Requiem for Jack

(There are some losses in life that you do not recognize until much latter. This is a story about such a loss. This was originally written in August 2004, and published here July 2009 under the title “We Hardly Got to Know Him”. In recent weeks, I was given news archives and other information which fill out the story which I’ve included in this edition.)

When the muse is upon you what else can you do? You write the story that flows from the memories of time, penning words that paint the pictures you see in your mind so well as though it was only yesterday, but in reality was ages ago; in this case, a whole lifetime. When your years add up past the "threescore and ten", how is it memories can go so far back; memories that seem as fresh as yesterday, though so very long ago?

What tides of history have come and gone since those early days of our lives. The Berlin wall was yet to be built, but is now battered to dust. Wars were to be fought and lost or won. Mankind had not yet gone into outer space and walked on the moon. The Internet and personal computers were the stuff of science fiction, not the reality they are today Such were the days of that school year of 1955 - 1956.

As you came into the sleepy little rural town from the north, you would have seen the site where work was just commencing on the new high school building. Turn left at the main four corners, and a few blocks east you would see the then red brick school building setting on the north side of the street next to the Wesleyan Methodist church building. Behind the church, on the side street was Martin’s feed mill, abutting on the school property. To the east of the school was a house, then another feed mill, after that the railroad tracks and the local grain elevator.

The school building was a two-story brick affair, typical of many local rural school systems in the early part of the 20th century. A gymnasium at the back was connected to the main structure by a hallway to which also was attached two classrooms. It was in one of those classrooms where we who were fresh out of kindergarten, now sat in first grade as Miss Laser began teaching us those beginning basic reading and writing skills that were to be the foundation of our entire academic endeavor over those next twelve years of our life.

Many of us had been in the same Kindergarten class the year before. Of that particular class, eight of us would go all the way, K through 12, graduating together in 1967.

There was another elementary school in a little town about five miles north. Another first grade class was there, and in the seventh grade our two classes would become one as we came together at the new high school building. Many in that other Elementary class would also go though all their school life together. Over those years, in that inevitable camaraderie and shared experience, we together would forge a life long common bond with one another; becoming as it were, a band of brothers and sisters.

Of most of those who started with us, but did not finish with us, the reason was pretty simple. For whatever reason a family would move out of the area, and the one who had been our classmate would be gone, starting life in another town and school system. Over the years from time to time you might see this one or that one, but the shared experience and the resulting common bond was not there like it was with those still there. So over the years, here and there, we would lose a classmate, and usually another would move into the area from another school and take their place.

In all of that inevitable and understandable loss and gain, there was one loss of a very different nature. It was a very early loss in our first grade year; a loss that remains embedded in memory more than a half century latter. It is of this loss I would now speak.

They lived out on the Territorial Rd. south of town, just down the road from Shanour’s apple orchard. His name was Jack. He had an older sister Beverly. I have it in mind he may have been with us the year before in Kindergarten, but my memory may be foggy on that point.

Yet for all that, there is so much that I do not remember about him. At only six to seven years of age, we were still developing our social relationship skills. Though acquaintances, we had yet to develop the deeper relationships of friendship that would come later with growing maturity and age. For whatever reason, in my six-year-old mind I was wary of Jack. I had not got to a point where I was comfortable with him. It was though we were still sorting each other out, and needed more time to figure out how we related one to another, and what our individual place would be in each other’s life.

One time, someone sharpened a crayon in the pencil sharpener. That was a real “no-no”. I was asked if I had done it. In reality I was the “guilty” party, but had in the moment, not realized what I had done. I sought to shift the blame to Jack, who rightfully denied it, and testified that I was the culprit. Thankfully, Miss Laser didn’t “whoop” me, or get all over my case for messing up the pencil sharpener. I know now that a primary prerequisite for being a first grade teacher is a great deal of patience and forbearance. That’s why at that time Miss Laser was such a good one.

Some sixty-five years later, I wonder what would have happened between us as we grew older and moved on in to the upper grades. Would he and his family have stayed in the area? Would we have become friends? Very possible when you are at an age and place where most everyone was to some degree or another a friend. What things might we have done together? What parts of our lives might we have shared with one another, if not as close friends, at least as friendly acquaintances forging that common bond of shared experience as we went through our school years together?

But such was not to be. Whatever the answers may have been, only God Almighty knows.

