A Home to come Home to

Time is ticking.  Mom and dad have talked about selling their house for over a year now, and they've stepped up the process by looking for a place in River City, and prepping the ol' homestead for the market.  This is going to be a big transition....in fact, they've never bought and sold a home.  When they were first married, they moved a mobile home onto grandpa's farmstead and within a few years built the house in a woods on the farm in 1973.  They've been there ever since.  And except for a few fragments of memories from my toddler days, the house they built is really the only one I can remember from my childhood days.

I know it is going to be difficult.  I can't imagine not having that house to come "home" to after more than 40 years.  Mom insisted on having a get-together over Memorial Day weekend, thinking that it may be the last time all of us siblings, and our kids...and grandkids, would be together in the house.  I don't even want to think about the monumental task of moving and downsizing.

My room-turned antique/plant room.  The only corner view in the house.

My grandparents were in their houses for 46 years and their entire lifetime since it was handed down from generation to generation.  My wife's parents have been in their house for about the same length of time as my parents.  People don't do this anymore these days.  We've moved once, after spending 11 years in our first house and going on 7 years at the farm.  At 11 years, we were some of the "oldest" neighbors in the neighborhood.  It seems that these days people are so disconnected to their homes, families, communities, neighborhoods and other circles that once held our broader communities together.  Our connections are now social media based and it makes me wonder if our inability to be civil in our discourse doesn't follow the trend to be disconnected in real time.

Pomp and Circumstance(s)

Andrews University graduation outside Pioneer Memorial Chapel

I've been like a kid over celebrating Indiana's bicentennial this year, but 2016 is big in my book for at least two other reasons.  The advantage of graduating from your first four-year stint in college and going to a five-year program at another is that when you celebrate important graduation anniversaries, they are always in the same year.  This year marks the big silver anniversary of 25 years from completing my Business Administration degree from Bethel, and 20 years from completing my Architecture degree from Andrews.  So if you do the math, I spent nine years in college and don't have a "Dr." in front of my name to show for it-or the income for that matter.

Marrying these two degrees with my love for history has allowed me to take what is essentially a hobby and turn it into a career in which I work for myself.  It's just hard to believe it has been this long out of college, even as I look to my 30th high school class reunion next year.  There is no way I am that old.

Bethel College graduation outside of Goodman Auditorium

Unfortunately I don't see any of my old Bethel or Andrews classmates, except for occasional pics on FB.  I miss my archi-friends from Andrews.  I trust you guys are all doing well and changing the physical face of America and beyond for the better with your exceptional talents.  What I wouldn't give for another round table discussion over coffee at the Daybreak.  And I miss many of my Bethel business classmates-it does my heart well to know many of you stayed right here in Indiana to make this a better place.  Happy 20th and 25th everyone-it doesn't quite seem like yesterday, but close enough.

The Results are IN!

Inspired by the PBS program "Finding Your Roots", and trying to resolve an internal debate about some family lore, I simply asked for a DNA kit from Ancestry.com for my birthday this year.  A vile full of spit and a few weeks later, my ancestral-origin profile arrived.

My grandfather, sometimes with seriousness, and other times in jest, claimed that we had Native American blood.  In my genealogical research, I haven't found that native link-but some lines got blurred in Virginia, so I thought it was possible.  When grandpa had us grandkids "on the hook" he'd tell us we were part Blackfoot, to which he'd take off his sock and show us the bottom of his dirty foot.  That should have clued me in.  More believable was his story that he knew that the first to carry our name in the New World arrived with his brothers from Ireland way back.  This didn't add up to what became pretty overwhelming probability that the first of my namesake came from Germany during the Revolution, and dropped the "t" from his name so that it sounded more Anglicized.

Plight of the Spanish Armada

Then there was this little matter of my paternal grandmother, who was a Bryant, and her lineage came up through Kentucky in the 1830s.  Family tradition is that we were "Black Irish".  Never heard that term?  Black Irish is a term used for people with darker complexions and hair from the Emerald Isle, and at least one theory suggests they were descended from survivors of the Spanish Armada that wrecked off the coast of Ireland.  BUT at the first inaugural family reunion in 2012, my aunt, the eldest member of that family unit, brought a photo album of the Bryants and some family members appeared so dark-skinned, that we wondered if the black in Black Irish, might have actually been, well,  Black and Irish.  My aunt quickly closed the photo album.

Destruction of the Armada

So there was a part of me that thought my regions of origin could have looked like a smorgasbord of ethnic groups.  Based on my research though, I thought it would be more likely that about 50% or more would be German, and the remaining but likely minority amount would be English-Irish.  Have I built up the suspense enough?

Yup, about as Anglo as they come.

How about 49% English-Scottish and 34% German-Alsace region.  The remaining amount included only 2% Irish (say what?) which was as much as the percentage of Eastern European Jew.  I don't know that the last surprised me.  I did get a full 6% of Iberian peninsula, which could relate back to the whole Black Irish-minus the Irish evidently.  Well, I'm about as white as they come...a friend said I'd get lost in a snowstorm.  How boring.  I have to rethink the concept that the first of my namesake dropped the "t" and that maybe some aspect of Gramp's story was true-just not Ireland, more like England.  Geesh, England's never really even held any fascination for me.  S'pose I'll have to follow the Royals now.

