CHAPTER 1
LIFE OF AN IOWA FARM BOY
(Three narrow escapes)
It was a simple life, but a
good one most of the time, at least.
Times were difficult for my Dad (Frank) and Mom (Emma). It was shortly after World War II, and Dad
had rented this farm of 300 acres. He
did his farming with a team of horses and one old tractor that had seen better
days. Dad raised corn, alfalfa, and
oats, mostly. We always had pigs, cows,
and horses and mules to feed, but most of the grain was sold for the main
income. The big event for the year was
threshing time. The neighbors would join
together to pitch oat bundles into the iron wheeled threshing machine. What an awful noise it made! I, too, had a part in the harvest. Bundles had to be gathered and stood together
to make shocks. Horse drawn hay racks
would be driven to them. The driver,
walking alongside, would pitch the bundles on the wagon. When it was piled high with the golden
bundles he would wait his turn to deftly pitch them into the roaring thresher.
At noon, a huge dinner was
served by the wives of the farmers.
Women and children ate last, hoping for some of the good pieces of meat
to be left. Prayers of grace were never
said or even thought about.
There were a lot of happy
times for our family. Picnics with all
the cousins to play with were especially fun.
We always had a variety of
pets to play with as well. We often
raised up baby raccoons we had gotten from an uncle who hunted them for pelts
and sport. Our dog, Shep and one of our raccoons entertained us often. They would spar with each other in the porch. It was hilarious whenever the ‘coon would
jump on Shep’s back, grabbing his tail and flipping him off his feet. Knowing he was in trouble, he would then
scamper up to the top of the screen door to safety.
We had moved to another farm
in the Spring of 1950 near a town called Climbing Hill. I wasn’t old enough to remember our other
moves, so it was a new experience for me.
I had no idea how many times this experience would be repeated even when
I would have my own family later.
One day my brother Darrell
gave me a chance to drive the tractor. I
was ten years old and had only driven one a few times. This time, he wanted to take a nap, so I was
permitted to take the old Alice Chalmers with the harrow hooked up to it and
continue harrowing the field. It went
fine for a while until I turned too sharply at the end of the field to make
another round trip down the hill. The
harrow was attached with chains to the draw bar at the rear of the
tractor. When I turned, the chain was
caught on the left tire and lifted the whole harrow off the ground and toward
me. It had many metal spikes about eight
inches long and when I saw what was coming at me, I immediately hit the clutch
to stop the tractor. A good thing, too,
as the spikes were almost on my head.
The wooden piece the chains were attached to was broken in half. My brother got in trouble with Dad more than
I did for letting me operate the equipment.
My first experience with
religion was while living on that farm.
An elderly couple who lived up the road a few miles began picking my
sister Norma and me up for Vacation Bible School.
So, dressed up in my first
pair of dress slacks, it was off to the little Nazarene Church in Climbing
Hill, Iowa. For two weeks I heard about
Jesus and who He is.
Except for a few funerals
and weddings, I didn’t enter the doors of a church again until I had graduated
from High School and moved to California.
Occasionally, though, I would see a reminder of those two weeks of bible
school. We had painted little plaques
given to us in class. I still have it
today. It reads “Only one life, ‘twill
soon me past. Only what’s done for
Christ will last. For me to live is
Christ.”
In the years to follow, my
life almost did “come to past,” time after time. But I wasn’t doing anything for Christ. Many years later I would realize that God
with his guardian angels had mercifully been keeping me alive. For you
have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before
God in the light of life. Ps 56:13
Our lease on the Climbing
Hill farm lasted two years. Our family
gathered up the livestock, machinery and household items, then soon settled in
on our next farm near Bronson. This town
of about four hundred people was several miles from where we had lived.
As usual, Mom planted a
large garden. Dad had prepared the
ground with the old horse drawn equipment, using his team of mules.
The tractor now was doing
most of the work instead of the teams of horses and mules. The garden was always beautiful. Mom fringed the entire garden with rows of
flowers. The rows were long and
perfectly straight. Hardly a blade of
grass or a single weed could be found in her garden. We enjoyed eating the tomatoes, radishes,
onions, beans, carrots, cabbage, asparagus, corn, squash, cantaloupe and water
melons. Another garden by the corn field
yielded many bushels of potatoes.
Much of the harvest was
canned and put into glass jars to be kept for months in the cellar. There were
also jars of cherries, apples, pears and other fruits stored away. Even canned meat. Since we had our own milk supply, we never
needed much from the grocery store. Mom
baked bread frequently. We also had our
own beef and pork to eat.
In
March the next year we had to move again.
This time to a neighboring town called Lawton.
Our place was ten miles from
town and we were told the bus would not be picking us up. But there was a country school only a couple
miles away. This prompted my Dad to buy
me my first bicycle. I rode it to school
one day, but that night the town school changed their mind about the bus. So much for country school, and I still had
my bike!