I did not remember very well exactly when it happened, but now know it was in mid January. We were on the bus on our way to school. From somewhere, from someone the story came. Jack had been playing in the basement. He had lit some candles or something and there was a fire. He was burned badly and was in the hospital. His sister Beverly had run down into the basement and somehow had put out the flames that had been seeking to devour her little brother.

That was all we ever knew. A few days later his sister Beverly was back at school; both hands and wrists in bandages. In my simple six-year-old mind, I was expecting Jack to soon be out of the hospital and back in class. We as a class continued on with our studies.

But the weeks turned into a month, At one point during that time, I was with my parents at a store in Hillsdale. I overheard a lady in the store say she wanted to buy a toy for the little boy in the hospital who was badly burned. I thought of Jack. Was he the boy she was speaking of?

As his classmates, we had no idea how badly hurt he was. I do not remember that Miss Laser ever talked to us about what had happened to him. I think that was an honest decision on her part. She probably thought we were to young to understand, and it would be better not to bring it up or dwell on it. And who is to say she was not right in that judgment? There were some stories in the local newspaper about Jack’s accident, but we were far from being at an age and reading level to peruse the newspaper.

Back then there were not the medical advances that would in future years bring about specialized burn units, skin grafts, and all the other advances in medical care and pain management from over the past sixty some years that have saved lives that once could not be saved.

I remember, it was sometime around early March. Once again from somewhere, from someone we heard that Jack had died. A few days later a substitute teacher came into the room so Miss Laser could go to Jack’s funeral. That was it. Jack was gone. He didn’t come back.

If we had been older, perhaps we would have gone to the funeral too. But our impressionable and perhaps fragile six-year-old minds were not exposed at that time to that reality we would later face and grapple with in other circumstances of our life. I doubt any of us at that young age really understood the full meaning of what it meant to say, “Jack died.” We did not know enough to really miss him and mourn his loss.

We went on through school. As the years rolled on, I do not know if those of us who had known him gave much thought to him; perhaps a fleeting memory here and there. And from time to time after I graduated from the high school and left the area to go to college and the rest of my life, I would occasionally remember Jack; the vague picture in my mind.

Jack was the only classmate we lost by death during all our years of school. One classmate later lost his little brother to congestive heart failure. While in high school, a younger junior high student was killed in an automobile accident. One of our married high school classmates lost her husband in Vietnam. But of all of the Class of 1967, Jack was the only one so taken from us. We hardly got to know him…

How did any of us survive our childhood and teen years? How many naïve innocent risks we took. Add to those the calculated risks we took, along with the absolutely stupid risks we sometimes took, and all of that along with the normal risk of ordinary everyday life. We survived. We lived. Jack died. Why?

Miss Laser eventually retired from teaching. Over the years she taught, hundreds of kids got their start in reading and writing from her. Her legacy will be passed on in the lives of those of her students who went on to be teachers, lawyers, engineers, nurses, farmers, housewives, factory workers, and etc. She eventually passed away, her long journey of life completed. I have to believe that over the years, from time to time, she probably thought about that little seven-year-old boy she once had in her class; the little boy whose journey through life was so tragically brief.

I have a picture in my mind. Yes, it is an apocryphal picture, but it is a picture that will not easily go away, if ever. In that picture is a beautiful place where the sky is blue, the sun shines softly, a gentle breeze brushes the leaves of a green tree, and green grass provides a gentle turf. There is a school desk in the shade of the tree. A little boy sets at the desk, pencil in hand, working through his writing workbook. His teacher stands besides the desk watching, smiling, and encouraging him. There is joyous contentment in the faces of both student and teacher. Those lessons, abruptly interrupted so long ago, are resumed once more…

R.I.P.

Jack Dean Tuttle died March 2, 1956 in Washtenaw County, Michigan. He was buried in the Maple Grove Cemetery in Hudson, Michigan. His sister Beverly went on to marry her high school sweetheart, Floyd Allion. She passed away in 2004 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

Acknowledgment: News archives and other source material relating to this story were made available to me by Phyllis Rickard and her friends. My thanks to them for their help.

January 8, 2021 Copyright (C) January 2021. All rights reserved.

"Willie Stark Syndrome "

It was probably Monday, June 19, 1972 when I first heard the news reports that there had been a break-in at the Democratic National Committee office at the Watergate Complex in Washington, DC.

My immediate thought at the time was, “That was stupid and totally unnecessary.” Of course my immediate presumption was that somebody related to the Nixon Republican campaign was probably involved.

It was stupid because by all accounts Nixon was projected to whoop the Democratic Candidate George McGovern by more than a healthy margin. And in November that is exactly what happened. There was nothing to be gained and a lot to to put at risk by snooping around the DNC offices.