Marshall County: My Hometown

Our family on closing day, 1996

Somewhere along in my life I started to realize that I never had that strong connection I heard peers or adults talk about in relationship to growing up in their hometowns.  I lived a ways outside of town and was transported some distance to attend a private school in Plymouth throughout my high school years.  I didn't have Friday nights at the grid iron, nor the hardwoods.  The community I knew revolved around my small high school, with kids from all parts of the county, and our family business which was a local hub of sorts for farmers, firemen, and the like.

Yet, as my wife can attest, I have this strong connection to Marshall County.  And as blogged earlier, I am running for county commissioner, so there probably is a bit of campaign stumping embedded in this post.  I think there are two reasons for this connection.....something that I think comes across when I talk with people.

Community at Garners Truck Stop

The first is related to my roots.  As my kids know all too well, we can't hardly drive down a country road before I'm pointing out where their forefathers lived.  Our roots go deep in the soil.  In North Township, my ancestors first settled in the 1840s.  In German Township, they settled in the 1830s.  In Walnut Township, they came in the 1840s.  In Green Township, they arrived in the 1860s.  And the family lived in Culver and the Tyner area during the 1930s-50s.  And then my mom, a Bremen girl, and my dad, a LaPaz boy, met at my grandparents' truck stop-Garners.  Then it was my turn to establish a family and I married a Plymouth girl and we began raising our family on Michigan Street.  Being a guy maybe a bit too consumed by history, I can't help but recognize that it wasn't one town that made this man-but I owe a great debt to this collective place I call home.  There's something that gets in the spirit of a person when they understand the blood, sweat and tears left on the soil by their ancestors.  To be surrounded by nearly 200 years of that humbles a guy and makes him want to do his part in building this place for future generations.

The second reason I think I feel this deep connection is maybe because of what I lamented at the beginning.  Thrown into a small school made up of kids from Culver, Argos, Tyner, LaPaz, Bourbon, and Plymouth made me realize the rivalries that far too often go beyond the basketball court, didn't translate within our friendships.  Which then led to hanging out at the Culver drive-in and going to their theater, grabbing supper at the Log House in Argos, or spending many a Friday nights in Plymouth.  Add to that, traversing country roads in and out of every little hamlet and burg, and soon it began to feel like all of Marshall County was my hometown.  Now, I have great memories of going to LaPaz School and the Church of God, and in many respects, Bremen felt like home since we did most of our shopping there, including getting my haircut at Don the barber's.  But the broader appreciation, and the ghosts if you will, from having spent my growing up time in each of our communities, spurs a greater devotion to make sure we all are succeeding.  We might not always agree or see things the same way, but we truly are stronger together.

If a guy can claim a whole county as his hometown, I'd like to stake that claim.  The memories, the history, and working with others over the last 20 years blurs the lines on the map.  In the words of Rodney Atkins, "These are my people, this is where I come from.  We're givin' this life everything we got and then some."

Manifesto

Flipping through some old files from my earlier campaigns I came across a letter written to party leadership in April, 2006, along with a "manifesto".  I don't see that my core values have changed during this time, but I found it quite interesting.  I soon remembered the scenario that led to the letter and values document.  The term manifesto has gotten a bum rap-often tied to probably the most famous manifesto (the communist one), but Ron Paul called one of his books a manifesto-so we find it used at both ends of the spectrum.

Today's leaders are careful not to fulfill the definition of manifesto in their words.  They hold their fingers up to see which way the wind (money too) is blowing, and then make decisions on that.  Not to be caught in flip-flopping or taking a position that might be unpopular with some, we see leaders with hidden agendas, scurrilous motives, and unable to take a stand for much of anything.  Looking back now, though I felt a bit indignant in having to defend myself, giving definition to who I am and what I believe has made me stronger in my convictions.  So...it's all good.

My letter stated that it was done to defend my conservative nature and began with "To write briefly of my Republican"ness":  I am descended from generations of Republicans and for over a decade had the opportunity to glean insight from probably our best party model, Doc Bowen......Regarding a possible agenda, I have no defense.  I do have an agenda-it's called a vision, a set of goals.  The thought that it is somehow hidden is ridiculous.  Likely I have been scrutinized more than most because of what I have produced.  There has been nothing hidden or inconsistent since I returned to my community after college.  My agenda is to serve the public, to make our community and county the best they can be."

And now publicly for the first time, the Manifesto:

I believe foremost in modeling Christ as the method to which I will apply myself and weigh decisions.  I will make and have made mistakes, but it is core to my belief system.  My values have been instilled through generations of conservative family and political leaders I admire.  Doc Bowen has been my model of servant leadership, I also admire the vision Ronald Reagan outlined for our country and the rugged spirit of individualism Teddy Roosevelt adhered to.

I believe in individual rights, but with those rights come great responsibility.  We must not infringe upon the rights of others or burden our society.  While my responsibility may be to serve the public, I believe our greater responsibility is to the next generation.

One should teach a person how to fish rather than give them fish, but not permit them to starve in the learning process.  Empowerment of the individual makes contributing members of our society, but in that must be understood the need to act collectively as a community.  I believe in, and am a product of, a strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit; my expectations of others are grounded in this.

I believe in order and enforcement of our laws.  There must be firm and appropriately severe consequences to the violation of our laws.

I believe in strict financial stewardship and diligent savings.  I do not believe in spending beyond available means.  I personally do not believe in the pursuit of wealth for its own sake; our calling should be our pursuit.

While me must continually find ways to streamline government and lower costs, I also recognize that our quality of life has the potential to attract people and investment to our community.  Dollars spent wisely will prove financially prudent long-term.

