Most people remember the first time they saw Ian Paisley in the flesh. I was 14, more interested in Top of the Pops than politics. But I certainly knew who Paisley was.
Even at that age of imperfect understanding, I recognised he was an enigma: a media celebrity, a political colossus, a fire-and-brimstone preacher, a verbal vandal. He could be charming, too. My uncle laughed at his antics on television and said he had the Catholics quaking in their boots. My aunt tut-tutted and said he was trouble, with a capital T.
And suddenly, there he was, bounding around the corner of our dreamy little cul-de-sac, a heavyweight pugilist about to enter the ring. He was heading straight for our house, and I was the only one at home. I didn't know whether to answer the door or hide behind the settee. In the end I didn't have to do either.
An instant before he reached for the gate, Ian Paisley's eyes wandered towards my older sister's bedroom window where an election poster proclaimed "Vote O'Neill". Not a sentiment which would have been shared by the entire family, I might add. But my sister liked Terence O'Neill. He was a good soul, she said, and he needed support.
The big man at the gate turned on his heel and in an instant was off in a different direction. I was both perplexed and relieved. Mr Paisley had that air of God-given authority all teenagers dread, and tend to avoid, given the option.
Yet what was so awful about Terence O'Neill, the quietly distinguished former army captain unionism had chosen for its leader, that even the sight of his picture in a window could evoke such hostility?
At that time Big Ian, as he liked to be known, was campaigning hard to oust the then prime minister and he knocked on every door in the village, except ours. People noticed, though, and some said they wouldn't vote for him because of it.
When he lost that election by a slim margin, I wondered how much closer the vote would have been had he not made such a point of shunning supporters of "the enemy".
This was to become Paisley's pattern, and one which served him well. While Terence O'Neill might sup with Sean Lemass, he would never break bread with the enemy. People paranoid about the intentions of politicians across the Border liked that. In the years ahead he would win every election he ever fought, and dozens of anonymous and untalented loyalists would fill seats in district councils just because their calling card had the Paisley imprint.
On more than one occasion analysts and prime ministers have written him off, but no other politician in the whole of this island has been so assured of the unequivocal backing of his electorate for so long a time. He will not go away, especially now that he is involved in the most eclectic government in Europe.
I thought about that first encounter this week when Dr Paisley sprawled himself across his seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I thought about it as he studiously avoided eye-to-eye contact with Gerard Adams and James Martin McGuinness. What must he have been thinking as Mr McGuinness dutifully deigned to become the Northern Ireland Minister of Education?
For him, Ulster's day of destiny represented nothing short of the ultimate betrayal, the latest and most dastardly act of deception imaginable. As far as Dr Paisley is concerned, we have been manipulated, hoodwinked and duped. We know not what we do.
I've met him many times since that first aborted encounter. Like many journalists I have been disarmed by his charm, brow-beaten by his rhetoric and frustrated by his unwavering belief in his own unchanging judgment.
Just before the Good Friday agreement was signed he called at the News Letter office and berated me for supporting the deal, then put a big, friendly arm around me and said: "The trouble is, Geoffrey, Ulster will never be the same again. These republicans are going to be in the government and it's our duty to fight them every inch of the way. We'll never sit down with them."
Yet he did not chain himself to a chair on Monday, nor did he vacate the chamber. He stood his ground. His party duly nominated two capable proteges to sit in that same government and he put himself forward for a job in agriculture and rural development, for which his boss, on paper at least, will be the detested Brid Rodgers, of the SDLP.
Was there, I wondered, even an instant when he considered that all the confrontation had been in vain? I doubt it. In his 74th year, age may have wearied him, but the evangelical fervour with which he preaches from the pulpit and the hustings is undimmed.
The Assembly has not been fashioned in his image, but in many ways it is made for him. All around him are dragons to be slain, scoundrels to be scorned, traitors to be mocked.
The irony is that the Assembly, far from consigning him to the ranks of political dinosaurs left behind by natural evolution, may well provide the backdrop for the renaissance of Paisley-ism.
Already the hackles in the unionist heart-lands are rising over the election of Martin McGuinness to education and Bairbre de Brun to health. What will they be like if Mr McGuinness attempts to rid Ulster of the grammar-school system they fought so hard to protect? When Ms de Brun begins to interfere with hospital services in "Prod" places, as she must, they will be fairly bristling with indignation.
All of it will provide a feast of marketable sound-bite fodder for Dr Paisley and his DUP lieutenants. Accusations of hypocrisy over taking their government places have been rebuffed with a mantra of "wrecking the republican agenda".
Those who wonder why the DUP left education to Sinn Fein's mercy will be similarly dismissed, though the question has not yet been satisfactorily answered.
With two Sinn Fein ministers in government, Ian Paisley has all the ammunition he needs to justify his anti-agreement stance. He may have more when the Patten recommendations become law. Perhaps his only regret is that there is not another election just around the corner.
What happened on Monday was the stuff of which DUP election campaign dreams are made.
Geoff Martin is editor of the News Letter