But of course we know what happened. More and more facts came to light. The evidence brought the investigation closer and closer to President Nixon. Evidence implicating higher ups and a White House connection had been destroyed in a blatant obstruction of justice. In the end, evidence came to light that implicated the President himself. President Nixon’s support in Congress suffered a bi-partisan collapse pointing to impeachment in the House with a subsequent trial and conviction in the Senate.

President Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974; the first POTUS to do so in our country’s history.

Those of us who had supported his election and campaigned and voted for him were betrayed. It was like being kicked in the gut. The rest is history.

In retrospect it is clear President Nixon was betrayed by his own insecurities and pride; pride which the ancient Greeks called hubris, and of such was the subject of the Greek tragedies.

In the 20th century, the updated version of the Greek tragedy plays is found in Robert Penn Warren’s novel “All the King’s Men” published in 1946. It was in this southern tragedy we are introduced to Willie Stark.

Wille Stark comes to power by riding a populist wave of discontent with the current political establishment. As governor of his deep south state, he institutes programs and reforms, playing to the populist base on which his political power was built. And he plays hardball with his political opponents; digging up dirt and blackmailing them into subservience.

In the end Willie is undone by his own conniving and pride. His life ends in the bullets sent his way by one who had been a ally, but whose trust had been betrayed in the bed.

In a YouTube video entitled “Gods and Devils Aplenty: Robert Penn Warren's Civil War” (https://youtu.be/e-JxArcSyYg). Historian David Blight comments that when he asked Warren who “All the King’s Men” was about, Warren replied that it was about Julias Caesar. The Romans had their issues with hubris too.

Hubris, pride, the corrupting influence of power; It’s all there; the "Willie Stark syndrome".

In December 2019, 47 years after Watergate and the events leading to President Nixon’s resignation; once again a sitting POTUS is facing impeachment hearings. As I watch events unfold, I am unable to avoid a sense of deja vu; we’ve seen this before. It remains to be seen how much current events will parallel those of over 40 years ago. It is not so clear how current events will eventually play out. What is not to hard to see though, is that we may well be observing another case of “Willie Stark syndrome”.

Memory Trigger

.

She wore the wrinkles of time well. There was a certain beauty in the pattern of those lines. She went to the booth where an equally elderly man and a younger couple were sitting. The others got up and were preparing to leave. The elderly man was wearing a service cap. There was that word. "Vietnam"... He needed a little help from the younger guy. He was using a cane and walking was slow. I got up from the bench and went to great him. "You were in Vietnam?" "Yes..." "Which service?" "Cavalry... mechanized..." "I'm glad you made it home." "Yes... Thank you..." He shuffled on out of the restaurant. The younger lady, daughter or daughter in-law I do not know turned to me in passing and said, "Thank you..." I sat back down and then the familiar feelings started coming.... Yeah... Some griefs will never go away.

RIP.

Glennallen, Alaska: August 2, 2018

The Theater of the Absurd

“The campus revolt in America is not unlike the French theater of the absurd: actors on the stage, moving about in crazy quilt patterns without discernible purpose, speaking their lines without listening for a response Everyday engaged in private conversation or in dialogues that make no sense. Nobody communicating. Just people on a stage, confined to their own little worlds, talking past one another.”

“The Test”; Walter Adams; (Macmillan Co,; 1971) pg 9

Not much has changed in the last almost 50 years since this was written.

A St. Louis Sunset

We had been driving all day, a good 8 hours from our home in Michigan, and we still had a few hours to go to get to our overnight in Springfield, Missouri. We were taking I-255 to go around the south side of St. Louis. As we passed by on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, there low on the horizon was the St. Louis skyline with the famous St. Louis Arch; way off in the distance across the Mississippi River in Missouri. Though St. Louis beckoned, we could not stop. We hurried on; the road ever beckoning. I had "miles to go before I sleep".

The Dancing Street Light

For some reason there were not any light poles as we know them today. In those days of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, to illuminate the streets of the small rural town, lights were stretched across the streets; wires would go from a pole on one side of the street to another pole directly across the street and the street light would dangle there suspended in the middle, the metal fixture including a shade that directed the light from the incandescent bulbs downward, illuminating the street and immediate adjacent sidewalks and lawns.