Soon, I decided to explore
the dirt road on which we lived. While
riding on a section of the road that I had never been on, I came to the top of
a very steep hill. I hesitated in fear,
but foolishly, I started down. My speed
picked up so much, my brakes had no effect.
It was difficult to keep between the two deep ruts left from the last
rain. Somehow, probably with God’s help,
I made it safely to the bottom. Pushing
the bike back up, I went straight home.
That summer, I noticed some
little red cloth flags tied to nails running evenly down the center of the dirt
road. The County surveyors had been out
preparing the road for grading and surfacing with gravel. I supposed the surveyors were done with their
flagged nails, so taking a pair of pliers I pulled them out and filled a whole
bag. My parents were not very pleased at
me stocking our tool shed with these nails.
I doubt if the survey crew was either when they were called back
out. Oddly enough, I was to become a land
surveyor myself years later.
Winter came and the ground
was frozen. One dark evening, Dad was
unloading a truck loaded with heifers.
The two mules which my Dad kept around mostly as pets, were watching with
interest. Seeing an opportunity to have some
fun, they chased them out of the barnyard into the pasture. Dad shouted angrily at me to run after the
cattle and bring them back. In the dark
I slipped on a patch of ice, breaking my elbow.
The cattle were free for that night.
It was a long, painful ride to the nearest hospital at Sioux City. It was the first time for me to see the
inside of a hospital. (I was even born
in a farm house). As the doctor was
feeling my arm, he suddenly set it without warning. The doctor said, “you were a brave young man;
you didn’t even yell out.” I replied, “I
was gritting my teeth too hard to scream.”
I hated those mules. It seemed they were more important than me to
my Dad. Once, I left a bucket of corn on
the outside of their corral. I went
about doing my chores, but they broke the fence down to get the corn. Discovering their freedom, they bolted down
the road to a corn field ripe to harvest.
We went after them in the old pickup, chasing them for miles. At various points I was ordered to run across
a field to intercept them. My lungs and
throat burned as though on fire. We
succeeded to tire them, turn them back, and penned them up. I seriously thought of sneaking out with my
.22 rifle and putting a bullet into each of their forehead’s. My fear of what would happen to me stopped
me.
Spring
arrived again and the landlord wouldn’t renew our annual lease. This time since my oldest brother was in the
Army and my other brother having quit school to take a job, Dad called it quits
and held an auction. His older sons
weren’t there to help farm and I was too young.
My first summer there in
1955 at Whiting, Iowa, I started
“walking the beans”. We cut weeds
from soy bean rows a half mile in length in fields of eighty acres or
more. I had other jobs driving tractors
with equipment for neighbors and helping to bale hay. These jobs would provide me with money to
purchase my school clothes and lunches each year until graduation.
Once while stacking bales of
hay I came close to having a serious if not fatal accident. The stack was almost complete. We were on the last row at the top. These bales, weighing about seventy pounds,
were laid on edge. They were now
thirteen tiers high. Each tier measuring
two feet made the stack twenty six feet high.
As I was dragging one of these bales, my hay hook slipped out. Taking a step back to regain my balance I
found myself teetering on the very
edge. The ground below was very dry and
hard. By God’s grace, I didn’t fall.
Another time was a very close call in the form of a
dangerous fall. At the time, I thought I
was just lucky, but years later and after many other narrow escapes, I know
that it had to be God’s intervention.
One day my parents went visiting from the flat lands of Whiting where we
lived to a friend’s house just a few miles to the east. They lived in the “bluffs” or the foothills
of the Missouri River flood plain. These
steep hills were formed by wind-blown dust called loess. A roadway can be cut
through this soil with vertical slopes without a problem of the embankment
breaking away.
Three of us teenage boys
were playing in a pasture at about dusk.
At one point while chasing one another, I was running down a steep slope
so fast that I couldn’t even stop. Suddenly,
I was slammed to the ground. My foot had caught in an old barb wire fence
lying on the ground. It ripped my jeans
and cut into my shin. The other boys
came to untangle me. When I stood up, I
was amazed to see that a couple more steps would have hurtled me over a dirt
road embankment perhaps thirty feet high.
I had just “happened” to step in the fallen fence just right to abruptly
stop me from almost certain injury or even death.
I lived within an “oxbow” of
the Missouri River channel that had moved several miles to the west in its
current location. The old channel was now called Badger Lake. I did a lot of fishing and hunting in the
five years we lived there. When I was sixteen, I completed a course in
taxidermy from the Northwestern School of Taxidermy of Omaha, Nebraska. With a photo of some of my completed
specimens, I received a diploma.
I mounted birds, deer antlers and made several
deer feet gun racks. I had always liked
to draw and to paint pictures, so this was another way to express creativity.
CHAPTER 2
MY FIRST MOVE FROM HOME TO CALIFORNIA
(A half dozen or so close calls)
Finally my school days drew
to an end. I worked hard in the fields
that last summer in 1960 to save enough money to go to California where one of
my brothers and my sister had moved. My
parents were sad to see me go, but I sensed adventure ahead and a chance to
make it in life. There was very little
hunting there and I did no more taxidermy.