Private investment is the bedrock of economic success for society.  I also believe that there may be circumstances for government to apply itself or assist investment for the greater good when private investment on its own proves impossible.  I am also committed to the preservation of local vendors versus national competition for our local economy.

Government should set the standard for society.  Government should be a symbol of civic pride, just as our forefathers created it to be and left as a heritage for us.

We have been divinely appointed as stewards of our environment and therefore should work actively toward its betterment.  Our health depends largely upon its health.

I believe that there must be a vision for the future and careful planning to achieve it.  This vision must be one that is created by and for the people, championed by leaders and be grounded in our rights under the Constitution.

Three generations at LaPaz School

My grandmother's diploma from LaPaz High School, 1941.  It has a nice graphic of the school in the center of the diploma, unlike my grandfather's which came from Bremen High School.

I first wrote about going to LaPaz Elementary School on this blog a few years ago.  Since that time, I've written a few posts, but I don't know if I shared that I was the third generation in my family to attend the school.  Recently, while going through a few boxes of old photos, I came across class pictures of my dad's class and my grandmother's classes from their elementary years.  So I thought I would find one of mine from about the same grade and place them in a row.  My dad, Jack, and my grandmother-who evidently went by "Rosy"-had their class pictures taken outside of the building-it appears to be outside of the 1928 consolidated school (just outside the music room for those LaPazites).  By the time I was attending LaPaz, it was only an elementary school and it seems like we always had our class photos taken inside the building.  In my picture, we are standing in the gym in front of the stage.  I certainly miss this old school!

My grandmother's second grade class at LaPaz School, c. 1931.  My grandmother's on the top row, second kid from the right.  Check out the kid on the bottom row with his hands over his face!

My dad's third grade class at LaPaz School, c. 1955.  My dad's on the bottom row with his arms crossed.

My second grade class at LaPaz Elementary, 1977.  I'm on the bottom row, first kid on the right.  The kid on the opposite side from me, bottom row, and I became best friends and got together just last night-37 years later.  And I'm friends with several of these kids on Facebook!

Channeling Reagan on Filing Day

Me & President Reagan

Well, after six years being out of politics, last Thursday I jumped back into the fire.  I filed to run in the Republican primary for county commissioner.  It was a position I had been approached about four years ago when we moved out of town and back into my old stomping grounds.  Where it will go-I have no idea.  It's a five-way race....so I guess I have a 20% chance.

I like those odds.

After I got back from filing someone jumped me and claimed I had picked February 6 because it was Ronald Reagan's birthday.  Can't say I had thought of that...but sure, why not.  Reagan was my absolute inspiration for engaging in politics at a young age.  While today I don't know that I would agree with all of his policies, it certainly is true that he inspired a nation burdened in a state of malaise to be something better and stronger.  "Some people would say America's best days are behind her, well, I believe they're still ahead."

That's right.  The gleaming, golden city on a hill.

Talk about inspiring.

Last Fall, my wife and I headed to one of our favorite vacation spots, Galena, Illinois.  We typically take the scenic route, which this time led us through Dixon, Illinois.  What's so great about Dixon?  Why, it is Reagan's boyhood home.  So, we jumped on the signed "Reagan Trail" which steered the car onto a side street right in front of Reagan's boyhood home.  I didn't want to make my wife go through the boredom and visiting the museum, but I did stand and contemplate at the feet of the Gipper-where she snapped this shot.  If you think this is bad, you should have seen the shrine I had built in my studio space in architecture school.

Ronald Reagan's boyhood home in Dixon, IL

I grew up surrounded by Republicans-home, work, church, school, family.  Only my great aunt was not-but a more fiscally conservative elected official I've yet to meet.  And so I just figured if I stayed the course, worked hard and climbed the political ladder I would be contributing to my party, and my community in the best possible way.  Returning home after college I set into motion doing just that.  The problem was that I applied a set of skills I find sorely missing in most political debates-that of critical thinking.  And what I realized is that often it wasn't about what was best for people, or the community.  And I just couldn't accept that as ok.  Not as a person of faith.  And that's when things took an ugly turn.

I'm terribly fiscally conservative.  I think I got that from my aunt.  But I found that if you disagree with, well, usually just a person-not necessarily a set of ideals-you find yourself at odds with the whole party.  And that just seems lame.  Worse yet is when you know there are motives not all-together legitimate that goes into the decisions.  I don't have to agree with everything my party, or more specifically, a handful of folks do.  You have to think for yourself, bring what you have to the table, and make decisions based on good judgement and what's best for everyone involved.  That's what governing is.

I miss civility in politics

Last Sunday a friend of ours spotted me in the hallway at church and began heading toward me with an envelope in hand.  She handed it over to me with a big smile on her face and mentioned that they had come across it in a box of her father-in-law's things, and thought for sure that I would want it.  I recognized the handwriting from the address on the front of the envelope immediately.  It was my grandmother's.  She had really beautiful handwriting.

I opened the envelope and read the letter addressed to then-State Representative Ed Cook.  It was an invitation to my grandma and Doc Bowen's home over Labor Day weekend in 1982.  They mention in the letter that they would be with the Gees, another political family, after the parade, and presumably joining them at their home in Bremen.  Have I mentioned yet that Mr. Cook was a Democrat?  And the others were Republicans?

Doc would have served with Representative Cook while he was governor, and likely would have worked with him to some regard, across the aisle so-to-speak.  Something that would be extraordinarily uncommon today.  Even more poignant of the level of civility was this invitation.  Friends in public servitude, albeit from both sides of the aisle, enjoying each others' company over the holiday.