It was the end of October, the Halloween time of the year. The local fire department had put on their annual Halloween party for the kids of the area; bobbing for apples, the “haunted house”, and we in our varied Halloween costumes. Along with the fire department festivities we also did the usual trick or treating; a time to fill the sack with candy, popcorn balls, cookies, and other goodies. This was a whole generation before sick psychos used Halloween trick or treating to intentionally put harmful things in the treats handed out on Halloween. That year was going to be my last year of trick or treating. The general rule of thumb was once you were in junior high, your trick or treating days were over. So it was I headed out from the school were the firemen's Halloween party was held, to hit the town and pick up a few treats.

The first street of houses I worked that particular night was a cul-de-sac running off of the main street. At the corner of the main street and the cul-de-sac was a street light stretched across the main street as previously described. I had hit all the houses on the cul-de-sac and was ready to head back to the main street. There were was a good steady wind blowing, and I was struck with how the street light was swaying back and forth, dancing in the wind. It was there that a sort of magic took hold of my imagination.

Oddly enough the sense was not a foreboding fear of some evil supernatural apparition coming to life an All Hallows Eve. It was more a sense of being alone in a deserted place. There was no traffic on the street. There was just the street light dancing in the wind. For those few brief moments the only living things in that town were myself and that dancing street light. In those moments, the image of that dancing street light was forever indelibly imprinted on my mind and in my memory.

In the years that followed I would from time to time come across a few literary descriptions that reminded me of that image.

In Ray Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles” the point comes toward the end of the book were all the Earth people who settled on Mars are called back to Earth at the outbreak of war. The Earth colonies and settlements on Mars are abandoned, but a few people are left behind; left behind to wander over the surface of Mars from deserted town to deserted town living out the rest of their lives alone. In that narrative the image of the dancing street light comes to my mind.

I sat in the theater as the movie; “To Kill a Mockingbird” was nearing its end. The fall harvest festival at the local school is over, and Scout and Jem are about to walk home and into the dramatic climax of the whole story. It is night and we see the street lights of that small rural town through the eyes of Scout as she peers through the eyes of her ham costume. In that image, I see the dancing street light of my youth.

Over fifty years later as the fall of the year comes around and the leaves on the trees are changing color, and the corn is ripe for the picking, and the days grow colder, I think back to that autumn night so long, long ago when the street light danced, sparking the imagination and stirring the feelings; one of those magical moments that stay with you for a life time; those moments in life that give hints of stories to be told, other worlds to be discovered, and adventures yet to come.

~ The Billy Goat ~

Patterns

Over the years of my life there have been certain recurring themes or patterns to my dreams. These patterns have to do with places; certain sections of different roads or highways, particular rivers or a lake, a particular small town, a house filled with bookshelves loaded with books, and other such places. Over the years one gets used to seeing these particular places in our dreams, and we develop a comfortable familiarity with them.

In this past year I began to notice a shift which marked the fading away of those old familiar dream patterns. I woke up one day recently and realized it had been months since I had seen any of the old familiar places in my dreams.

I know when it changed, or it may be more accurate to say I think I know when it changed.

Last November we knew Mom was not doing well, and very well may not make it to the end of the year. The story of our last visit to see Mom while she was still living has been told in another place.

This particular dream happened around that time. In that dream, Mom was in what appeared to be a car. The car window was up, and though I did not clearly see him, Dad was in the drivers side. In my dream I yelled out, "Momma!" She turned her head and smiled at me through the window. Then the dream faded away.

A very short time after that dream, Mom died and a few short weeks after that, Dad was gone too. The two people who had been a central and vital part of the pattern of my life were gone. The whole pattern of my life was irrevocably changed. A link in the chain of the collective memory of my family has been cut off, and now it is my brother and sister and I who carry what we can of that collective memory.

My more recent dreams, the ones I can remember anything about, no longer have those familiar patterns of places, or events. It is if in the land of sleep, a certain degree of anarchy prevails in the universe of my dreams. Perhaps new patterns will eventually emerge, I do not know.

I do know that significant life events touch one 's being at many different levels. I am not one to spend a lot of time trying to understand dreams. I believe there is a reality to dreams that resists the prognostications of soothsayers and psychoanalyst alike. If He who is the giver of dreams wants me to understand a particular dream's meaning, He will make it clear in His own good way and time. I make no claim to prophetic dreams, and reserve a certain skepticism for any who claim so.

God has created us as complex beings. We often focus on the parts of our being and tend to lose sight of the interrelatedness of those parts. I am not so sure how well we as humans understand the fullness of the organic being of our humanness. I am coming to realize more and more just how deep and complex the patterns of our being and life really are. As the Psalmist put it, we are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Strike Three!

