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Since I knew the church was true, there was no reason not to join. It was set up for Aug 30, 1965. Al Henderson would do the baptism and confirmation. You’ve all been to baptism’s. You know it’s not very complicated. One thing of note about my baptism is that they asked one of the other young adults to give one of the talks. She was a girl named Karen Rupp. I think I had talked to her a few times, but didn’t really know her. I don’t remember which talk she gave (maybe Karen can fill in this detail). I do remember thinking: She is cute.

A short time after joining, the Bishop of the Battle Creek Ward called me and explained the Priesthood to me and that I would be ordained to an office of Priest. Then they called Karen and I to be joint Improvement Era Representatives. The Improvement Era was the church magazine back in those days (replaced today by The Ensign). Our job was to take subscriptions from members of the Ward for the magazine and encourage everyone to subscribe to it. I don’t remember actually doing very much in the calling. I thnk that there was some match-making being done by the leaders in the Ward, but we’ll never prove it.

Every Wednesday night (I think it was Wednesday), we would meet at the Ward for Mutual. We didn’t meet in the summer time and so since I was baptized in late August, I went to my first Mutual meeting in early September. I remember that they were advertising a dance that would be held in a couple weeks. The dance was to kick off the new Mutual year and I thought it would be a great idea to ask someone to the dance. There were two girls that I had my eye on. Karen was one and I can’t remember the name of the other, but I think you can guess which one I asked. Amazing as it may seem, she said yes.

I had bought a new car that summer with the earnings I was getting at the Railroad. It was a white Pontiac Tempest 4 cylinder. They don’t make them any more, but I was really proud of that car. It was the first car I had bought with my own money. The Desota that I had had in the Air Force was a gift from my Grandfather.

The night of the dance, I remember the events leading up to the dance fairly well, but I don’t remember the dance itself at all. Maybe Karen could fill in some details. But, I know we went to Howard Johnson’s for dinner because it was right up the road from the chapel. I’m pretty sure I picked her up at her apartment. She lived over a car dealership across from Bailey Park in Battle Creek. We drove over to the restaurant for dinner and were having a nice meal – getting to know each other – when the waiter came up to me and asked if I was the owner of that little white car in the parking lot. I said yes, if it’s the Tempest, then I am. He said, well someone just backed into it and caved in the side of the door on the driver’s side.

I ran out to look at the car. This was my new car. I was pretty mad. Maybe this is why I don’t remember much of the dance. This kind of put a damper on everything for the rest of the night. Luckily, the waiter had written down the license plate of the person who did the deed so I could find him.

Thus started a relationship that was to last 28 years.

Dad

I think it was in June 1965 that Al asked me one day if I was busy that next evening. School had ended for the summer, so I had lots of free time, so I said sure. He told me that they were playing a film at his church called “Man’s Search For Happiness”. He made the film seem really interesting. He said that they had played the film at the World’s Fair in New York City a couple years earlier (all true). He made it seem really cool, so I said I would come.That was my first exposure to the church.

I went to the Battle Creek chapel the next evening to see “Man’s Search for Happiness” I was really intrigued. This was the first time in my life that I had heard of a “pre-existence”. If you go to church at all (any church), you hear of an after-life and everyone wants to go to Heaven, but I had never heard of an existence before we were born. It kind of blew me away. Al Henderson asked me how I liked the film and I told him what I had learned. Rather than push me too fast, he just said that I should come to church on Sunday and find out what the church was about.

So I did. The thing that impressed me most about my first Sunday meeting was the people. They were all so friendly. I had attended an Baptist church in Biloxi, Mississippi when I was in the Air Force. I had gone into the meeting, listened to the minister and had left the building without one person saying one word to me. Maybe they knew I was a Yankee or that I wasn’t an Baptist. But no one said a single word to me. I never went back. But at the Battle Creek ward, all of the young adults (my age), came up to me and welcomed me and asked about me and who I was and told me how pleased they were that I was there. I really felt like they were glad I was there.