Where exactly did we go wrong in politics?  I fully admit to being naive upon my entry into politics, but I was only modeling what I knew to be right, good, and true.  Modeling what I saw in the revered leaders of a better time.  Of a more civil time.  Maybe I just miss my grandparents' wisdom in this storm.

I have to believe, or at least I really want to believe, that a majority of people feel the way I do.  That it isn't about who screams the loudest, who's out to get who, where the money comes from, or political positioning that leaves us further and further outside of the access of our own government.  I have to believe I'm not alone in wishing for more civility, for the betterment of all our people.  And that I don't, nor do they, have all the right answers....but together we just might be better off than apart.

Here's to wishing for politicians who are everything but political.  Who can weigh what is right on a scale free of bias and personal aim.  Who serve their fellow man with utmost humility and discernment.  Maybe someday.

Budding Arboriculturist

 

Fruit and nut specimen boxes-ingenious for a 9 year old don't you think?

 It's true, I had several childhood activities that may have been atypical.  I imagined myself a superhero named the "Tomahawk Kid" for a brief time.  My dirt bike was named the General Lee.  And I had most of the woods, pastures, fields, and swamps in a mile radius of our house mapped out with specific landmarks and trees that could be climbed.  But the one thing that I think stupified my wife, shortly after we were married, was the revelation that I had quite a large leaf collection.....and not just leaves, but the nuts, seeds, berries, cones, etc. that came along with the tree host I selected the leaf specimen from.  I think I was about 9 when I started it and I continued collecting until I turned 12 or 13.  I collected from our trips to the Southwest, California, Wyoming, and into the southern states of Tennessee and Kentucky.

My folks have been cleaning out their attic, so when a couple of boxes made their way to our house they weren't met with the kind of jubilation that one would expect due to such a great treasure-trove from my childhood.  Within the boxes were rows of drawers divided into specimen slots for acorns, pine cones, seeds, and other bearings from trees.  The drawers and slots were all keyed back to the scrapbook in which my leaf collection was kept.  The book, easily 6" thick with more than 100 specimens, found its way to our house a few years ago.

I can't say that I would consider myself a botanist.  A tree person-yes.  I remember a walk through Potato Creek with an environmental class from Bethel College during which time the ranger asked questions to test our knowledge of trees.  Before long it became just a dialogue between myself and the ranger, stumping even the professor.  What can I say....I know my trees, I'm just a geek that way.

My son and his buddies around a sycamore on a camping trip

Back to the specimen boxes.  Knowing that they probably didn't "belong" in our house, I snapped a few pictures for posterity, and for this blog post, and then offered them up as a sacrifice on the burn pile where other relics from my past have been turned to smoke and ash.  I'm hoping at least one of my kids inherits this trait of an appreciation for the environment, not that they have to be full-blown tree huggers or anything like their old man.

A long summer of good byes.

 

Before summer had a chance to begin, it seemed I couldn't get out of the "good bye" mode I had been in after losing both my step-grandparents through the winter and spring.  After a long illness, we said good bye to the first cousin on my dad's side to pass from this life to the next.  It's those times when you start to feel that time is passing too fast and that the people that you have carried along with you your whole life......aren't going to be there forever.  Here are my two siblings and a few of my first cousins gathered at my cousin Jim's memorial service.  Bonus points if you can identify who my sister and brother are above.  If there was any good to come from it, I had the chance to see my dear cousin who grew up in North Carolina, for the first time since my grandfather's funeral in 1995.

 

 





 

In late July the last of my grandmother's siblings passed away.  He was 82.  He'd been pastor of the same church in Hammond for as long as I had been alive and had just retired the year before.  That seems crazy.  My only regret here is that in all my working trips to Hammond I never stopped by to see him.  It had probably been 20 years.  And there was his name on the church's sign by the road:  Pastor.  Only a few blocks from the main route I took in and out of the city.  We called him Bugsy.  I always assumed it had something to do with the famous outlaw.  So, we asked several of the family why "Uncle Bugs"?  His wife said that my grandmother (centered above) said that he had bug eyes and she called him that since they were little.  Uncle Bugs is on the left above.  Seems to me, the outlaw story is more complimentary.  My dad looks sooooo much like Uncle Bugs that some distant family, and particularly the parishioners, looked as though they had seen a ghost as my dad made his way to the front of the church.  And Bugs' daughter even gasped, and said, oh does he look like dad.

 

As I sat in the little old suburban church on Hammond's south side, in a diverse congregation Martin Luther King would be proud of, I got a bit overwhelmed at how they loved this guy.  Never preached to throngs, never broadcast across the airways.....just kept with the same folks for generations.  Because he loved people.  And they loved him back.  Well done, good and faithful servant.

 

 

About August I got word that my cousin, much more like a little brother to me, was investigating a job in Hawaii....as if Florida wasn't far enough away.  The kid grew up surrounded by cornfields and hay, went to Ball State for marine biology, became a rock star in the aquarium world, and wrote his ticket to paradise.  Dang if I won't miss him......that's a whole lot of wet stuff between us man!  So, we cousins gathered again in August and gave him a proper send off.  Another good bye.  Don't we look like a motley bunch.  He's in the shades.

It was a long summer of good byes.  Take a good look around, slow down.....before you know it everything changes.

A little bit country, rock-n-roll, jazz, blues, christian, folk, celtic....