He was a young Freshman pitcher from Flint. He came to Michigan State University to get an education with a major in history, and to see if he could get on the baseball team as a walk-on. If he could make the team, the prospect of an athletic scholarship could become a reality. He could very probably have gotten a scholarship at another school, but family tradition and the prospect of studying Civil War history under a noted professor among other things, brought him to Michigan State. This young hurler also happened to be by the cast of chance or design of providence, my dorm roommate.

So it was in that Spring of our Freshman year, one afternoon between classes, I went over to the ball-field where the University Freshman team was playing a game against the baseball team from a local community college. It was the bottom of the inning and the Spartan's turn at bat. It also happened Dave was coming up to bat.

It is a maxim of baseball that pitchers do not get very much batting practice. A pitcher's batting average will usually be one of the lowest on the teams. I don't remember what the exact count was; there may have been a ball or two, but Dave was quickly behind with two strikes. It also bothers me to this day that I do not remember if they were called strikes or came on a swing and a miss. But now the fun was about begin.

The pitcher wound up and threw the next pitch. Dave watched the ball go by.

"Strike three!" called the Umpire.

But as he was calling the 3rd strike, the ball hit the catcher's mitt, dropped and rolled a few feet away. Dave saw the muffed catch, dropped the bat and ran for first. The catcher was caught off guard by Dave's movement, but then recovering, grabbed the ball to throw to first to insure the out. He over threw the 1st baseman's glove, and there was Dave, safe at first!

What a whoop and holler erupted from his teammates! What would have been a strikeout, was by application of the 3rd strike rule and the catcher's error, a man on base. It was a real heads up play on Dave's part that turned a negative into a positive.

I don't remember anything else about that game, and as it was, it was the only game I saw Dave play in. He never did get that athletic scholarship and a year or so later, dropped baseball and concentrated on his studies. After those undergraduate days at Michigan State, he eventually went on to get a Masters and then a Doctorate in history with emphasis on the Civil War and Reconstruction.

If you are ever in New Haven, Connecticut, and wandering around the campus of Yale University, you might peer into a classroom and see David delivering a lecture on some aspect of the Civil War or Reconstruction. I don't know how much the Doctor remembers of his undergrad baseball days, but that one memory remains forever etched in his old roommate's memory.

History, Memory, & Connection

A few reflections on Marilynne Robinson’s novel “Gilead”

John Ames was dying. Of course in this life we are all terminal the moment we exit the womb. So many heartbeats; so many breathes in and breathes out; so many seconds, minutes, hours, days, years. Then we will be gone. Grim prospect that is, but it is what happens between that first and last breath that defines, for better or for worse, what our life is.

John Ames, the Congregational pastor in Gilead, Iowa was dying. At the time Marilynne Robinson writes his story in her somewhat strange but moving novel titled “Gilead”, he is in his mid-seventies. He is writing a chronicle for his young seven year old son; the son of his old age birthed by his much younger bride who had brought solace to him so many, many years after his first wife had died in childbirth. John Ames wants to leave his young son something through which after his death, his son can connect to his father and to the heritage that is his through his father. It is that epistle of the dying John Ames to his son that is the content of “Gilead”.

There are a number of story threads woven throughout “Gilead”, but perhaps among the more compelling ones is that relating to John Ames’ abolitionist grandfather; the Congregational minister from New England who was a Kansas Jayhawker and friend of John Brown of “moldering in his grave” fame, as well as acquaintance of that grim chieftain, Jim Lane; the grandfather who went marching off to the war as a Union soldier and came home minus an eye as a result.

John Ames’ grandfather was gripped by a cause; a cause which to him involved the righting of the wrong of a grave and malevolent injustice to fellow human beings created in the image of Almighty God. It was a cause that so gripped him that he engaged in activity that, in reflection, horrified his son for its extremeness; that son who was to become John Ames’ father.

So the stage was set for that Ames family play in which in the second act, the son and grandson watch in horror as World War I unfolds and challenges their pacifist preferences; a pacifism rooted in John Ames’ father’s aversion to what he had witnessed of the grandfather’s involvement in Bloody Kansas and the Civil War.

It is here we come to the matter of history, memory, and connection. John Ames’ seven year old son was entering a life further and further disconnected by time from the tumultuous events leading up to and including the Civil War. He was connected to a great-grandfather who had participated in some momentous historical events. That participation was coming down to him through the filter of his grandfather and the further reflection of his father, John Ames. It would remain to be seen how that young seven year old lad growing up some hundred years after those events, would process and understand his great-grandfather’s involvement in those events.