I did go on one hunting trip to Hunter Liggett Military Reservation
about 250 miles north of Los Angeles.
Two of my friends and I were hunting for wild boar.
At one point we were inching
around a large boulder near a trail near a drop off of maybe fifteen feet. Part way around, I slipped and fell. I tossed my .30-40 Krag rifle away from
myself and grabbed the face of the boulder, scrapping my hands. I hit the ground hard and rolled. I couldn’t stand up for a while, but nothing
was broken!
I had acquired a job working
for the State of California. It was
operating printing equipment at San Jose State College.
After purchasing my first
late model car, I was driving to my sister’s house to show it off. On the way, a car went through a stop sign
directly in front of me. I swerved
quickly to avoid hitting their door, but totaled out their car. At least they weren’t injured. I wasn’t, either, but my nice car was smashed
along one side. I tried to keep it a
secret from my Mom, but she developed some negatives I had sent with some photos
and there it was.
One of my brother’s friends
had a new Austin Healy sports car. Being
an alcoholic he only used it for driving to work as he was afraid of wrecking
it. But he would let me drive it
often. He didn’t realize how reckless I
was, though. Once I took a curve way too
fast and spun clear around, but regained control before an oncoming car could
hit me. This curve with no guard rails
happened to overlook an auto salvage yard about a hundred feet below.
Within the hour, my
confidence back, I was racing down the slope at about sixty five mph coming
into a large curve. Too late, I realized
my speed was too great, so laid the bike flat, scratching the foot peg and
throwing sparks. I bounced twice as I
slid around the curve. I regained an
upright position, but on the wrong side of the road. A quick glance and I knew only about a foot
of road space remained. And then there
were the tops of tall pine trees hundreds of feet below! Years later some of these near mishaps made
me begin to wonder if there really was a God protecting me. Was an angel of the Lord holding me on that
road?
Two other near misses with
death or injury happened around the same time.
My friend, Joe was riding behind me on the double motorcycle seat. We entered a sharp curve to the right when an
oncoming car taking the inside turn brushed our pant legs. That’s about as close as you can get. On the four lane highway that led us home
later that day, a car to our right changed lanes. The traffic was awful and moving
rapidly. I leaned sideways with all my
strength to avoid being clipped by the car, putting us into the oncoming
traffic. The instant the car passed by,
I again leaned with haste back into my own lane. We had narrowly missed a head on collision by
a split second. I won’t recount each
time I had to slide on dry pavement to avoid collisions. I only hit a car once and didn’t get
hurt. And once a car bumped into me,
again not hurting me.
|
A Diahatsu.
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Working for the college was
uneventful except for the time when my hand got caught in the rolling drums of
the offset press. If the drums had been
rotated at the wrong place, my fingers would have been cut off. As it were, three fingers were crushed up to
my middle knuckles.
Another young man named
Chuck had started working with me.
Working conditions became unfavorable though so Chuck had made plans to
get a job at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. A few
days later he called me saying he had a job at Harrah’s Casino and wanted me to
share an apartment with him and try out for a job too. I took a bus up to the beautiful Tahoe area
and moved in. Soon, I too was working
for the casino as a Keno writer.
I found that it was
difficult to hold on to my pay. It seemed
there wasn’t much to do but gamble.
After losing my pay once too often, I decided to quit the job. Walking the mile home, I noticed I had one
penny in my pocket. I was passing a
swimming pool so I just tossed the penny in so that I would be “flat broke”.
Walking to work for my last
day I stopped at the Post Office's General Delivery counter. The State of California had sent me over $500
(quite a lot of money back then). The
check was for unused retirement and sick leave that I wasn’t even aware of. I suddenly had a choice. With this much money I could stay and try
again. But I remembered not having a
penny left the night before. I decided
to go back to San Jose.
CHAPTER 3
BACK TO
WESTERN IOWA AND INTO SURVEYING
(A
couple more close calls and infirmities)
The same day I arrived at my
brother Darrell’s place I found him packing for a vacation to Iowa. It was a great chance to get away from my
problems, so I went with him. My parents
asked me to stay with them and try to find work there, so that’s what I did.
While playing pool in a
tavern in Onawa, Iowa, I met another young guy who was leaving for the service.
He told me I should apply for his old
job working at an engineering/land surveying company.
I soon interviewed for and
got the job at Virtue Engineering there in Onawa. That began my long surveying career.
One late night I was driving home which was 10 miles from
town. It was one of the coldest nights
we had that winter. The temperature had fallen
to twenty degrees below zero. I lost control of my car and ran off the road
into a steep and narrow road ditch. Both
sides of my new car were bent in from the embankment. I was able to get the door open, though. Without even considering how dangerously cold
it was, I began to walk home. The night
was very black. I began to realize that
it was six or eight miles to my house.
