing, and I felt dirty.
Another year of so went by (I really can't put a good time frame on this) and the radio station decided to automate the AM side. Since I was the only person at the station that had any computer experience at all (and it wasn't much), I was sent to Decatur, Illinois to the company which produced the automation system for more computer training. Before returning to Arkansas, I took another swing through Indiana to check up on my family.
I tried to date two or three times over the next year. But there was always something in the back of my mind telling me I was doing the wrong thing. But there was also a problem with my health, which I will come to later.
One of the many country music shows in the area, with the cooperation of the City of Rogers, tried to get an annual festival started. It lasted about three years. It included activities in downtown Rogers: a parade, displays, outside musical concerts, food, etc. On the grounds of the Ozark Mountain Music Show there was more of the same, headlined by some of the top Nashville country entertainers. I broadcast on location for all three days each year. During one of those years, I noticed a young lady and her three children standing, maybe 50 yards from where I was broadcasting. The children, I learned later, were grown and away from home, with the exception of the youngest who was in her final year in high school. They were urging her to come over and talk to me. What drew my attention to her was her striking resemblance to my grandmother Angeline LaRose. She appeared to be about the same height, weighing barely over 100 pounds, and with the exception of her Blackfoot Indian high cheek bones, had strikingly similar facial features to my grandmother.
Late in the day, during a news break, I walked over to introduce myself to her. As I approached, the children split just as if it had been planned - and I'm sure it was. The next and last day of the event she was back with two of her children. I am surprised that she even wanted to talk to me, because I learned later that this was not our first meeting. I did not remember the first time. But apparently she had come to me in a crowd a few months earlier and asked for my autograph. I do not remember the incident, because there were many autograph seekers at various events. On this occasion, I apparently did give her my autograph, but was very rude (it must have been one of my bad days - no excuse). Before we parted on the closing day of the event, she told me of a special annual celebration that took place in her community, which was coming up in just a few weeks. She invited me out to Centerton Day. The event, sponsored by the fire department, included a 5K run/walk, queen and tiny tot contests, music in the park, lots of food, an auction, special activities for the children, a firemen's muster and much more. I told her I might come, but had no intention to do so.
I don't know why, but for some reason a few weeks later I found myself in Centerton, a small community of just over 400 people just to the west of Bentonville. What a wonderful, relaxing day! I was introduced to her parents and a brother. Her father had marble sized tumors all over his face and neck, the result of an inherited disease called "Neurofibromatosis." Her brother was retarded as the result of brain surgery when he was young in which a grapefruit sized tumor was removed from his brain, also the result of Neurofibromatosis. In addition, I discovered that she had a large tumor on her right arm (very similar to one my grandmother had). She had two surgeries on hers. My grandmother wouldn't even go to the doctor with hers. Her younger daughter had endured more than 20 surgeries, including putting a Harrington Rod in her right leg, and another in her back - all the results of Neurofibromatosis. Before I made my retreat to my get-away in Missouri, she invited me to dinner at her home the following Saturday night, and I accepted.
The following Saturday evening I arrived at an old, rundown trailer house. It was on her parents' property, and had been purchased by them from another family in town about ten years earlier so she could move with her three children to Centerton from Del City, Oklahoma. The inside was very clean and nicely decorated, although some of the furniture had obviously been around the block several times. I just enjoyed being with someone and being able to talk.
We spent a lot of time together over the next two years. When I say, "a lot of time," I mean that we spent Saturday and Sunday together almost every week. Since I had to get up at 3:00 AM during the week, I went to bed early. As you will learn later, I also had one of many jobs I had on the side during the years at this time. She worked at an airplane parts manufacturing plant in Centerton for just barely over minimum wage, and was just able to make ends meet.
Early on in our friendship, she invited me to go to church with her. I accepted the invitation, provided she would go to church with me. For three or four years we would go to the early mass at the Episcopal Church in Rogers, go out to eat breakfast with some of the people, and then go to Sunday School and church at the Church of the Nazarene in Bentonville.
Two thing happened which resulted in Pat and I being married. First, her father and mother decided to move back to Oklahoma City. That would have left Pat without a place to live and separated from her children. So, I purchased the property from her father, buying out his equity ($5,000, part of which I borrowed) and assuming a land contract at $75.00 per month. Also at this same time, I made one of my trips to Hammond to check up on my family. What I found was my (former) wife with another man. I assumed that I had been divorced. I found out much later that was not the case. I also was told later that I had been declared legally dead. I was crushed. Not that I had anyone to blame but myself. But the question which dogged me day and night was, "What else could I have done?" This was the first of two things which I felt made it impossible for me to ever be reunited with my family. The other, which is far more traumatic, was still ahead.
Several years after arriving at KAMO, Bob Rohrs, the News Director, was diagnosed with cancer and later passed away. I was moved over to News Director. Then in 1988, following the sale of the station, the News Department was closed and a News Director was no longer necessary. Almost immediately Steve Womack, at the time manager of KURM in Rogers, contacted me. A member of the National Guard, he was going to Fort Benning, Georgia for three months of military training, and wanted me to take his hours on the air. When he came back, I stayed on and ended up working there for 17 years.
At this point I am going to go back to my arrival in Northwest Arkansas to pick up a different aspect of what was going on, as my life was in utter chaos.
What I had done weighed heavily on my heart and mind from the first day I rode away from Hammond. But once I got settled in to Northwest Arkansas and was finished working at noon each day, it became unbearable. When I was at work, my mind was busy. But afternoons and early evenings, I was a basket case. I decided I needed to get another job so I didn't have so much time to think. I began by getting a job delivering newspapers in a section of north Bentonville and south Bella Vista. I drove 73 miles every afternoon and early Sunday mornings, throwing 400 papers in driveways and yards. Other jobs followed, including working for a Tennessee detective agency doing Workman's Comp insurance investigations in a 100 mile radius, Dollar General for two years, the Nazarene Church as Music Minister and later Associate Pastor for nine years, also working afternoons for the City of Centerton. I even held a second full-time job at the airplane parts manufacturing plant for a lengthy period of time. That was physically difficult. I worked mornings at the radio station and from 4:00 PM to 12:30 AM at the plant in quality control.