One fellow who Karen will remember was named Mike Peterson (I think I have the name right – Karen, let me know if I’m wrong). He told me they were having a fireside that night at someone’s home and would I like to come. So, I did. It was called a cottage meeting with the missionaries asking questions that had answers that would lead into a gospel discussion. I found myself answering questions that I had never know before. Everything they said just seemed to make sense to me. I had not felt so comfortable in a long time.

And so, I began the discussions. Since Al Henderson was a Seventy and a Ward Missionary, he and another Seventy in the ward actually gave me the discussions. It took us about 4 weeks to go through them all. I was a golden convert. I had a few questions, but everything just seemed to make sense to me. I will always remember the feeling I had when Al and his companion asked me to say my first out-loud prayer. I told them, I’ve never prayed out loud in my life. And not that much silently. They said it was easy, just follow the formula:

1) Open by addressing the father
2) Tell Him what you’re thankful for
3) Any requests?
4) Close in the name of Jesus Christ

I stumbled through it, but suddenly a feeling came over me. I just knew that everything they had been telling me was true. I haven’t always acted like it, but I did then and I still do have a testimony of the church and all that it means.
I want anyone who reads this to know that I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true, that Thomas Monson is a prophet and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I hope someday to be able to say my life reflects those words.

Dad

I’d like to take a slight detour and tell something that comes from my youth. I just thought of this story a couple days ago. I did not live this, but this is something my mother told me when I was a boy. She liked to tell a story of a friend of hers who had lost her husband in the war. The friend had come over to our house and she was sad because her husband had been killed in action in the war. The friend said that one thing she really regretted was that she didn’t have her husband’s wedding ring. The state department had returned all of his effects and she had looked through them and hadn’t found the ring.

My mother said, why don’t we try the Ouija board. A Ouija board is sold as a game, but it can be really a serious device. The board has all of the letters of the alphabet and the 10 numbers. It also has the words Yes and No. How it’s supposed to work, is that there is a triangular devise called a planchette on which there is a pointer. The person or persons put their fingers lightly on the planchette and then loudly ask the spirits a question you need an answer to. You are supposed to be talking to the dead. There is a lot of debate as to whether you should mess with that sort of thing. It’s kind of a paranormal activity. Personally, I wouldn’t do it, but my mother back in the early 40’s thought it was OK.

So you put your fingers on the planchette and ask your question. The planchette will start moving by itself. If the question can be answered by a yes or no, the planchettte will move of it’s own accord over to the yes or to the no. Now, if the answer is more complicated than that, the planchette will move to one letter at a time and spell out the answer. The person asking the question just puts his fingers lightly on the planchette. You are not supposed to do anything to influence it. The spirits of the dead do the moving.

So, my mother and her friend were playing with this board. The friend says in a loud voice, “Where is my husband’s wedding ring?” The Planchette began to move and it began to spell out a sentence. She was told to go get the duffel bag of stuff that the state department had sent back of her husband’s belongings and empty it. At the bottom of the bag was the ring that she was looking for.

So, was that a coincidence? Or was her dead husband talking to her from beyond the grave? Just another mystery of this world. We of the church do not use Ouija boards. Why open yourself up to what could be an evil spirit. I will not make a judgment. I just know what my mother told me. You can believe or not.

Dad

Every night, they would bring in 2 to 5 locomotives for their periodic inspections. Locomotives had to be inspected after every so many hours of operation. I want to say 1000 hours, but I’m not sure. As electrician’s we were in charge of finding “shorts” in the engines. We had this measurement box with two cables with clips (like you use to jump a car). We had a dozen or so places in the engine that we had to test and if everything tested out OK, the engine was released and it went on it’s way. But, most of the time, water would get into parts of the engine and short out the electrical circuits. When we measured a short, we had to find it, fix it and then make sure the measurement passed before the engine was allowed to leave.