There were very few houses along this road to even get help or make a
phone call. After some time, I became
extremely cold. I knew I might freeze to
death before I made it home. Then, to my
utter amazement, I saw headlight beams coming my way. It was a farmer who was driving home late at
night as well. He picked me up and took
me home, probably saving my life. If he
had been only a couple minutes later, he wouldn’t have seen me, as the night
was pitch black. I was about to turn at
the intersection of another gravel road and he would have gone on past!
I had several minor car
accidents while living in this area.
Somehow, I never got hurt. It was
a good thing God was watching over me. I
began to have physical problems, though, while living at Onawa. I had bursitis so bad, I could not use my
right arm. Then it would be all right
for a while, but the left arm would get painful. Back and forth. Soon after that left, I got tendonitis in my
leg and could hardly walk. Still in the
same year, I had a much larger problem.
The skin on my ankles turned red and broke open, finally exposing part
of the bone. Several doctors had tried
to treat it, but none had ever heard of anything like it. Fortunately, one elderly doctor remembered a
patient that many years ago had something similar. He had tried a particular medicine on him and
it had worked. After researching his
records, he prescribed the same pills for me.
I don’t remember what the medicine was called, but it worked! Within days my feet began to heal. They had given me greater pain than anything
prior to what I’d ever had. I had quit
my surveying job. I was walking with a
cane. My pants legs had to be rolled up
and socks couldn’t be worn. The same
doctor said that in a couple more weeks, he would’ve had to amputate them. Some pain was to remain for many months after
and dark coloration remained for several years.
Years later someone I talked with knew of a similar case happening to
his friend. They diagnosed his as
“concrete poisoning” that caused the blood infection. I then recalled that I was doing concrete
paving inspection for the engineers at the very time of my illness.
Soon after my recovery, I
went to work for a life insurance company.
I got my insurance license and worked with a crew of about five
others. We would work a county together
for about two weeks at a time. One
Monday morning we were following one another down the highway to our next
assignment. We all drove fast along
those long, lonely stretches of highways.
Usually about seventy or eighty miles per hour. (The speed limit then was “reasonable and
proper”). On this morning, the lead car
came upon a red stop light where there had never been one before. It was on a construction crossing. All of us came to a quick stop except the
last one. He was behind me and was not
very alert. I heard the screech of
tires. Black smoke engulfed his whole
car. I had nowhere to go, so leaned over
in my seat expecting to possibly die.
Again, it wasn’t my time to leave this earth. Looking out my rear window, I saw his car
stopped, but it was turned backwards and within a couple of inches from my
bumper. After a few months selling
insurance, my feet had almost healed, so I got my old surveying job back. I had been
doing all of the company’s drafting
along with the field work I was helping with. So now I stayed inside doing just drafting
and office work until my feet got back to normal.
A few years went by and I
married Shirley Anderson in 1968. She
was a farm girl who was a new graduate nurse. Soon, she was working at Onawa’s Memorial
Hospital. We had rented a small house
only a few blocks from both our jobs.
Six months went by and we purchased our first house. It was only three blocks away. It was also the first of many moves we would
be making. They would all be a lot further than a few blocks, too! In a couple of years our son, Steven was born. Two more years went by and our daughter Carol
was born.
While living in Onawa, Iowa,
I became active in the Jaycees. It was a
small club, and I think that I held about every office (some twice). I was honored with receiving the Surveyor of
the Year Award. At the same time, I
joined the Freemason’s Lodge there. More
on that later about how I renounced all of it!
My brother was a Mason, as were the brothers who were my employers at
Virtue Engineering. So I studied hard
and learned what I had to learn to go through the first three degrees or the
Blue Lodge. I held an office there soon
as well. Within a few months, my
employer gave me a Christmas present of paying my fee to go through the
Scottish Rite Lodge in Sioux City, Iowa.
I could not have afforded it otherwise.
So in a short time I became a 32nd Degree Mason. The only higher degree is the 33rd
and it is an honorary degree.
After spending eleven years
working for Virtue Engineering, in 1974, I got a job in Vermillion, South
Dakota as an Engineering Technician, (as Assistant City Engineer). Each of my job moves would have unusual
circumstances connected with my finding them.
At this time, I had advanced my training from varied experience and
taking an International Correspondence School course in Surveying and
Mapping. I found that I could sit for my
Professional Land Surveyor In Training exam after having eight years of
experience under a licensed surveyor.
So, I had gone to Ames, Iowa, taken the exam and passed it for my
certificate. Soon afterward, another
surveyor told me that with twelve years’ experience I would qualify to take the
Professional exam. My present employer
never even informed me of the In-Training exam, so I was disappointed and ready
to move on if the opportunity arose.
CHAPTER 4
OFF TO SOUTH
DAKOTA AND TO MY NEW CHRISTIAN LIFE
(Saved
by Jesus and saved from choking to death too)
Soon, while looking at a
Sunday paper while visiting my parents’ house, I glanced at the want ads, and
the advertisement for the Vermillion job seemed to leap at my attention. I went to be interviewed by the City Engineer
and was hired.
