My Life: #9 The Early School Years.

I looked up and saw a man dressed in a brilliant white robe, chest high, with His arms opened wide – with His face washed out from the light.

Jul 02, 2023

I looked up and saw a man dressed in a brilliant white robe, chest high, with His arms, opened wide – with His face washed out from the light. I grabbed ahold of my friend (Brad) and asked him if he sees the man. He said no, and off to the field we went to play ball. Throughout recess, I continued to look to the sky to see if this figure returned. Keep in mind that I had no idea who Jesus was.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my father and mother were known for hosting parties that were extravagant in liquor, food, and music. It was no wonder why most of us kids ended up with “addictions.” During these times, I have vivid memories of the adults eating steak with all the trimmings while we kids were left with eating from the plates of the guests once they were inebriated. For those looking from the outside, we appeared to be a moderately affluent military family, but the honest truth being said, we were living “hand to mouth.” My folks spent most of their funds holding up an external image, but once you got beyond this facade, it was “crackers and catch-up.” One of our family jokes has been - my father was known for going out for a loaf of bread and coming back with a satellite dish. External image building became another of my nasty habits as an adult.

Probably one of the most hurtful experiences living in Bangor was being passed from one grade to another and being put back into the 2^nd grade on the first day of school.

I speak more of this experience in my autobiography, but it was a horrific moment in my life that left its mark on my already established inferiority complex. Keeping in mind that I did not learn how to read and write until shortly after meeting my wife.

My father retired from the military while at Dow Air Force Base and this motivated my dad to move back to Kansas - Michigan Valley, although my father’s retirement did not come without a hitch. After 21 years of military service, my father was stripped of most of his rank – one of the worst things that could happen to a war vet who fought for his country and had earned some of the highest military citations.

As the story was relayed to me by my mother, while at the NCO Club, while drunk, he got into a heated discussion with a superior officer who happened to be black. That “heated discussion” turned into a fistfight which resulted in my father assaulting him. You see, my father grew up in a Quaker/Friends church that believed that “black” people were the cursed generation and were not to be accepted by church members. Growing up, I have tons of memories of my father having a conflict with African American people, but after this happened, the bitterness he expressed toward this race was horrid. This is a man that would refuse to be served by an African American. Personally, I believe this false teaching affected him in his adult years and certainly became one of the factors in being stripped of most of the military rank that he had earned over the 21 years. It is no wonder why he was bitter at the government. He remained bitter until his 40^th wedding anniversary, which was the time when he was represented with his military honors by representatives of the Army and Air Force.

After moving to Michigan Valley, my father settled into a career in electronics, which he maintained for most of his post-military years.

My life in Kansas also comes with mixed emotions. Still being in and out of this protective “bubble” due to my intense allergies, now 11 years of age, I decided that I was breaking out of this homebound prison. After announcing to my mother that I was not going to succumb to these allergies any longer, she said I will most likely die if I exposed myself to the things I was highly allergic. Letting her words go “in one ear and out the other,” I began to do all those things that my allergies blocked me from doing and began playing freely. It was not long before I began to react to my environment and became quite sick. My mother got a neighbor to rush me to the hospital for an injection that would restart my frail body, and within a few short moments of the shot, my world turned black – my heart stopped.

Your son is dead!

I have vivid memories of being in one of the corners of the ceiling with the sensation of being pulled into a dark tunnel while watching as the doctor pushed on my chest and a nurse comforting my mother. The next thing I knew, I was staring at the face of the doctor. I had thought this to be a dream most of my life until I brought it up at my parent’s 40^th wedding anniversary. My mother looked at me with this dead stare and then told me it was not a dream. She said I was certifiably dead, and the doctor brought me back. Well, after this death experience, you would think that I would have gone right back into that prison, but I did not. I told my mother that I would rather have a short life “out there” than have a longer life “in here.” An allergist years later told me that my self-proclaimed decision probably was the best decision I had ever made. Forcing myself to adjust to the outside world actually caused my immune system to increase.

Appanoose School

It was after this experience that I started to attend school more on a regular basis. It was a little late, though, for I did not know how to read or write. In fact, I maintained that weakness until my wife taught me years later. This lifetime weakness caused me to “fake it until I make it.”

One of several memories I have of those school years was when I was in fourth grade at Appanoose (Michigan Valley, KS) country school. Due to my allergies, I had a perpetual problem of diarrhea, which I have to this day, and when I had to go, I needed to go immediately. I raised my hand to be dismissed, and the teacher told me to wait until school was out. I raised my hand again and again, and finally, it happened – an explosion of odor filled the air. With that, I could see that the teacher was horrified, and she dismissed me. I went to the locker room to clean myself up to the best I could. Hurried back to get on the bus. After settling into a seat on the bus, all the kids packed into the back of the bus – dishing out names and rejection the entire trip home. The driver smelling the obvious reason, left the situation as is. Then one young lady got up, came to the front of the bus, and sat with me. This happened to be the same young lady that smelled like urine each morning when she boarded the bus. We ended up saving seats for each other for the remainder of the year.

I wish I could say that the humiliation ended there, but it didn’t. My siblings continued to harass me when I got home. Returning to school the next day was the worst yet. It took me years to bounce back from that one. I obviously don’t speak of it much today, but I continue to have these adjustments to food and the environment, sometimes with odor accidents, but I have learned to accept this weakness as a God-sized opportunity of Grace.

A YOUNG MAN’S VISION

The rejection I experienced during this period of my life left me with an overwhelming sense of despair. Such despair that the Lord showed Himself in a mighty way. While still at Appanoose School, it was during recess one spring day that I was on my way to the ball diamond when I sensed something in the sky. I looked up and saw a man dressed in a brilliant white robe, chest high, with His arms, opened wide – with His face washed out from the light. I grabbed ahold of my friend (Brad) and asked him if he sees the man. He said no, and off to the field, we went to play ball. Throughout recess, I continued to look to the sky to see if this figure returned. Keep in mind that I had no idea who Jesus was. After the school bell rang and we were heading back to class, I sensed it again. I looked up and saw Him again, this time from the knees up, with a smile on His face. I stopped and asked Brad if he could see the image this time. He said no. That day I remember looking out the classroom window expecting to see Him – but to no avail.

Not long ago, I looked up this old friend to ask him a question. After a bit of a reunion, it had been 40+ years; I asked him if he remembered that day. To my surprise, he did and went on to tell me that God used that day to lead him to Christ once he became an adult. I was simply blown away. Not only did I nail down that it really happened, but my dearest friend at the time also found Christ because of it.

That event was used by God hundreds of times through the years to show me that He has always had His hand upon me. On the day of my salvation, 16 years of age, the Spirit reminded me of this experience to reassure me of His sovereign plan and that I was a part of it. So, you see, Michigan Valley may have been a tough season in my life, but it also was a time when God introduced Himself to me in order to set me up for my salvation years later. That, my dear reader, is GRACE.