It was a fun job. I really enjoyed it. There were nights when there was nothing to do and there were nights when we were busy the whole time. I especially liked finding the shorts. It was like a mystery that had to be solved. there was a routine you went through and sometimes it worked and sometimes, it didn’t. A person could make a name for himself (among the electricians) for being able to find the shorts the fastest. I was pretty good at it because I have always been able to think logically.

Since it was union job, we were given an hour for lunch every night. Quite often, since I never got enough sleep, working nights, I would go up in the cab of a locomotive, sit in the captain’s chair and take a nap for a 1/2 hour or so. Since the engine’s were never shut off, they ran the entire time they were in the house, you had a constant roar to listen to. I learned to sleep through that and the constant shaking of the engine. Later I could sleep through just about anything. (Not so today).

I was a journeyman electrician, but I worked for a man who was an expert electrician. He had worked for the railroad for his entire life and he was paid the exact same amount I was. This was because of the union. His name was Al Henderson and when it wasn’t busy, he and I would sit out on the loading dock behind the building and watch the night and talk. He was a Seventy in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I had heard of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith in school, but I knew nothing about the church. He and I would sit and talk about all kinds of things. We talked about life and religion and the job and just about anything else. We became really good friends.

Next: I find the Church

Dad

I went home to move into the house I had lived in for the years before the farm. The house on Kelley Street. My grandparents had both died since I had lived there. My Mom had sold their house and now we had Martin and Laura. Things were very different than when we had lived there before. I moved into a room in the attic and enrolled at Kellogg Community College there in Battle Creek.

I did two things when I got home from the service. I enrolled in Kellogg Community College which is the junior college in Battle Creek. I also went to talk to Ray Clemens. He was my mother’s second husband and you’ll remember that he wasn’t a real nice guy, but he did have connections. I thought if anyone could get me a job, he could. And he did. He asked me if I’d like to work at the Grand Trunk Railroad where he worked. It sounded like a good deal, so I agreed to go in for an interview.

Ray took me in to see the manager over the Roundhouse. This was a huge building where they would bring the Locomotives in for inspection and repair if necessary. He told me they had openings for electricians and how would I like to work as an electrician. I said sure, but I wasn’t sure I was qualified. I had studied electronics in the Air Force, but being an electrician was entirely different.

He said and I quote: “Do you know the difference between AC and DC?” I said yes, of course. He said, well, you’re qualified enough for this job. You’re hired. I became a Journeyman Electrician, which really just means that you’re in-training. I joined the union and was put on the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift. So, I worked all night, got off with just enough time to get home, clean up and change, and get over to school to go to class. I had Wednesday and Thursday off. That was my weekend, so I determined that rather than screw up my sleep patterns, I would stay up all night on those two nights and study. Then I could keep the same routine all week. It actually worked pretty well.

Railroad’s have what they call roundhouses because in the olden days, they used to be physically round. Engines could only travel in one direction, so they would drive the engine into the roundhouse so they could work on it. The entire engine sat on what was, essentially, a huge lazy Susan. When the maintenance people were done working on it, the platform would turn until the engine was pointed back out of the building and it would go on it’s way. Well, eventually, they figured out how to put a reverse gear on the locomotives and so the roundhouse disappeared. But they still called it by that name.

Tomorrow, the job itself.

Dad

I want to include an incident that happened during high school. This is out of order, but I just thought of it and thought it should be included. When I do the final version, I’ll include it in the right place.

About 2 weeks before I graduated, our senior class went on our famous (or infamous) Senior Trip. We all got on buses and went to Niagara Falls. We stayed in a motel on the Canadian side of the Falls and in 1960, it looked a little different than it does today. But we had a great time. The boys spent most of their time trying to get past the chaperons and into the girls rooms in the motel. We did all of the things every tourist does when they go to Niagara. Unfortunately, about 2 days into the trip, a bunch of the guys found a way to get some beer or liquor. I’m not sure which, but I do know that they got drunk and started tearing up the motel. We got up in the morning and were called together by the teachers and told we were going home early because of the actions of these boys. The owner of the motel was actually kicking us out. I’m not sure, but I think there may have been a bill sent along with the teachers to pay for the damage that they had done. And no, I wasn’t one of them. So, I missed out on a day or so of the trip, but what we did do was fun.

