About my book

Posted on March 11, 2017By 4BAdmin

NOW AVAILABLE @ Amazon.com in both Print and Kindle editions! Order now! Teardrop Headlights by Benjamin Moore “Set amidst the beauty and tragedy of rural Mexico, Teardrop Headlights leads readers through the dark world of a traveling preacher’s son caught in a web of abject poverty and growing religious madness” (review by Father Bill Wigmore, Episcopal priest and recovery author). Teardrop Headlights is a story of survival, of “making do” despite the most daunting circumstances and unspeakable tragedy. Ultimately, it is a story of self-discovery, healing, and hope…of overcoming the demons of abuse and addiction and finding one’s way back to the God of love.

About me

Posted on March 11, 2017By 4BAdmin

My name is Benjamin Moore. I am the middle child in a family eight. My family is originally from upstate New York. When I was three, my dad decided to become a missionary. Dad sold his portion of the farm for about a third of its value. He got an old 1939 International Harvester Metro panel truck, complete with “teardrop headlights,” and built out the insides with a bottom and top bunk. He added a little partition where he installed “The Pot,” an old five-gallon grease can we could use as a bathroom. Then to complete the project, he mounted a giant loudspeaker on the back and hand-painted signs on the sides and back that read, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!” and “If you are not willing to leave your father and mother for me, you are not worthy of me!” When the Old Truck was ready, Dad loaded us up. My older brother Dan was eight, my sister Althea was five, and my little sisters Ruth and Martha were two and less than a year. Mom and our old farm dog Pepper completed the ensemble. The Old Truck had a top speed of 45 mph; and in 1959, the freeway system was yet to be built. It took us ten days to get to the Texas Soul Clinic, outside of Thurber, Texas. ___ ___ While I was growing up, we sometimes lived in our car. Money for food was rare. Birthday cakes were even rarer. We survived on damaged canned goods bought at discount prices from the bins in the back of grocery stores. Mom cooked meals on a Coleman camp stove on a cement table in roadside parks. We were not always in school, and I don’t remember the countless gas stations, water holes, campsites, roadside parks, state parks, backyards, side streets, construction sites, and church parking lots we called home. When we weren’t living in a car, we lived in a rented adobe shack with a tin roof and no locks and no windows. Most of the time we were in Mexico. Teardrop Headlights is the story of what happened. ___ ___ “Set amidst the beauty and tragedy of rural Mexico, Teardrop Headlights leads readers through the dark world of a traveling preacher’s son caught in a web of abject poverty and growing religious madness” ~ by Father Bill Wigmore, Episcopal priest and recovery author

How this all began…

Posted on March 12, 2017By 4BAdmin

After serving in WWII, my father came home, married my mother, and settled down to work the dairy farm carved out of a larger parcel of land owned by my grandfather—land that had been passed down through my family all the way back to the Revolutionary War when it was awarded to my direct ancestor, Nathaniel Moore, for his service to our new nation. This is where my parents had five of their children, and this is where I was born. But all was not well on the home front. Apparently, Dad had returned from the war a troubled man—a man looking for answers. He turned to the Bible; and one night, he had a dream. He found himself in heaven. The next night and the three nights following, he had the same dream—and each night, he discovered new wonders. On the fifth night, he asked, “God, this is really beautiful, but what does it have to do with me?” The dream abruptly ended, and Dad was left longing for the peace he had experienced in his dreams. So Dad decided to go to seminary school in a place called the Texas Soul Clinic, a dry, dusty boot camp for future missionaries in the West Texas scrub. He sold the farm for about a third of its value and built out a 1939 IH Metro step van (complete with teardrop headlights). He added a living area replete with bunk beds and a five-gallon grease can we called “The Pot” and used as a bathroom. Then Dad loaded my mom, us five children, and our dog Pepper into our new home, and off to Texas we went so that he could become a missionary. Dad was not well received at the Soul Clinic; he was brilliant and arrogant and loved to argue, and soon he was asked to leave―before he could get his diploma. Stubborn and not given to conceding defeat, Dad decided he had learned enough doctrine and understood “the truth” better than anyone, so with no financial support other than what my grandmother and two uncles could give him―about $175 a month―Dad struck out on his own with our family in tow. We went to Mexico….