I had learned that South Dakota only
required eight years’ experience to sit for the Surveyor exam. So, I had passed it and got my first Land
Surveyor license. Later, while still
working there, I also got my Iowa license.
One
day I was eating lunch at the local café, sitting at the counter. I choked on a piece of bread. I couldn’t breathe in or out. I tried swallowing water, but it just went
down without helping my breathing. People
were staring at me by this time. Next to
me sat an older man who worked for the city that I knew. I motioned for him to hit me on the
back. He did; it wasn’t enough, so I
gestured a real hard hit. This time it
worked and I was able to slowly breathe again.
I had been without breath for several minutes and was seeing black spots
before my eyes. An ambulance could never
got there quick enough to save my life.
This was another near death experience.
There would be more to come.
Ironically, next to my office was the ambulance garage and I remembered
seeing a new poster showing the new Heimlich maneuver. Many years later, I was able to save my
mother from choking on a piece of meat using this new method.
Soon
after moving to South Dakota, I read Pearl Buck’s “The Story Bible” and
received Jesus into my life in my living room while alone in the house. I believe that through my various trials and
having what I now believe was God’s divine protection so often, brought me to
the point of seeking Him. I had been
seeking Him in one way, I thought, by joining the Masons. Our current pastor was even a member of the
Lodge there in Vermillion that I also attended.
I had
been a drinker, and the first thing that I did the next morning was to pour all
the liquor down the drain. I also made
it a strong intention in my mind to stop any cursing as well. I also had been smoking a pipe for years (as
was common at that time, especially for engineers). At times, I smoked cigars and cigarettes too. I gave up smoking everything but my pipes.
Shirley had given me a new
Living Bible to read. I started reading
every word, starting in Genesis and going straight through to Revelation in one
year. (I didn’t know the correct way to
study yet.) When reading about Gideon
and his request for God to show him an answer he needed, I prayed to God and
told him that I was still smoking my pipes, but thought they would not be
harmful to me. But now I asked him to
please show me if He did not want me to continue that habit. Being a new Christian, I thought this was a
good way to approach my concerns. Time
went by and I was still smoking having forgotten my prayer. But God didn’t forget! I was about to get schooled in some of life’s
lessons.
The
first thing that happened for me to discover this first lesson was the fact
that while at a Christmas party a month or two after that prayer, I caught the
flu and of course didn’t light up the pipe until recovering from that. The second thing was a matter of cold sores
developing on my lips. I never had that
problem and assumed it was from the flu.
Anyway, it was too uncomfortable to smoke a pipe until they cleared
up. More on this later.
I had
been working this job for two and a half years and was also doing private jobs
on the side since getting my license to practice. One day, while sitting in my office at City
Hall, a surveyor who was a partner in an
engineering and land surveying firm in Mitchell, South Dakota, came in and
explained that I had passed the surveyor exam which he said was the most
difficult they ever had. It required
books on laws, an ephemeris for astronomical observations, and others, which he
knew I had acquired in order to pass the exam.
(I had researched a law library and sent off to Washington for certain
booklets, etc.) He was wanting to take
his exam and asked to borrow my information.
He went on to take his exam with this help and passed it. But while he was in town to see me, he went
to the local newspaper and put in an ad for a surveyor. He didn’t have a way of just asking me in
front of my boss, so this is the way he handled it, hoping I would find
it. Now, I rarely even looked at
newspapers at that time, but for some reason my eyes fell on the ad. I contacted him, got an interview and was
immediately hired.
Meanwhile,
my lip sores had cleared up and I had continued to smoke the pipe, still
forgetting my prayer. But within weeks,
I got a stomach ailment in which one sip of coffee would burn my stomach. I was put on a bland diet for a time. Shortly, one morning at a meeting at work at
Schmucker, Paul & Nohr’s company, I lit up my pipe and immediately had that
familiar burn in my stomach. That’s when
I remembered what I had asked God to do!
He had been trying to show me that it was best for me to stop all my
smoking. After that first puff, I
knocked out the tobacco in the ash tray with a resolve never to smoke
again. The same day, my stomach felt
better and I could eat anything I wanted and drink coffee again. For me, it was a miracle of God. I got rid of all my nice pipes that I had
collected after that.
CHAPTER 5
OFF TO EASTERN IOWA, THEN FLORIDA
(More surveying experiences and
dangers)
One
day while working in Mitchell, I received a letter from an engineering/land
surveying company in West Union, Iowa.
It was from Bert B. Hanson and Associates. They saw somewhere that I had obtained my
Iowa license and they were in need of a surveyor in one of their branch offices
located in Independence, Iowa. I was
intrigued, because I might be able to work in my home state using my new
license. The pay offer was very good,
too. Besides that, they offered to
charter a plane to fly Shirley and myself out there for the interview. So we did that and I was hired.
It was 1977 and now I was
surveying in eastern Iowa. I enjoyed my
time there, but in 1980, work slowed down.