When we got home, a couple days later, the superintendent of Pennfield School system called an assembly of all the seniors. He stood up before all of us and announced that because of the actions of these boys on the trip, that senior trips were being discontinued at Pennfield School. Our class was personally reasonable for closing down the program at the school. I’m surprized the juniors didn’t try to catch us afterschool and beat the crap out of us. Maybe they thought of it, I don’t know.

Dad 

10) As long as I’m on the subject of the south and the attitude of the people down there, I lived in the south in the early 60’s when people were marching for equal rights and the blacks were treated like second-class citizens. I saw many examples of this during my years down there. Black people had their own rest rooms at gas stations and other public places. They had to ride in the back of the bus. All of the things you’ve heard about as far as discrimination is concerned are true. I’ve seen them all. One particular event stands out in my mind. I’m not sure if this happened in Biloxi or New Orleans, but, for some reason, I was riding a bus. Going somewhere, not sure where. But in those days, the driver would stop the bus at a bus stop, the black person would lean in the front door of the bus and hand the driver the change for the fare and then walk back along the side of the bus where the driver would open the rear doors of the bus. The black person would then enter the bus through the rear doors and take his seat. This is the way it was supposed to work, anyway. On this particular day, I remember a little old black lady. Probably about 65 or 70. The driver stopped for her, she handed her money in through the front door of the bus and then started to walk back to the read door. The driver closed the door of the bus and drove away leaving the lady standing on the side of the street. It was not a mistake. The driver knew exactly what he was doing. He laughed out loud and thought that it was a great joke he played on this poor woman. It’s no wonder they fought so hard for equal rights.

11) Remember David Peters who was my friend in high school? Well, early in my military career, I heard from him, that he was in Huntsville, Alabama. Since I had not seen him in a couple years, I decided to go visit him. This was before I owned a car, so I determined that I would hitch hike to Huntsville. I thought that hitch hiking would be easier if I was in uniform, so I dressed in my dress blues and off I went. Well, it was amazing. Everybody that picked me up talked about the uniform and how it was to be in the Air Force. I traveled over to Mobile and north through Birmingham and on to Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville is near the north most border of Alabama and it took me the better part of a day to get there. I had a nice visit with Dave who was there selling Bibles door-to-door. He seemed happy and all too soon, I had to go back. For some reason, it was a lot harder to get back. I spend several hours standing in the rain under an overpass trying to get a ride. There just weren’t any cars on the highway. I finally did make it, but I’ll never forget hitch hiking. I went on with my life and never saw David Peters again. To this day, I don’t know what happened to him after that. Life is strange, sometimes.

In January of 1965, I decided I wanted to get out of the Air Force so I could start college for the spring semester. I was scheduled to get out in March or April but if I waited until then, I would have to wait until fall to go back to school. As I mentioned in another post, my step-father, Floyd had died and so had my grandfather. My Mom was doing OK, but it was still hard on her. I thought maybe if I was home, I could help her and still be able to go to school. So, I put together a case for a hardship discharge. The Air Force agreed that it was a good idea that I go home to help my mother and so, in January, 1965, I was honorably discharged from the Air Force.

Thus ended four very interesting years of my life. I have always wondered what my life would have been like if I had re-enlisted and made a career of the Air Force. I was eighteen when I joined, so I could have retired at 38 and gone on to another career. But, I didn’t. I got out and because I did, I found the church and I found a wife and a whole different life. We’ll go into that next time.