Fon Mor-the only band I was a groupie for-this is on my birthday at Fiddler's Hearth

I think my first exposure to Christian music was a Debbie Boone album from about 1981.  Not that my parents ever told me I couldn’t listen to secular music (I had been a country music fan, and then rock music fan before that) a spiritual experience led me to the belief that secular music would pull me down and was just dead wrong.  So began my journey with Christian music that turned me on to our church’s radio station, which was the "upbeat" Christian music station that featured groups like Petra, The Imperials, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, and countless others.

Having purchased tickets to a Petra concert in 1985, a small group from my Christian high school planned to make a night of it in South Bend, until the school administration caught wind.  Since Petra was a bit anti-Baptist (they had a song entitle "Color Code" which busted on Bob Jones University), we were threatened with expulsion if we attended.  The next few weeks' chapel sessions were a liturgy of the ills of Christian rock music.  I had a hard time with that since many of my Baptist friends listened to secular rock music, but somehow Christian rock was worse?  Shortly after I began to listen to secular rock as the music video scene was just dawning, and I would stay up late on Friday nights to watch Friday Night Videos-remember that?  After awhile, I felt convicted and returned to Christian rock, only to backslide again as I entered college.

When I graduated from high school I was still pretty conservative when it came to secular versus Christian music.  But with my new car that actually had an FM radio in it (the truck I drove only had AM), soon a world of other stations was opened to me so I would channel surf on my commutes.  Soon secular music-rock and pop-found a way into my personal culture shift.

But it wasn’t just rock music.  I began to develop an appreciation for a variety of genre's that included instrumental New Age music, some Blues, Classical, Jazz, and Celtic.  I had a few discs of New Age music my dad had, which I found incredibly soothing to do homework when pulling near-all-nighters.  And the Celtic music, which my friend Fabian introduced me to, made me feel a connection to my roots.  I started back into country music by the mid 90s and never left it.  I slipped so far away from Christian music that I didn’t begin listening to it again until I met my future wife.  I thought Christian music tanked so badly during the late 1980s and through the 1990s, it really seemed pointless.  I didn’t become a fan again until Third Day and Newsboys rose to the top of the music scene.  Now some pretty solid talent has joined the Christian music pool.

 

The only music I can't muster the strength to appreciate is opera....well, and show tunes.  I don't think as a dude I'm alone here.  But if there is one type of music that I appreciate most...it is anything played on bagpipes.  So we make a yearly pilgrimage to the Fulton County Trail of Courage just to listen to the bagpipes.

In the spirit of Picaso, Hemingway, and Ansel Adams

Drawing on a snow day

Not quite Picaso

I remember making drawings as a little kid of galactic battleships I would design and tracing over pictures of animals in the encyclopedias to create wilderness scenes.  But in terms of real “artwork” I remember the first two drawings I created.  I was about 11 years old and each was for my grandparents.  I still have them today.  One was a drawing I made of a tobacco barn in Kentucky.  I drew it while en route to my cousins in North Carolina, in the back of my grandparents’ car.  I gave it to them and it hung in their living room until after my grandpa died and the house was sold in 1995.  The other was a sketch of road lilies in a vase.  After my grandfather on my mom’s side passed away in 1980, my grandmother picked me up one summer day to keep her company and on the way to their farm she stopped along the road and picked a bouquet of lilies.  When we got to her house she asked if I would draw them for her.  Years later, after she passed away and my step-grandfather was going through her things, he packaged it up with a number of her other things in a box and gave it to us.  I pulled this picture out of the box and couldn’t believe that she had kept it all those years.

With the exception of designing houses, my pencil on paper creativity was pretty limited.  We didn’t have any form of art class until my Junior year in high school.  But those last two years of having art pulled something out of me I wish would have been encouraged much earlier.  My strongest abilities were in pen and ink sketches.  I kept many of those and continued to do pen and ink into college.  I created one drawing for my grandpa and grandma Bowen that they had framed.  When Doc had a large estate auction I was disappointed he didn’t return it to me; instead it went to the highest bidder and the auctioneer made mention who created it and that he knew me personally.  Oh well-probably the only time a piece of my art will sell.

 

I still do some sketching here and there.  Two years ago, while the kids had a snow day, my daughter and I broke out the pastels I had from college and we drew several pictures together of the snow storm.  And just a few minutes ago she came in and asked if we could paint together after lunch.

Even less like Hemingway

I remember writing all through high school-keeping a journal of sorts with short entries of those major events like dates, obtaining my driver’s license, hanging out with the guys, or attending concerts.  While at Bethel in my senior year I dabbled a bit with prose, certainly more for my benefit.  But while at Andrews I picked up the pen on a few occasions and at times the work became prolific.  I remember writing a core of short essays revolving around justice, death, and hope during my first year.  After those I came across a few short poems my grandmother, who had just passed away, had written and it gave me a lasting connection to her.  At that point I thought I could do the same for whoever was to follow after me.

In my third year of architecture school, probably due to some solitude and inspiration I had in living in the small cabin on the lake, I wrote like a madman during the bleak winter months after December, which continued well into late spring.  I wrote about our place in life, in this world, about memorials and the relationships that led to those.  I wrote an extensive piece about a good friend who had been killed the year before.  In my fourth year I pulled the pen out again and wrote a short stint more, some into another journal, and some attempts at rhyme.

I have never shared what I had written during this early time.  In fact to this day only one or two pieces from that period have I ever shared with anyone.  But my writing today, maybe even more vulnerable than then, is pushed out weekly into the digital world.