The two engineers bought out the office from Hanson, and one of them had
gotten his surveyor license. I needed to
look for another job. I applied for a
position advertised in a trade magazine for a job in Sarasota, Florida. The engineers told me that we could use their
new company car to drive down for an interview.
So I interviewed with a large company named Smally Wellford and Nalvin. They needed someone to run a survey crew using
a new state of the art instrument. The
Wild TC1 would measure distances and angles and do drafting codes for office
work at the same time. Only one other
customer from New York City had used the system so far. It would be operated part of the time from a
thirty foot tower.
They accepted me for the position, so while in
Sarasota, we looked for a house to rent.
We found one and told the realtor we would be back and rent it.
We
packed our belongings into a U-Haul trailer that we hitched our International
Travelall SUV to. When stopping at a gas
station in the Smokey Mountains, we were fortunate to see a large bump on a
rear tire. It was about ready to blow
out, which could have been fatal on those roads. We replaced the tire and went on our
way. The first stop that we made when
reaching Sarasota was the realty office.
The same man who helped us find the house we wanted had forgotten all
about it. He said he would go check if
it was still available. While I waited
there with my family and possessions in a new state with no acquaintances, I
said a silent prayer under my breath.
God again provided, because it was still available. We finished the paperwork and went to unload
at the house. We were already tired and
I was not feeling well. But when we
started to unload, neighbors came from at least two homes and wanted to help
us. It was such a relief, because I was
getting very ill and it was getting dark as well. We praised the Lord for their help.
It was an interesting
experience working in Florida. We worked
on everything from condos on the beaches to in alligator and snake infested
areas. One job was even on a small island
in the Gulf. One day I was standing in a
burned off palmetto field when I saw a movement. Only about three feet away was an Eastern
Diamond Back rattle snake. It was around
six feet long. They are the largest variety
of rattlers. I escaped the snake, but
one other time I didn’t realize that I was standing on an ant hill. They were fire ants and they crawled up my
pants legs and all bit at once. I almost
passed out and had to take a break for a while.
I came upon an alligator once that was probably eight to ten feet long. I made a quick detour around him.
My employers were pleased
with my learning and using the new equipment, even though we had to have its
software writer come from Texas every week or two to work out the programming
bugs. The main problem with it was the
difficulty to accurately estimate job cost.
We worked on some huge projects worth many thousands of dollars. Our crew was doing some typical jobs two or
three times as fast as the old methods.
That being said, jobs differed in their complexities. Some we could do using the tower, but others
were impossible to use it. My boss
sometimes was losing a lot of money because he bid the job too low. Eventually they gave up on the equipment and
didn’t need me anymore. They let me go
on good terms with a nice recommendation.
I had only been there for six months.
I later observed that no one in the surveying business ever started
using this equipment. We called it “our
working vacation” because we had a good time while there.
CHAPTER 6
THIS TIME TO
CENTRAL IOWA AND WITNESSING
(Becoming
an Evangelism Explosion Trainer)
We had
decided to go back to Iowa, visit our families and try for a new job. Shirley, being a Registered Nurse, never had
problems finding work nor I, up till now.
On
our way to northwestern Iowa we stopped over for one night at
Independence. We visited one of the men
I had worked with and he said he had seen an ad in the Sunday paper a week or
two ago for a surveyor. He looked for it
and was surprised that he still had it laying around. It was for a Registered Land Surveyor at
Winterset, Iowa, just west of Des Moines.
I called that same afternoon and was able to make an appointment on our
way to northwestern Iowa. After making
my application and interview with Vance and Hochstetler Engineering, we drove
to Correctionville, Iowa where Shirley’s parents lived. We stayed with them for a week, when I was
notified that I got the job. On the
weekend, I moved to a motel in Winterset temporarily while the family stayed at
Correctionville until we could get together a week later to find a new
home. We moved into an apartment complex
at Indianola, south of Des Moines.
We
joined the Assembly of God church in Indianola.
I became active in the Evangelism Explosion program there. After spending thirteen weeks as a prayer
partner and another thirteen weeks with one of the three-person teams as a
trainee, I became a trainer. After
thirteen more weeks, I became a senior trainer.
God blessed our ministry with a number of new converts. Also, it was at this time that I remembered
still having all of my Masonic paraphernalia, including my leather apron and
gold 14th Degree ring. I had been
quite being active in the Lodge while reading my bible that first year in
Vermillion and realizing that it was wrong for me to be in it. I took the ring and sold it to a pawn
shop. The apron, code book, and a
medallion I threw in the dumpster. It
felt like a weight was lifted from me.
I
started seeing how God would provide “divine appointments” for our evangelism
teams. My first chance at being a team
leader took us to a local nursing home to visit an elderly lady who had once
visited our church. She accepted the
Lord as her personal Savior that night. The
following week on our follow up visit she brought more friends to hear the
message. For a few weeks, this happened
with several new converts being made.
Then we were told that the State rules would not allow this to be done
in their nursing home.
One
day Shirley and I saw an index card near our apartment entrance that advertised
a mattress for sale. We needed one so
called them and went to their apartment in the next building over. We made our purchase, but the important thing
was what the Lord had set up to happen.
