I first laid eyes on Rick Wilson, a newbie from Edinboro, Pennsylvania, in junior high shop class, circa 1966. If it was a day ending in “y,” he was being scolded by our shop teacher, Mr. Muir, for forgetting to shove aside his bunker-busting bomb-size briefcase.

“Once again, please!” he roared, piloting his rotund shape up and down paper-thin aisles. “I nearly tripped — again.”

That clinched it. Apart from staring at his blond hair from a seat behind, we had yet to formally meet. But an inner voice ordered me to put Rick on my future friend list. He seemed to be good-natured, intelligent and respectful of his elders. Did I mention “intelligent?” Hmm…I was terrible at math; maybe he could tutor me? If we’re honest, having a ”to do” list for making friends doesn’t stop when you’re 13. It reverberates dearly across the life cycle, blind, crippled or crazy.

We became close pals, In high school, we suffered through late-summer football practice together. What had to be one of the more sadistic drills under the blazing August sun involved carrying your partner up what felt like a 90-degree hill. If the old saw “there are no atheists in foxholes” works in wartime by extension it applies to trying out for football in suburban D.C., birthplace of humidity and big beautiful bills.

Early in the school year, something called Young Life came into sharper focus. Based in Colorado Springs, Young Life is a Christian ministry that specializes in building bridges to middle school, high school and college students in 50 states and more than 100 countries. The buzz got around in our school, Northwood, that an “older” man of 24, Brad Smith, was hanging around in the main entrance after school, trumpeting the organization’s presence.

Word spread. The format seemed straight forward: Every week, a kid opens their home — hopefully, with parental approval — where kids could gather and sing rousing, upbeat songs as a fellow student strummed a guitar. The program was capped off with a short, age-specific message from the leader. The thesis statement never wavered: Jesus Christ loved us so much, he became our sin substitute on the cross so that we may gain a place in his eternal kingdom.

Since Rick and I had achieved a relaxed friendship, it wasn’t hard for me to ask him to a meeting my sister and I were hosting. This came against a backdrop when Rick and I were both struggling with our beliefs. It served as a reminder of how God had given us brains to process and clarify our belief system. Since life was inherently a tangled mess, it was more than OK to question.

In an era rife with anti-Vietnam War protests, which, in one instance, resulted in the death of four students at Kent State University, Young Life became essential. Even, maybe, by osmosis, for those kids who needed a squeaky clean excuse for getting out of the house on an otherwise drab Tuesday night.

“I remember sitting under the pinball machine,” Rick said. “Your sister told me she would pray for me. Whatever.” Amazingly, 200 kids showed up that night. Three hours later, when my father came downstairs to inspect, he noticed a gash in the wood paneling. Dad, normally a mild-mannered, wholly-owned subsidiary of whatever Mom wanted, put his foot down.

“Never again!” he (sort of) exclaimed. “No more Young Life meetings here.”

Definitely, Pop. You’re the boss. The Bible explicitly commands us to honor your mother and your father.

Of course, a few Tuesdays later, we hosted again. Rick was there as well. “The club itself was a mystery to me,” he admitted. “I went to Young Life fairly regularly, but not every week. I was sort of skeptical about it. I felt I was on the outside.” In time, working through the roadblocks, Rick turned his life over to Christ. Slow but sure wins the race.

Rick earned a math degree from the University of Maryland. He had his eye on applying to teaching or working at the NSA — “No Such Agency.” After college, though, kinesiology had its way. We didn’t see one another nearly as often as we did before.

In the end, Rick chose to join Young Life full time. Over the years, his assignments have taken him to high schools in Baltimore, New Jersey, Boston and Cincinnati. Presently, he’s associate regional director in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he supervises 18 different Young Life groups in Arizona and New Mexico. He’s also the volunteer head freshmen football coach at Chaparral High School.

When Rick began his decades-long career in Young Life, things were different, he explained. “Back then, Young Life was a much smaller organization, less formal. You didn’t have to apply to get on staff. They hired me sight unseen, based on who said I would be good.”

Once on staff, even someone as whip-smart as Rick, who, in college, breezed through extraterrestrial-approved courses like abstract algebra, discovered he needed a bit of help organizing.

“It was tricky in some ways; I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said, laughing. A supervisor stepped in and suggested Rick begin keeping a schedule that would help him structure his time. “He suggested things instead of ordering me around. You work hard, come up with a plan, and God shows up.”

Today’s kids, Rick commented, “are still kids, but the schools are more fragmented now. It’s somewhat hierarchical at our school.”

The advent of social media, he went on, “is a double-edged sword for me. A lot of the research says too much social media is not good for adolescent kids, especially adolescent girls.” During retreats to places in Colorado, for example, “we take kids’ phones away from them. It’s very traumatic.” But by the time the week is out, kids thank Rick for enforcing the digital detox.

It’s impossible to gauge the sheer impact Rick has had interacting with young people while hopscotching from state to state. Always present. Attentive. Displaying how anyone can have a transformative life built on the solid rock Christ preached about. rock.

As he drove to a morning meeting, Rick recalled how Father’s Day oscillates with meaning. “A bunch of young men,” he reported, “have told me ‘my dad wasn’t in my life, and you are my dad to me …’ God invites me into intimacy all the time.”

The prophet Isaiah counsels us that “this is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right or turn to the left.”

As you do, make sure your ginormous leather satchel isn’t blocking the aisle. It might affect your final grade.

Tony Glaros, originally from Washington, D.C., is a longtime reporter and former educator. He says living on the Front Range sparks euphoria.