Dad

7) One summer of the four years I spent in Biloxi, we had a hurricane. I think it was Dora, but I’m not sure. Even though I don’t remember the name, I remember the storm. It was one of the neatest things I have ever experienced. The days when the storm was at its worse, we were restricted to base, so they wouldn’t let us leave. But, as soon as I could I went out and drove around and looked at all the damage. It’s a lot like what you see on TV. Everybody puts big sheets of plywood on their windows. Trees get blown over. I went down to the beach and it was a mess. I loved walking on the beach and looking out at the Gulf of Mexico. Now, you could hardly walk for all the liter that was on the sand. It took them weeks to get it all cleaned up. Luckily, it wasn’t the worse hurricane of the century. It was nothing like Katrina in New Orleans. I suppose I shouldn’t like it since it did do a lot of damage. But even though we couldn’t leave the base, I was still able to go outside when the winds were blowing and I really loved it. I guess the raw power is what impressed me, I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to be somewhere and experience another one, but never have. I guess I’ll have to move south for that to happen or visit at the right time.

One of the fun things I used to do while at Keesler was to go down to New Orleans once in a while. I tried to go several times a year. I saw my first Mardi Gras. It was the first time in my life that I saw people walking down the street openly drinking liquor from bottles. In some places, having an “open bottle” in public is against the law. But, not in New Orleans. At least not during Mardi Gras. I really liked to visit New Orleans. Later, I would live there for two years. Unfortunately, living there was not as much fun as visiting.

9) At some point in my Air Force career, I decided that it would be cool to go back to college and take some classes. There was a small junior college about 45 miles north of Biloxi in Perkinston, Mississippi. There was this beautiful little campus and I was able to arrange my schedule at the base so I could go up there a couple times a week to attend classes. I didn’t complete my degree there, but I did take quite a few classes and got a good start toward what I would finish later at Brigham Young University. My most vivid memory of Perkinston was a Psychology class. I had been in the south for a couple years and I could talk the talk almost as good as any southerner. I said ‘Y’all’ with the best of them. I was sitting in class one day when the teacher decided to go around the class and ask where everyone was from. All of the kids were from somewhere close by in Mississippi. Then they got to me. Unfortunately I told the truth and said Battle Creek, Michigan. All of a sudden, it was deathly quiet in the classroom. You could have heard a pin drop. I was a “yankee”. Suddenly, I was the enemy. I was never treated the same after that.

I’m running out of material, so tomorrow will probably be the last about the Air Fource. At least until I remember some more.

Dad

4) I made that trip to Michigan 4 or 5 times a year. I’d go home on holidays and we got 30 days of leave a year. “Leave” is the military term for vacation. Most of the time, I’d drive it by myself. I had a car that my Grandfather Altman had given me. It was a 1953 Desoto. I would give anything to still have that car. It was my first car and I loved it. It had what they called a semi-automatic transmission. This was in the days before they had fully invented the automatic. When you started from a stop, you put it in gear just like a stick, but to change gears, you pressed on the gas until you could hear the engine reach a certain number of RPM. Then you would quickly release your foot from the gas peddle and the car would shift into the next gear. Then you repeated the process until you got it into high. It sounds really primitive and it was, but it worked.

The very first time I drove that car, I was not used to the shifting. It was kind of like driving a stick but not really. I drove to Marshall, Michigan which is just a few miles from Battle Creek. In Marshall, there is this big hill with a traffic light at the top of the hill. I got to the light just as it changed and so had to stop. I tried to shift into low and since it had a clutch just like a stick, you had to push in the clutch and then shift and then quickly move your foot to the gas to get going before the car died. Those of you who have driven a stick know what I mean. The light changed to green and I tried to get the car going, but I stalled it. The car rolled backwards. There was this big semi behind me. I started the car and tried again. Stalled again. The car rolled back some more. I was really beginning to sweat. The semi driver blew his horn. The light was green, why wasn’t I moving? I tried again, same result, only this time my car bumped against the front bumper of the semi. Well, I couldn’t roll anymore, so I managed to get the car started and in gear and moving. Luckily, the semi driver didn’t make me stop and see if I did him any damage. I don’t think I did, I barely touched him. But if he hadn’t been there, I’d have been to the bottom of that hill before I got the car going again. I’m a much better driver today. (I hope)

