Like many people in life, I have always wanted to be on Easy Street. The problem is, Easy Street doesn’t exist for the majority of people in our country, at least in the way that we think about Easy Street.

Several years ago I had the opportunity to be on Easy Street and though the experience was brief, it was very enjoyable. You are probably thinking, if it was with a Hooker, then it had to be enjoyable. If that is what you were thinking, I have one word for you. Pervert! Yeah, I know I shouldn’t have titled this post the way I did without the possibility of someone’s mind being drawn to the sensual, but I couldn’t help myself.

You see, there is in fact an Easy Street in Port Charlotte, Florida and there is an actual Hooker I walked down it with. His name is Dr. T.D. Hooker, my mentor and friend. T.D. and myself were taking a couple of courses for our degrees at an off campus location spot in Port Charlotte. One evening we decided to walk down to a popular dive, Gatorz, to have some wings for dinner. On our walk to this half-star restaurant/bar, we happened upon a street, you guessed it, named Easy Street. Being the jokster, I just had to walk down Easy Street to say I had been on Easy Street.

The next Sunday when I stood before the congregation I was pastoring, I shared what good week it had been and all the great teaching I had heard. It was hilarious when I shared with the congreagation that I had walked down Easy Street with a Hooker while in Port Charlotte. You could have heard a pin drop in this very traditional Southern Baptist Church. The looks on the faces of the people was a mixture between shock and trying to keep from exloding with laughter. Probably not the best thing to do. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I tell that story today because I called my old friend and mentor T.D. Hooker who is still cooking at the age of seventy, serving Jesus full blast as a pastor in Tennessee. I have several stories like this about T.D. I could share. Like the night on the way home from another accelerated week of classes in Inidiana, when I had a tire blow out in Nashville late at night and we tried to fix the tire with a little fix it kit from Wal-mart. We goofed around with that tire for a couple of hours.

Everyone needs someone like a T.D. Hooker in their life. I am a better man and a better pastor because of T.D.