How a So-Called Moonie Lives His Dream in Nevada

From Flower Seller to Lawmaker: A "Moonie" makes good in NevadaAmerica, as everyone knows, is the land of the free and the home of the brave. You are free to choose your lifestyle, your politics and your religion. But if you announce your choice of an alternative lifestyle, a radical political group or a "new religion," such as Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, you have to be brave. Patrick Hickey of Reno is very brave and very lucky. At least, that is my conclusion after reading Tahoe Boy: A Journey Back Home, (May, 2009, Seven Locks Press).Hickey looks back on his 59-year walk on this mortal plane and recounts the best stories he can remember about growing up Catholic, the rites of passage in his patch of Nevada, the rambunctious 60's, his magical, mysterious encounters with Rev. Moon's movement, his adventures as a disciple, and meeting the love of his life through an arranged marriage, finding his niche in radio journalism, running for state office, and starting a smal
l business -- all with a sense of humor and reflective detachment that many will find beguiling. Readers will encounter a mélange of observations somewhat in the vein of Jack Kerouac but funny enough to bring to mind Garrison Keillor. Hickey tells about being a ski-bum, a surfer, draft resistor, and party-hearty college student before signing on with Rev. Moon's church in Montana in 1973. In those days, Hickey was one of the pioneers of a new spiritual community, and one may argue that his trek across America proselytizing for Rev. Moon in the 1970's was every bit as daring as the cross-continent migration of his great-grandfather, who came to Nevada in the 1870's. His grandfather and father sold fuel oil to neighbors on the shores of Lake Tahoe.Hickey thought that he would inherit the family business. His early life was ordinary enough. He grew up an adored son of hard-working, patriotic, Roman Catholic parents. His father (still going strong at 96) coached little le
ague while his mother-"like God, she was always around" -worked at the town's high-fashion department store. Pat didn't want to embarrass his Dad, a World War II combat veteran, by refusing the draft in the middle of Viet Nam, yet he did exactly that. But he didn't hide out in Canada or go underground. Pat presented himself at the induction center and simply refused to step forward when ordered. Luckily, he wasn't prosecuted, possibly due to the huge backlog of such cases. That decision prefigured other acts of courage, including the joining of a new religious movement-the Unification Church-which meant hearing the word, "Moonie," and being called a cultist for decades. At the time Hickey signed up, the word, "Moonie" a pejorative, hadn't been coined, and the church wasn't on the radar of American media. Yet it wasn't long before the church was one of the most controversial organizations on the American religious scene. After Time Magazine's cover story on Rev.Moon in 1976,
the M-word was in common use by critics, reporters and passionate opponents of the Unification Church. In the early days of the movement, members of the church took no umbrage when hearing the word, and even today, some followers refer to each other as "Moonies." But in 2009 the M-word is an insult that is as hurtful to Unification Church members, otherwise known as "Unificationists," as the N word is to African Americans. Today, Hickey, a successful entrepreneur and father of four grown children, is living the American Dream. He is respected as the radio journalist who cared enough about Nevada politics to serve a term in Nevada's legislature in the 1997 session. In Pat's view, happiness is found when one becomes rooted in a place, a community, and within a historical tradition. In this respect, his memoir is more of an American story than an apologia for his church. As he says: "Going home for the girl from Kansas was like finding the way back to the Lake for me. There was
no place like home and no place like Lake Tahoe, to finally find my peace. Returning, I too pulled back the curtain to the happiness I'd sought ever since growing up there as a boy."

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