(I don’t believe in coincidental happenings). The husband was seated with a breathing
apparatus because of his illness, so while there I asked him if he would like
prayer. They looked at one another, then
said yes. (I found out later that they
had never gone to church in their lives).
They were both sitting down while I prayed for him. Then I gave some testimony of my life and
asked if I could share some Good News with them. They agreed, and both accepted the Lord, when
it came time to make that commitment.
Soon, we prepared to leave and the man’s wife stood up. In a loud voice she said “my back! my back!,
the pain is all gone! We didn’t even
know that she had a back problem, but God did.
In a
day or so, we came back to pick up our mattress purchase. They were both very glad to see us
again. The man told his wife to go bring
in something that he wanted me to have. It
turned out that this elderly man had been an artist and painted cover paintings
for a farmers’ magazine. She brought out
an original of one of these cover paintings.
I told him no, I didn’t expect anything from him. He insisted to the point that I felt I should
accept it. I later gave it to my
daughter after she had grown up and got married. It remains on her wall to this day.
One
very dark evening our team went into a huge trailer park. This was before GPS, and we tried to find the
correct house number by shinning a flash light, but many were not numbered or
visible in the dark. I just stopped the
car and we all prayed for God’s help. We
got out of the car to go on foot and saw that out of hundreds of trailers, we
had stopped by the one we were to visit!
Another
dark evening we went to a small rural
area town. We decided to stop at a
convenience store on the edge of town for directions. I asked the clerk if he knew where the people
lived we were to go see. He didn’t know,
but a lady behind me heard and said “they live at the end of that road just
ahead on your right”. With no GPS or
even street signs, we would never have found the place.
I
enjoyed the variety of survey work there in Madison County, where the movie
“Bridges of Madison County” was made.
But after three years, in 1983, I was asked to work for a Des Moines
firm and be the office manager in Marion, Iowa, next to Cedar Rapids. The
opportunity was good and I wasn’t too pleased for the way the present company
was being operated, so I accepted.
CHAPTER 7
MOVING FURTHER EAST IN IOWA, THEN TO
OMAHA
(Another infirmity; another
move in my career)
That began my working for
Anderson Consulting. I seemed to have
covered the whole State of Iowa now. We
rented a house near my job.
While living in Marion, we
went to visit Shirley’s sister Linda and husband Allen in Lincoln, Nebraska
while I took the exam at the State Surveyor’s office in Lincoln. I thought it might be useful someday to have
that state’s Land Surveyor license.
Strangely, in just a few months, Linda showed me a newspaper ad for a
Land Surveyor in Omaha. It was an opportunity
to gain some new experience and be much closer to all of our relatives.
The company had only
engineers and an architect and needed a Land Surveyor. The day I was interviewed I was hired by Lee
and Batheja. The company I had been with
would hold very little promise. I felt
that they hired me as a last resort to keep it afloat.
We then moved to Omaha and
lived in a nice apartment complex nearby in Millard, Nebraska. It was a nice place to work and I was even
allowed to do private work on my own time using their equipment.
One day while working on a
job at a large sewer treatment plant next to Offutt Air Force Base, I became
very sick to my stomach. By the time I
was driven home, I needed help to walk up the stairs to my apartment. The room was spinning as I laid down on the
bed. After a few days, I felt a little
better. I was given a test at the
University of Nebraska Hospital to see what had happened. It was an inner ear infection and was too far
along to be able to help it any. For
weeks I had to be careful how quickly I rose from a chair and how I walked,
being unsteady and weak. Eventually I
recovered completely.
As some projects were
getting completed the work was lessening, so when I was offered a job with
Darrell Dangburg and Associates in Omaha, I accepted. The economy was getting bad and after several
months they too gave the survey crew notice that we would have our hours
reduced fifty percent. So after working
there for less than a year, I applied for some positions on the East Coast,
where the economy was doing better and they were seeking land surveyors.
CHAPTER 8
OUR FINAL
MOVE INTO NEW JERSEY
(More
witnessing, and a near death experience)
Shirley and I left Steven
and Carol to continue in school for a few days without us. We drove first to New Jersey, then to New
York, Massachusetts and Connecticut for interviews. Then we drove back to Omaha and waited. Soon, I had replies from all the companies
that I had applied with. My choice was
the first one we had stopped at in Medford, New Jersey at Allan Kammerer and
Associates. So in 1987 we drove together
to a new apartment complex in Marlton, near Medford. The company paid for a moving company to move
our household furniture and belongings.
In a few months I was able
to qualify for the New Jersey licensing exam, which was held near Trenton. It turned out to be an easier test for me than
those I had taken before for licensure. I
worked there in Medford for over two years, then was made an offer which would
pay much more and would gain me some more varied experience.
My new job was with Key
Engineers in Berlin, New Jersey. It was
only about a twenty minute drive from home.