Not only was I very depressed, but I was also in constant turmoil. Every moment that I had time to think, my mind was going over the threats back in Hammond to see if there was not something else I could have done. But I could not solve the mystery. All of the guilt, anger, frustration that built up inside me bagan to take its toll on my health. I was diagnosed with very high blood pressure. I even spent a week in the hospital and nearly a year recovering from a blood clot in my leg. The high doses of medication and continued high stress of living with what I had done left side effects that had their affect on the relationship I had with my wife. Today I take ten pills every day (two for blood pressure, one for my heart, two for my immune system, four for arthritis and a high potency multi-vitamin).
As I said earlier, on one of my trips back to Hammond, seeing my former wife with that man crushed me. If things weren't bad enough already, now they were much harder on me. But again, I had only myself to blame. Let's fast forward to 1992, because this was the last nail in the coffin. Pat and I were on vacation. We were in a meeting, but my mind was mulling over the options I had back in 1980 and what I had done to my family. Suddenly a thought hit me that for a moment paralyzed me. I surely must have turned completely white as the blood rushed out of my face. I even got dizzy. It was the most awful thought that had crossed my mind in the 12 years I had been separated from my family. I felt like there was a weight on my chest and I couldn't breathe. I walked out of the auditorium on to a deck.
In all these years it had never crossed my mind, that all I would have had to do back in 1980 was take an emergency vacation. I had time to get my family out of Hammond, perhaps back to my parents place in Pennsylvania, and once gone, I could have resigned from the church. The thought made me sick. If I had felt bad before, this was beyond description. For more than a passing moment, I leaned over the railing and considered jumping to my death. Instead, I went down the elevator to our floor, collapsed on our bed and cried and cried and cried. There was no shutting it off.
Now there was no reason for me having fled alone from those who had threatened me. The whole thing revolved about my inability to trust God and allowing myself to become so frantic and in such a panic that I could not think straight. As far as I was concerned, it also now made it impossible for me ever to be reunited with my family. How could I explain my stupidity? I resigned myself to live out whatever time I might have left as best as I could, in depression, despair and guilt.
As indicated earlier, Pat has an inherited disease known as Neurofibromatosis. It is related to a deformity in two chromosomes. Her grandmother, father and four brothers have it. She, her three children, and all of their children also have it. She had several surgeries prior to the time I met her. But her next one came shortly after we were married, in 1987 -stomach surgery due to a blocked intestine - the result of the Neuro.
In 1993 the court appointed us as guardians of one of Pat's grandsons, Billy Joe, after he and his four brothers and sisters were removed from their mother's custody. Billy also suffered from the Neuro. He was legally blind, had severe scoliosis, learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, and some other problems. The first year we had him I was called to his middle school because of disciplinary problems almost every week. By the time he got to Junior High, things began to improve. And by the time he finished 9th grade, he was given an award for being the most helpful student in the school. Even today, at age 28, tests show that Billy has the mental ability of a seven year old. He did graduate from high school with a Special Ed diploma. Pat's youngest daughter Beatrice graduated from High School and went on to Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma.
In 1997 Pat had another bout with stomach surgery. Then in 2000 an 18-inch section of her small inststine became calcified, and closed off. It had to be removed. She had still another stomach obstruction in 2003, and another in 2005.
In May of 2007 the intestine again became blocked. This time the surgeon said everything in there was such a mess that she had to remove all but about three feet. She told us that this recovery would be a long one. Pat spent a week and a half in ICU, but instead of getting stronger, she seemed to be going down hill. Then on a Wednesday morning, one of the doctors took us into a counseling room and told us that her body was shutting down: her lab blood numbers were all out of whack; her kidney function was shutting down, and her liver had shut down. There was no hope, we were told. We were told to call the family members in. The news was devastating. Bea began contacting her friends in Australia and England, where literally hundreds of people were called to prayer. Our church went to prayer, and our Hispanic pastor's brother in the Nazarene Seminary in Mexico called the students to prayer. That evening Pat was taken in for one final test on her liver. She was on a respirator and totally unresponsibe. However, between the time she was wheeled into the room for the test, and the time the test was done, her liver returned to normal function, her blood lab numbers returned to near normal; she woke up and was aware of what was going on around her, even though she could not speak because of the respirator. The next morning she was weaned from the respirator and several days later was moved out of ICU. God had performed a miracle! One of the doctors said that there have been maybe a half dozen people in the world who have come back from as far down as she was.
Before Pat and I got married, I told her that I could not marry her without telling her something which she could not ever tell anyone. I told her that my name was not really Bruce Williams. I said that I could not tell her my real name, or the reasons for which it had been changed. I was aware of her physical problems. She was aware of mine, except for one. I think I scared her half to death the first few times it happened. That was my nightmares. I would suddenly sit straight up in bed making loud noises. That would wake me up. Or, I would go stiff, jerk a few times and make loud noises. In that situation I would usually awaken with her shaking me and calling my name. Earlier I outlined that this recurring nightmare had to do with people putting the electrodes on my head, me begging them not to do it again, them throwing the switch, and me screaming at the top of my lungs. Dispite all of the problems, in more than 20 years of marriage, Pat and I have not had one fight, no cross words, not even any disagreements (praise the Lord).
How did I ever find my way into politics? Find out by clicking on the "Chap 7" tab at the top left of this page