In the area of history, and the history of the Civil War in particular, there has been in recent decades, a focus in historical studies not just on the events of history, but also a study on how, over time, those events have been understood and remembered not just in history books or Memorial Day speeches, as important as they can be, but in the popular psych of a culture over time. A case in point is how the Civil War is remembered in literature that is not so much about the events themselves, but how the memory of those past events affect the characters involved in the story taking place. It was this history, memory, and connection that made this particular story thread in “Gilead” compelling. It also hit me in a very personal way.

My Great-Grandfather was a Union veteran of the Civil War. He served three enlistments in three different Ohio regiments for varying lengths of service. He died in 1931, when his grandson, my Father, was thirteen years old.

My Dad was old enough to have had some kind of meaningful relationship with his Grandfather. I don’t know if such was the case for the simple reason I never thought to ask him about the nature of his relationship with his Civil War Grandfather. Now my father is gone and what memories he may have had are gone with him. He did not leave my siblings and I any kind of “Gilead” chronicle. Dad never spoke much about his Grandfather. But it is also true that I never really asked him what he could tell me about my Great-Grandfather. Now it is to late.

History, memory, and connection… Don’t take them for granted. This tri-fold composite has not only to do with the very public historical events, but also with the more private events of a family history.

In “Gilead” we are made privy to that relationship of John Ames to the son of his best friend, that son Jack Boughton, whose full given name is John Ames Boughton, so named by the Reverend Boughton of the Gilead Presbyterian church; this Jack Boughton who is Robinson’s portrayal of the classic prodigal son.

This is a thread of the novel that most clearly holds out the hope of redemption, however faint it might seem to be. And it is such a story that John Ames dare not keep it from his son, even though he struggles with the argument in his soul over the telling or not telling of it. In the end that soul argument is laid to rest in a revelation Jack confesses to his namesake, and John Ames with clear conscience gives Jack his blessing. The hope of redemption has not totally been lost.

So it will be that in the future the son of John Ames will read his Father’s account of Jack Boughton, and perhaps make sense of things he saw and heard back when he was too young to understand the import thereof. But when understood at that future time, young Ames will have an understanding and insight into his then deceased father’s character that will be a precious memory. Of such are history, memory, and connection.

~ The Billy Goat ~

Heroes, Saints, & Martyrs

There have been heroes here, and saints and martyrs, and I want you to know that. Because that is the truth, even if no one remembers it. To look at this place, it's just a cluster of houses strung along a few roads, and a little row of brick buildings with stores in them, and a grain elevator and a water tower with Gilead written on its side, and the post office and the schools and the playing fields and the old train station, which is pretty well gone to weeds now. But what must Galilee have looked like? You can't tell so much from the appearance of a place.

(Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (Picador, 2004)pg. 173)

The Last Ride

A little ritual had kind of developed between Dad and I over the last several years before his passing. We would go down to visit Mom and Dad. Sometime during the visit, I would take Dad for a ride. Usually those rides were around the more immediate rural area of the Michigan-Ohio border where they lived. The trips were of varying length, but served several purposes. It was a chance for Dad to get out of the house. It was a chance for us to talk about things; to have a father-son time. It was also an opportunity for me to see what was going on around the stomping grounds of my youth; to see how so many things had changed and how a few things had stayed the same; a way of reconnecting with my roots.

Those rides became more important as Mom's health and mind began to fail. On those rides Dad would tell me how Mom was doing. I could get first hand from him what was going on as the two of them aged and that aging slowly sapped their strength and vitality. We would discuss what some of their options were. It was a chance for me to reinforce some of the concerns and issues my sister had discussed with me regarding Mom and Dad's health and care. Dad needed the time out of and away from the house. He needed the respite from the care and worry over his now invalid wife.

It was this past November (2012) and the Thanksgiving Holiday was coming up. It had been more then a few months since our last visit to Mom and Dad, and I knew we really needed to make that two and half hour trip down to see them. The Friday after Thanksgiving would be the best time to go, and so it was the plans were made. That Friday morning my wife and I made the trip down to see Mom and Dad.

Mom was laying in the hospital bed set up in the living room. She was not able to stand at all. She was at the point where an aid was coming in just about every day , and Hospice was checking in a couple of times a week. She was not fully "there" in her mind though able to carry on limited conversation. She was still at the point where someone would move her to a wheelchair and bring her into the dining room to eat at the table with the rest of us. As it was, we would have to help her eat.

