The Cross He Bears Is Not Imaginary--It’s 10 Feet Long, Weighs 70 Pounds

Steve S. Graham, 25, sets up Pepsi-Cola displays on weekends, but during the week, as he puts it, “I serve the Lord,” by carrying a 10-foot wooden cross on his broad shoulders throughout Orange County.

“I think there are people out there who might think I’m kind of strange and fanatical looking,” said Graham. “But at the same time I’m getting them to think of Jesus Christ.”

The Huntington Beach resident said he once carried the 70-pound cross, made by a friend from 4x4-inch hard wood, through a group of gang members in Santa Ana. “They took a liking to me and talked about the Lord. God can humble us up.”

Graham has taken his cross-carrying crusade as far as the states of Washington and Oregon, and to San Jose and Santa Barbara. Once he took a Huntington Beach-to-Upland trek.

For the time being, he said, he is restricting his 10-mile daily walks to Orange County.

Graham admits he has had to put up with some harsh verbal abuse.

“I can understand, because I do look weird out there carrying the cross,” he acknowledged. “But at the same time, a lot of people are asking me questions about Jesus, and I’m answering them. I’m not out there to force anything on anyone and I’m not pushing any religion.”

A standout basketball and baseball player in a San Bernardino high school, Graham said his life changed about a year ago. “Christ made my life complete and I have a personal relationship with him,” he said.

Besides his own calling, he said, “the Lord wanted me to bring people to know him and bring salvation to their lives.

That happened about a year ago, said Graham, the son of Huntington Beach residents Connie and Charles Graham, after some close calls during a cross-country motorcycle ride and a near-tragic boating accident. “I knew something was holding me up and it was Jesus. Now I want to serve the Lord.”

Before that he was an infrequent churchgoer, but now Graham wants to become an evangelist in Orange County.

“The ministry is my calling,” he said, adding that he is getting some of his teaching at the nondenominational Calvary Church in Costa Mesa. “College just isn’t in my plans at the moment.”

But having his own ministry is. “I know I can give people hope,” Graham said. “When I see the faces of people who have received hope, that reward means more to me than anything I could ever earn in the sense of money.”

When he’s walking, Graham said, he doesn’t have a chance to speak to everyone passing by. “But when they see the cross, people are smiling.”

Johnathon Funk, 8, a third-grader at Walnut Elementary School in La Habra, won a poster contest on home safety and his prize was a ride on a fire engine and dinner at La Habra Fire Station No. 1.

The award also included his brother and parents, and a 5 p.m. appointment was set.

But wouldn’t you know it. The firemen had to respond to an emergency call.

The red-and-white engine showed up late. And after a trip with the siren going, the whole group sat down to a home-cooked dinner of Chicken Kiev.

A “Wall of Fame” in honor of people named Al will be unveiled Friday at, appropriately enough, Al’s Steakhouse and Saloon in Santa Ana.

“We’re encouraging anyone by the name of Al to stop by,” said manager Susan Adkins, who noted that the restaurant is named after a fictitious Al, “who was just a regular guy with a big appetite.”

Some famous Als are expected to attend, including Alice in Wonderland from Disneyland.

The restaurant said it didn’t want the event to appear sexist.

Acknowledgments--Patrick Meany, 17, a senior at Santa Ana’s Foothill High School, has been named a 1988 International Foreign Youth Exchange Ambassador to Germany by the Orange County 4-H. Holding a special interest in international business, Meany will live and work with a German host family.