From those early black and white days and the truckstop counter

But a little in the spirit of Ansel Adams

I took an intro to photography class my third year at Andrews.  It was black and white film, and we did our own developing.  I had played a little with photography when I was younger and it was something that always interested me, particularly black and white.  So I took the opportunity that would count also as an archi elective.  It was winter quarter-which was perfect for black and white landscape shots.  I felt, anyway, that I did some great work, and after that class I always made some time in my life to get out and shoot.  Though I did well with people, that wasn’t my thing.  I was best at old buildings…..go figure.  Still, fortunately for me, some of the people subjects I took pictures of and still have today, are no longer with us.  I did a whole series of shots of my grandpa that mean a lot to me today.  And when I can find the time...I still shoot.

A long, long, long drive to Red Deer

Randy and I at the Twin Sisters Cafe overlooking the Twin Sisters Peaks at the border crossing into Montana

Why wouldn’t someone drive nearly a day’s journey to the other side of Calgary? A good friend from Andrews architecture, a Canadian and the recent Daybreak taunt, was getting married in his wife's home town of Red Deer, Alberta and so I and another friend of his from the Midwest decided we would drive that crazy distance to be at his wedding over Labor Day, 1996.  We started out on a Thursday after work and drove my Mustang all through the night, the next day, and into the next night before reaching Calgary.  When we switched drivers and Randy took over at about 1:00 am I had just drifted off to sleep when he said “I think we have a problem” and I opened my eyes and saw flashing red lights in the side mirror.  The officer asked “between you, me and that fencepost over there-exactly how fast does this car go?”

Border crossing-where we were detained

After that I didn’t sleep a wink.  Driving across North Dakota was in many ways euphoric.  The pattern of wheat fields, small towns, grain elevators, abandoned farms and little churches did some good in my soul.  We were diverted with a detour across gravel roads for many miles, plastering the car with dust.  When we finally made it to some remote border crossing into Canada, the border patrol insisted we come in for interrogation as dogs sniffed all around my car.  I’m sure it did seem strange-a couple of guys who hadn’t shaved or showered in a brand new Mustang that was covered in dirt crossing at a remote location.  Evidently our story checked out and we were free to continue after about an hour.

The euphoria turned into a bit too much bucolic overload and soon, crossing the great Canadian highway, things seemed desolate.  Thank God for Calgary.  We were able to sleep a few hours, woke up refreshed-refreshed enough to take a side-trip into Banff National Park and a long hike up to a coffee house at the base of a glacier.  It was amazing.  And the wedding was great too.  Red Deer was a little city on what seemed like the edge of the great white nothingness of Canada.

We were there exactly 24 hours before we left again to make the drive home.  This time it seemed we weren’t so pressed for time and could do some sight seeing along the way including “Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump” and the “Twin Sisters Café” at Glacier National Park, and even a return trip to a ghost town I remembered from trips to Montana as a kid-Elkhorn.  We caught a few hours of sleep in Wyoming before making the last leg home.  What a trip.

Daybreak....every day

an ice-covered Daybreak kinda' day

Recently an old archi-buddy's birthday popped up on Facebook, so I wished him well and asked the Canadian native where he was and how he was doing.  Ottawa and well, he said.  Then he taunted me by saying he had been back in Berrien Springs and had even dined at the Daybreak.

 

Ah, the Daybreak.  It was our time at the Daybreak that brought the most exchange of ideas and probably the greatest education experience during those college days.  The Daybreak was a somewhat dank little diner in downtown Berrien Springs that became the hub for architecture students who did not live on campus, and often supplied us three meals a day.  I can still remember most of what I would order.  Breakfast was ham and grits (a little soupy as Donna the waitress would say) and brown sugar.  Lunch was usually a mushroom or olive burger and fries.  Supper would be a selection from their specials menu.  Every meal was accompanied by coffee, and lots of it.

 

There were times that we would close down the place.  Literally.  We would vacuum the carpets and clean the tables for Lacey in order to have a scoop of ice cream.  One friend, Chad, was convinced that the owner-Bernie-was raising his prize poodles in the basement.  That idea nauseated me.  Some of the guys tried to get me to shift our business to the Dam restaurant on the other side of the dam...I think they just liked the name.

Because so many of my colleagues would also dine there, often with smokes in hand, we sort of had “our table”; it was a round table right in the front corner of the dining room where we could watch the world out the large windows.  Friends would come and go from the table as class schedules dictated, and I recall on at least a few occasions staying behind from the car that we came in for breakfast and having lunch with the consecutive crowd and going back to the studios with them.

We talked about broader issues of community that included politics, faith, education, and of course architecture.  Those were good times sitting around the table and clutching the coffee mug as the days and weeks, and years passed.  The Daybreak is still there.  It is still open for dining, and discussion.

I became really tight with a number of friends in the architecture department at Andrews.  I’ve been blessed to have maintained a few of those friendships post-graduation.  I know a good part of it was the work we did together for the program and the subsequent “generations” of leadership that came after.  I would sometimes drive across the border to see these guys the year following graduation before I was married.  Then they moved-to Illinois, Washington, and later Florida.

Facebook has its faults-but I do appreciate being able to stay in touch.  The Daybreak's webpage is www.mydaybreakcafe.com

And tell them I sent you.

Sometimes leading gets ugly: AIAS



 

“It’s about commitment.  To you, and to the program.”

That was my campaign theme as I ran for Andrews AIAS president at the end of my third year.  AIAS is the American Institute of Architecture Students; most schools of architecture have student chapters.  I watched as things had in many ways digressed in the architecture department and morale among students was pitiful.  We lacked leadership from the top down, in both the student body and among faculty.  Learning a great deal about myself in my third year and wanting to put into practice a life of service, I joined the race to lead the student body.  A good friend and fellow classmate, and later roomie, said he would run for vice president, and together we won.  Big time.