At some point in the afternoon, Dad and I went for our drive. As usual, I would drive and dad would sit there in the front passenger seat. We went to town and drove around the village. Dad had me drive around by the grain elevator so he could see the new office and scales, and the new grain silo bin that had recently been erected. We went through the cemetery by the stone marking my oldest sister's grave, and the stone with Mom and Dad's names on it, but at that time with only the years of birth.

We drove out north of town, swung east a mile then north again to the other near by village in the area that was also part of the local school district. In that small village we passed by the old school building where I had gone to kindergarten. The decrepit condition of that abandoned school building was an indicative statement of how the whole area of that broader rural community had changed. We turned west at the main corner and wandered through the country side until we found ourselves back at Mom and Dad's house.

I played the memory game with Momma. "Do you remember when we would go to the Britton reunions at the old Grange hall?" "Do you remember when we would go up north to the lake for vacation?" Yes, she remembered, and she remembered those things happened a long time ago.

My last meal with my mother was that evening's supper. I sat there and was spoon feeding her, much like she had done to me so many years ago when I was the baby. After supper my wife and I left for the two and half hour trip back to our home. A week and a half later we got the phone call. Momma had died at the age of 92. That Thanksgiving Friday had been my last visit with her.

Two weeks and one day after Momma died, Daddy died at the age of 95. I got to see him two days before he died and that was good. But then he was invalid and there was no thought of going for our ritual ride together. It dawned on me today, some few weeks later, that the Thanksgiving Friday was not only the last time I saw Momma alive, but it was also when Daddy and I went on our last ride together.

RIP Mom and Dad...

(Cross posted to The Neukomment Files.)

A Veteran Day Quote

"It [was] not a war to save the Union alone, it [was] a war to make the Union worth saving."

– William P. Hogarty, Union veteran

- from Cosmic America

The Smashing of the Idols

What follows is a spiritual autobiography. In July 2000, I wrote a letter to a life long friend detailing how I had come to embrace the Evangelical Christian faith. Later I published an edited version of that letter on a now defunct internet site. Over the years this has gone through several edits and updates for publication. (Latest revision May 1, 2021)

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"In an age of relativism, orthodoxy is the only possible rebellion left." ~ Peter Kreeft

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t go to church. At that time my parents seldom went, but sent us kids regularly. I had a childhood friend that I invited to church also. At this church of our youth we learned all the basic stories of the Bible narrative. Knowing that outline of basic Bible narrative was one thing. Understanding what it meant for me personally in relation ot God and life was quite another thing.

One time when we were about 11 years old, we were at a church camp, and my friend and I talked about looking for the Garden of Eden. Indeed we were looking for something back then. Little did we realize what we were to eventually find. Thus it was at that time in our looking, we were baptized; thinking that in doing so, one became a Christian; the implication was we were earning our way to God’s favor by our own keeping and doing. I still remember the church camp sermon on the steps to heaven; all things we had to do. I don’t remember the word “grace” being used.

In high school my friend began to drift away and started walking on the wilder side of life. At that time my own walk was something of the respectable hypocrite. For some reason I didn't stop going to church. I think in some sense I was seeking something I had yet to find. I could never be an atheist. Growing up on the farm so close to nature made it almost impossible not to believe in something much greater.

I did become a deist of sorts, someone who believes in God, but not sure He is relevant to anything in this world. And I was certainly not at all sure how Jesus fit into the whole thing, if He did at all. My life became one of being "good" enough not to get into bad trouble, but being "bad" enough to get along with the world.

During my high school senior year, there was a New Year Eve's service at the church. A guest speaker was leading the service. He had us write on a piece of paper any concerns, burdens, questions, or etc. we wanted God to take care of in the year to come. He then collected the papers, and putting them into a collection plate, burned them up; a symbolic act of giving those things to God. On my paper I had written, "Are you really there?" Little did I know how, in the next few years, how that question was to be answered.

That fall I was off to Michigan State University. I was a relatively larger fish in a real small pond back home. At MSU I barely registered at the plankton level. I also quickly realized that for all the amount of intellect at the University, there were still some areas where the Professors, with all their doctoral degrees, learning, and knowledge, really didn't know anymore than the rest of us. Whatever claims they might make, they were only guessing about the meaning and purpose of life, and one guess was as good or bad as another.