5) I probably owe my life to an anonymous truck driver who used to drive the mountains of Tennessee. I mentioned that there were no interstates in those days. I was driving on a 2-lane road through the mountains. It was a dark and stormy night, as Snoopy would say. It was raining and I was following a huge semi-truck. I couldn’t see anything coming the other way, so I tried to pass him. We must have been going at least 60 or so. I came along side of the truck and slowly began to gain on him. I was just about even with the cab of the truck when I saw the lights coming from the other direction. I was in the on-coming traffic with a truck on my right and a mountain with no shoulder on my left. Nowhere to go. I knew that I was dead, when I heard a beautiful sound. I heard the air breaks of the truck I was passing. He was slowing down. I didn’t even look, I just pressed the accelerator and turned the wheel to pull in front of the truck just as the on-coming car whizzed past. If he had not slowed down, I would have hit the other car head on and might not have survived it. I’ll never know who the trucker was, but I have always tried to respect the truck driver and all that they do. I owe my life to one, at least.

6) The Christmas after Floyd died, I was still in Biloxi. I wanted to do something for my Mom and so, I went off-base and rented an apartment. Several of the Permanent Party instructors had off-base places where they could go on weekends and get away from the Air Force and not have to be inspected and most important, a place where you could take girls. I never had that luxury, but I did have the apartment for awhile. That Christmas was very special. I bought a tree (a little one). I bought decorations and presents for everyone. Martin and Laura were just little kids, so Christmas still meant something to them and this was the first one without their father. Mom drove down to Biloxi with the kids and I met her somewhere and we all went over to the apartment. You should have seen the looks on their faces when they saw the Christmas I had set up. It was very cool and we had a great Christmas. Mom got a chance to get away from Michigan for a few days and I got a chance to have a real Christmas. Something that wouldn’t have happened if I had just been by myself.

Part 3 tomorrow….

Dad

1) Remember, this was before I joined the church. Back in my “wild” days. But, one thing I remember is I used to go out bar-hopping with my friends. I really didn’t drink. I couldn’t stand the taste of beer, never did get used to it. So, I would order a mixed drink, a gin or vodka and nurse that one drink all night long. I was always the designated driver. I was always the one who was sober when the night ended. I have a vivid memory of me holding John Bachman as he threw up in the toilet in our room. He was there for quite some time until his stomach was empty and he could fall asleep. He felt really bad the next day. And we were instructors. We weren’t officers, but we were still expected to set an example for the students. Some of us didn’t always live up to the image.

2) I remember one Friday night. It’s about 10 P.M. and we’re sitting around in one of the guys room and everybody is wondering what we should do. We had the whole weekend ahead of us. Someone said, “Let’s go to Daytona” and we all said “Great”. So, I think there were four of us. We piled into someone’s car and we drove to Daytona for the weekend. That’s on the Florida east coast. We had no money – just enough to buy gas and a little food. Nothing for motels or anything special. I ended up sleeping on the beach on the open sand for at least one night, maybe two before we went back to Biloxi. You do crazy stuff when you’re a kid.

3) One of the things I liked to do was to go home whenever I could. One weekend, a buddy (not John – can’t remember his name even though I can picture his face) and I decided to drive to Michigan one weekend. He wanted to meet my cousin Sharon who I have already told you about. We left on Friday right after work and drove all night. There were no interstates in those days and the drive was all on 2-way road. We traveled up through Alabama and across Tennessee and across Kentucky and then the full length of Indiana before coming into Michigan. It took about 24 hours to make the trip. So we got there on Saturday afternoon and then had to leave Sunday morning to come back in order to get back to work on Monday morning. We were totally nuts to try something like that in a weekend.

More tomorrow….

Dad