Having served in student government both in high school and at Bethel, this seemed like a natural thing, right?  Well, I have to admit, I was intimidated.  The reason was because I felt that what I could bring to the table for the student body was somewhat limited based on my own theories, or lack thereof, on architecture.  But what I learned quickly at the beginning of my term in my fourth year was that the students simply needed a unifying person, not an intellectual.  And I wholly admit, I'm not an intellectual.  I was humbled in realizing how overwhelmingly God would use me.

That year our accreditation visit was scheduled for the spring.  The students understood that a great deal hinged on this and all were concerned that what seemed like a lack of leadership producing the direction we needed to go could jeopardize the years we had already spent in school.  So, doing our part, we turned our little AIAS chapter into the most active and unifying force in the program.  Student membership had always been around 50%.  We were over 90%.  We established a mentoring program that continued for many years after I graduated.  We established a committee for program advancement that became the one-two punch in rectifying a number of bad situations in the curriculum and faculty.  At the end of my fourth year our AIAS chapter, which had never even participated in national events, won 4 of the 6 national honor awards given annually.  And one of those 6 we didn’t apply for.  By the time the accreditation team had come for a visit, nothing was lacking on our student body’s part.  We were a unified and powerful force.

The following year we learned what we had feared, that the program was on academic probation and had two years to change course or lose accreditation, which would mean any class below me would not have an accredited architecture degree.  With a student leadership consortium that now included three representatives on the faculty board, and one on the architectural academic advisory board to the university (me), we pushed hard for changes in the faculty which resulted in the ouster of two professors.  Then came the moment when armed with a crushing survey taken of the students we made a demand that would essentially remove the dean of our department.  We were within two hours of a sit-in over the demand when it was announced he would resign.  Sometimes leadership is ugly and bloody, and for those times it isn’t always healthy to look back at what brought you to the point you are today…..sometimes those difficult years can be left unspoken and just allow people to reap the benefit of those who did the dirty work.

My time in student government with AIAS over the course of two years was the most rewarding, most productive time in serving others I have ever experienced in my life.  The model we established lived on for several presidents after me.......and this all came back in a flood of memories when I saw that one of our former presidents made the front cover of Maine Today.  Congratulations!

The "Re" Formative Years

Andrews Graduation

I had wanted to be an architect since I was 12 years old.  When graduation was staring me in the face at Bethel, and my long-time girlfriend had broken up with me, I realized if ever there was a time to pursue it-it was then.  So I looked over architecture schools and realized my decision was between Ball State and Andrews University.  Andrews offered a 2 year associate in architectural studies and would essentially be like going to school part time since my general studies would transfer from Bethel.  When I visited the university, which was just across the state line in Berrien Springs, Michigan, I felt at ease since it was a small school, but yet was impressed with the university feel and global nature of the school.  Bethel was like a small town high school with classes held in a few separate buildings.  During my first visit the guide asked me if I was "SDA", which sounded a lot like ADA....I looked puzzled back at him.  I wondered what it would be like attending a Seventh Day Adventist school, but it didn’t dissuade me.  I applied and was accepted during my senior year at Bethel.

During my first year at Andrews I quickly became acclimated to the architecture program and by my second quarter the professors came to me and encouraged me to switch from the associate program to the bachelors program.  Believing that I had found my true calling, it was an easy decision.  I loved architecture, architectural theory, the history of the art form, and the students who were tremendously more like me than I had experienced at Bethel, or growing up for that matter.  Everything about being at Andrews felt right: a small university setting, a school forming a missional aspect of architecture as service to the community, like-minded people, and the deep satisfaction of being able to exercise my God-given creative abilities.

 

Which is probably why such a shift began to happen in my thinking.

 

I think everyone in college goes through a period when they really start to question what they’ve been taught, even when the teaching has been rock solid.  I think that it’s healthy and necessary for moving forward in spiritual formation.  This was no different for me.  I think the thing that I became most keenly aware of was the universal idea of spirituality.  I better explain that…I believe that God placed in all people a desire for spiritual awakening.  The evolvement or understanding of that awakening is where we have our divisions.

And as I had opportunity to develop my own thinking and really wrestle with precepts, some taught, some just understood, I realized my thinking was being pulled to a broader acceptance of spiritual and even political thought.  And it was in that I saw the greatest shift in my understanding of why we were placed on this earth, and about the earth itself.  I can mark the development of two significant core beliefs that drove a wedge between the “accepted” belief system I embraced growing up and who I am today.  The first occurred while I was at Andrews and involved my embrace of “community”, what it means to truly be a community, the benefit a community can be to its people, and how even in the development of community we also have a responsibility to God’s creation.

I was probably a bit naïve in thinking that community, as a standard for good, would be embraced by others if only explained in terms of benefit and Christian duty.  But I couldn’t have been prepared for excommunication, much less being demonized.  But this is where God led me in my education and understanding of His purpose for me.  The core of my thinking became the understanding that careful and conservative use of God’s creation would provide for future generations and thoughtful relationships and exchange of ideas would provide for synergy to produce a better citizenry.  I felt that this truly is the core of being a conservative, and a Christian.  It just doesn't seem very Hoosier-friendly.

