I Missed the Bus, But I Arrived On Time!

Willis L. Drake looks back at a life well-lived in this memoir about missing the bus but arriving on time.

Growing up black in St. Louis, the author faced his share of discrimination, but his parents always urged him to work hard and get a college education.

As a youth, he was often asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, and while the stock answer was “doctor, lawyer, engineer, or schoolteacher,” all he had to do was look to his father to see how a man takes care of his family.

His parents provided him with a solid Christian foundation and read the Holy Bible to him often. While in high school, he worked at a dental office and learned about dedication and self-reliance by learning to box.

The course of his life changed, however, when in 1959 he met Mary Ann Byas, a nursing student who his mother had seen in a vision three years earlier as the woman her son would one day marry.