In one of my freshman classes, in a test essay question dealing with Thomas Paine’s virulent attack on the virgin birth of Christ, I found myself defending the virgin birth. After all, Thomas Paine didn’t know any more about it than anyone else, so why should I believe him?

It was in that context I was seeking my own meaning and purpose. I was carving out and sculpting my own idols; those things I thought would give me purpose, meaning, and comfort in life. I believed God existed, but believed He was far away and didn’t have much time or inclination to worry about my life.

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year, my brother got married to his first wife. Even though I had known of and expected my brother's wedding for some months before, the actual event was something of a shock to me. It was hard for me to handle that we had "grown up", and were taking on adult responsibilities. Even back in high school I had felt at times an acute loneliness and emptiness; a loneliness and emptiness that I thought could be filled by the "good life"; finding a special someone to share life with, a good paying job, and a nice house in a nice community. It was in those growing materialistic expectations that I was looking for ultimate purpose and meaning in my life. In looking back, that those things, as legitimate as they can be, were at that time in my life, becoming my idols.

In my sophomore year, the Lord started drawing His net around me. God is a jealous God. He will not put up with us having any other gods in His place. That fall I attended a concert on campus put on by a Christian musical group. At the end of the concert there was a gospel presentation. As the salvation prayer was presemted, I remember something clearly saying in my head, “That’s something you should do.” I repeated the words of the prayer silently to myself. I then signed a card that had been provided, and promptly forgot about the whole thing.

In the spring of that sophomore year, God began in His providence to deal with me and proceeded to smash my idols. These events left me bewildered and at a loss.

It was shortly after I was invited to a meeting of a campus ministry group. For some reason, I went... I was supposed to get a term paper done, but I couldn't concentrate on it, so I went to the meeting. After the meeting I went up to talk to the speaker about some of the things he had said. He proceeded to go through a Gospel presentation. I knew enough of the Bible to recognize the truth of what he said. I knew I fell far short of living up to what I knew was right. I needed grace, mercy, and the forgiveness of sins. Though I did not fully understand it at the time, I needed to turn from myself and embrace what Christ had done for me in His death, burial, and resurrection. It was then I confessed to the Lord I was the fool, and in so doing acknowledged that He, Jesus Christ, was Lord and God. Somewhat to my surprise, I found I believed. I was surprised by faith...

The skeptic may say, "He got religion on the rebound from from some of life’s disappointments.” That is an understandable response, but it is a superficial kind of analysis that misses deeper root issues. The real issue was not “me” centered, but God centered. What was to be the object of my hope and faith for meaning and purpose in life? The object of a person’s hope and faith is what they will worship. My heart had been shatterd because I sought in my idols that which God alone can give. God smashed my idols so I would seek Him, and in Him alone find all I really and truly needed or wanted. And how does that kind of superficial analysis explain why, after all these years, I still believe?

From that point, old things started passing away, and new things came in their place. I went home at the end of that school year a different person then what I had been when the year had started. Someone gave me a copy of the New Testament in Today's English. That summer I read through it, and the Word of God was alive like it had never been before... I found I wanted to be with God’s people...

There is much more I could probably say about the last 50 plus years since that time. I did marry a really nice Christian lady, was able to have a decent job, and we have a nice home in a nice suburban community. Over the years we have attended and been involved in several local churches. In those churches we have seen both the good and some of the bad of church life, but our confidence is not in any specific church or group of churches, rather it is in Him who is head over all the church.

At one point I thought to enter the ministry, but the Lord providentially led me otherwise. I did take several years of seminary classes and learned enough Greek and Hebrew to be dangerous. More important, I learned more about God Himself and who I am in relation to Him. I learned more fully about His sovereign grace and mercy. I am a saved sinner. I am a sinner still being saved. One day I will be fully saved. Jesus Christ is my all in all, my only hope in life and in death. Anything I have is a gift of His grace and mercy alone; certainly not at all deserved or earned by anything I could do. All I can do is respond to His love by loving and seeking to serve Him.

For the child of God, nothing is wasted in His sovereign economy. It is from the ashes, broken wreckage, and debris of our lives that He perfects His image in us.

Whatever God's providence brings our way, His promises are true and He remains faithful. The light afflictions of this poor world are nothing in light of the weight of the eternal glory that is waiting for those who love Him.

So it is that I affirm and confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, and that He is my LORD and my Savior.

I believe....

..in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,

And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from where He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit;
the holy universal Church;
the communion of the saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.

AMEN!

(~ The Apostles' Creed ~)

Solo Deo gloria!