Reg,
What type of religious environment were you brought up in? Were you parents religious?

My mother is a Catholic. My dad a protestant but he was just not interested in any of it.

To be honest, I think my defining moment when it comes to religion came from my grandfather - my mother's father - when at a very young age, seven or eight I think, I witnessed him having a full blown profanity-laced screaming match with a Catholic Bishop in the boiler room of a big old church in Boston. He ran his own heating and plumbing company and had the contract to take care of the properties for the Archdiocese of Boston. I stood in complete awe of what I was seeing. I'm sure my mouth was hanging open. I never would have been able to imagine that sort of vulgarity spewing out of a Catholic priest at that age. Yet there they were screaming away at each other and I had visions of it coming to blows. As young boys often do in such situations I became very quiet and lost in thought. After my grandfather finished his work and we got back in the truck and began to drive away he became aware of my stillness. I knew he could sense all the things racing through my head and so as I sat in silence he began to explain to me some things he obviously felt it was important for me to know.    

Now you will probably draw some of your own conclusions as to what effect this had on me and you'll likely be very wrong when you do...over the course of time I've thought about those few fleeting moments from my life many, many times and found many, many things...it's a good memory for me.