Doped on the GOP

My locker from high school-note all of the Reagan items

I grew up such a political junkie.One of my favorite television programs was the McLaughlin Group-a political analyst’s panel on PBS.Yes, this was during high school and college. River City elections were being held in 1987, with the primary in May-the month of my graduation.I sent a letter to the candidate I thought most worthy to become mayor, an attorney, and asked if I could help on his campaign.He invited me to his office to talk with me and I think I impressed his socks off.I worked for his campaign-though brief since he lost in the primary-but that was my first taste of campaigning.

I started following politics with a terrific zeal, some would say “obsession”, during my Bethel years.  The interest was intensified as I started listening to Rush Limbaugh by about my Junior year.  I soon became a Rush-addict and wondered how anyone with half a brain could possibly not see eye-to-eye with my sold-out, die-hard Republican identity.  I thought Rush embodied the clearest possible thinking for what was wrong with our country and found myself taking what he said as gospel.

What does the obsessed do?  I video-taped Republican convention and inauguration speeches by Ronald Reagan.  I attended the start-up of the young Republicans’ club in Republicania County.  I helped with John Hiler’s congressional campaigns, stood outside in the frenzied crowd when George H. Bush came to Notre Dame to speak, watched election results with great anticipation, and when Bill Clinton was elected President I proudly put a “don’t blame me, I voted Republican” sticker in my car window.  I had perfected GOP-speak and understood party strategy so well, having enwrapped myself in the party, that my future in politics looked very bright.

 

Ha…little did I know!

College living as a transient neat-freak

Cabin on the Lake

One thing that greatly aided in my enjoyment of college life at Andrews was embracing a new found freedom.  Apartment living.  I commuted the whole four years to Bethel College.  That wasn’t going to work going to Andrews, and besides, I really wanted my own place.  So I got an apartment at Castle Point in South Bend with a couple of Bethel friends.  I learned very quickly that what I expected of myself wasn’t what most college guys lived out.  That first apartment was a great set up, but evidently I was a "neat-freak" and only performed at my best when everything was in its proper place.  My two roomies tested this theory from time to time when they would make minor adjustments to items on my desk or bookshelves.  Not knowing I was being played, I would stop as I walked into my room, sense something was wrong, and then turn the items to their proper place or position.  I'm a lot less like this now, though my family would probably disagree with that.

Once when I stopped by our place over Christmas Break, and my other two room mates were back at home in Michigan, I was confused why there were three people I didn’t know hanging out in our apartment and eating our food.  And sleeping in my bed.  And wearing my underwear. I wonder what the three bears would have done had Goldie Locks been wearing their briefs.

The next year we were down to just two of us.  We found a smaller pad on the west side of South Bend at Indian Springs.  It worked out great, but we rarely saw each other as architecture studio was making bigger demands on my time.  The following year I moved across the state line into Michigan.

 

It wasn’t the typical college or bachelor pad, but it was awesome nonetheless.  I knew that I would be looking for someplace new my third year and it was mentioned that some of my mother’s cousins had a few lake cabins at their fishing resort in Buchanan, Michigan.  This sounded intriguing.  So one summer day I drove to Buchanan to check it out and they were willing to rent me the only cabin in which you wouldn’t freeze to death during the winter.  The cabin looked like a bit of a shack, but it had that quintessential fishing/lake cabin feel that I couldn’t pass up.  And the drive would take me half the distance it had from South Bend to Berrien Springs.
 

I moved into the cabin in October and had the place to myself.  The living room was perched well above the shore so it felt as though nothing separated you from the lake which was largely surrounded with wilderness.  And since I was the only one around in the off season, I found that I enjoyed the solitude.  Having the escape from studio where I could still work on my projects was also a good thing.
 

I remember the seasons probably the most in that little cabin.  After a few weeks of living there the fall colors broke onto the scene and reflected off the lake some days as if it were on fire.  An old friend, Dave, who had helped me move into the cabin, surprised me one afternoon as I pulled up by yelling my name from a boat he was fishing from on the lake.  The next weekend we both went out on the lake.  January was a particularly cold month with a lot of snow.  I remember hunkering down for a few days while roads were shut down from the heavy snow that Buchanan seemed especially prone to receiving.  The benefit was that I was also taking photography and used the whole wooded resort as my photo studio, particularly given how snow can be an incredible subject in black and white.  As the warmer spring months landed at my cabin door I would open all the windows and fall asleep on the couch to the brushing of the waves on the shore below.  I have called this experience my own “Walden Pond” as it probably came at the pinnacle of a shift in my ideology.

 

A good friend and archi-colleague and I found a place together our 4th year in Berrien Springs.  It was one of the near-slumlord ran houses-turned college apartment that filled the little village.  Roland moved his girlfriend (now wife) in the day after we signed the lease.  I don't think I was expecting that.  Most of my time was spent at the studio or office anyway.  There was one night while I was working upstairs in my room I heard power equipment being used.  And it sounded like it was being used on my oak table in the kitchen.  And it was.

 

By my fifth year, and unless you think me a lackie-there are 5 years to architecture education, I had blown my summer savings on that Mustang and I honestly thought that I would only need to bum a night off my buddies here and there since I was very part-time.  The night here and there turned into every night except for Friday and Saturday, and sometimes Sunday.  My friend Chad called me "homeless".  I mostly slept on Chad's couch.  I tried Sean's couch, but he had built it himself.  Enough said.  Later I shifted to my buddy, Krazy's couch after Chad got a girlfriend and kicked me out.  It was sad, I lived out of a black leather duffel bag.  I still have it today.  In my defense, I always bought the guys groceries and dinner out.