“There Are Girls in Here!”

We received the following from one of our followers, Pete Shaw, titled “There Are Girls in Here!” He was responding to our article on September 30, 2026. It shows how the times, and girls, have changed over the years. The story has a good twist at the end, showing that even college professors can change:

“In 1965, I was 21 years old, a junior in college, taking American Literature under a professor at Southeast Missouri State University. On the first day, he announced that we would be studying The Scarlet Letter by Nathanael Hawthorne. After we all read the book, he led a discussion of the text. Almost immediately, he began using curse words such as hell and damn. I was surprised, but I waited until the end of the class to talk to him. As the other students were filing out, I approached him in a very serious but quiet tone. I said, ‘You shouldn’t be using curse words in class! There are girls in here!’ I wish someone had taken a photo of his face when I said that. It was like I had hit him with a bolt of lightning. He could not believe what he was hearing.

“Well, he toned his language down for the rest of the course, seeing how serious (and naïve) I was. On the last day of class, he called me aside and said, ‘I want you to come back and see me in 20 years, and tell me if you are still like this.’ It turned out that I had forgotten his request until 25 years had passed. So I called the university and found that he was retired. I managed to get his phone number and called him. I told him who I was and asked if he remembered me. He said he did, and we had a good conversation about our lives over the past 25 years. I told him, ‘Yes, I am still like that.’ I had had ups and downs over the years, but I am still a serious Christian. Then he pleasantly surprised me by saying he wasn’t the same. Over the years, he had become a Christian, too!”

–Does God Exist? © 2026