Steven had graduated from High School and had been working with me at
Kammerer’s a short while. He had worked
for me occasionally for several years, so had some experience early on. Key’s hired me, but also hired Steven and
used him mostly in the office.
We had some very large
projects and that was the reason we were hired, but I discovered that once they
were finished, they didn’t need another surveyor at the time. They were nice to work for, but they laid
both of us off at the same time after working there one year.
During this time, we soon
started attending the Assembly of God church in Lumberton. As God’s timing would have it, a fellow who
had also been in the EE program (Evangelism Explosion) was seeking to help
start a program here at this church. It
was required to have three people start a program, with a pastor’s approval and
at least two who had the proper training.
That began our chance to be the first EE group in a large area. We soon had teams of three that doubled and
redoubled in the amount of teams going out.
We saw many people accepting Christ as their Savior as well as seeing
various healings.
I was, although upset with the
circumstances of being let go from the job at Berlin, tried to find a way to
continue on helping to support the family.
One day while attending the church in Lumberton, I asked an assistant
pastor (who I knew used to be in a business) for some advice on my possibly
starting my own company (with no finances available). He referred me to an ex-partner for some
advice. So I arranged a meeting with him
which set off events which I felt must have come with God’s help.
This new acquaintance told
me of how he had partnered with a man who was an entrepreneur who had once been
with him in a business venture but he had cost this man hundreds of thousands
of dollars. However he was going to
refer me to this man anyway, thinking there might be a good opportunity for me. The man’s name is Francis (Frank) Scott Key; a
grandson of his ancestral grandfather who wrote our national anthem. The reason he thought this might work out for
me was the fact, he said, that Mr. Key owned a lot of new surveying equipment,
but had no surveyor!
I was given Mr. Key’s phone
number and a meeting was set up. He
explained that he would occasionally help people start up a business. His current main business was selling a
software program written by another partner with a PHD degree. He also currently had another start up
business in his building with a man from Switzerland. He had expertise in precise measuring and was
outfitted by Mr. Key with state of the art equipment in a glass enclosed
room. During a time of trying to collect
a large fee from his software from a company in Europe that made surveying
equipment, a deal was struck. They would
ship him $250,000 worth of survey equipment to complete the rest of their payment. He accepted, knowing that the expert in
measurements could find a use for some of it.
Out of all the instruments there was one state of the art surveyor’s
total station and data collector. Being
the owner of some lands, he had been hiring a local company to do surveys for
him. He approached them with an offer to
merge into a new company with him. They
accepted, had their men trained for the new equipment, then backed out of the
deal. Meanwhile he had purchased a new
computer, drafting table and office furniture which he was temporarily “stuck
with”. Then I came along at the right
time. We would start a new company named
Argus Land Surveying. The other company
in the building was called Argus Precision Measurements.
His building was a new brick office building
in which I was given a furnished office, use of all the equipment, and his secretary’s
help. We went together to a car
dealership, where he let me pick out a new GMC Suburban which he paid for
totally with his credit card! He then
ordered a new work box built that I designed.
His brother in law was an industrial arts instructor and he built it out of birch wood like a nice
piece of furniture! My outfit was the
envy of the other surveyors that saw it.
He also paid me a small salary to help me get by until I could build up
the business.
My first employee was my son
Steven again who did my drafting and helped do the surveys in the field as
well. Over the next two years, the
business had grown. I had employed a couple
more employees. Steven then chose to
join the U.S. Navy, but with new workers, I carried on.
After a few months, Shirley
and I were to see him graduate from basic training in Orlando, Florida. The day we drove back, I was having angina
pains again. (I had been having a few,
but was trying to ignore them). The next
day I had a heart attack. There was one
chamber of my heart that was totally blocked.
But when I was transferred to another hospital for a catheterization,
the Doctor said it was too late to insert a stint or anything. I recovered slowly while our employees
carried on with the surveying.
CHAPTER 9
BECOMING SELF
EMPLOYED
(Being
blessed by God and overcoming a few more infirmities and close calls)
Soon thereafter an
opportunity for me to leave came along (Mr. Key was concerned we were not
growing fast enough). Argus Precision
was closed down by then and we had moved into a larger building adjacent to
this one. Mr. Key was now primarily in
working his new day trading business with the stock markets. I was able to
purchase all the equipment needed to start my own business. The year was 1992 when I started Apex Surveys
in Willingboro in my home office.
On one of our trips back to
Iowa on vacation about that time, we went to my mother’s house. (Dad had passed 17 years earlier). My aunt Winifred was there visiting with her
that day. During our visit, I shared the
gospel of Christ with both of them. Both
said a prayer with me for salvation that day.
Also on another visit, Mom was in the hospital
recovering from a mild heart attack. In
the visitor room, I was surprised to see a classmate whom I hadn’t seen since
graduation decades earlier. She was
there to visit her mother who was dying of cancer. I had once worked on her parents’ farm hoeing
weeds from the fields and had eaten with the family. After taking with my mother for a while, I
asked a nurse’s permission to go down the hall to visit this lady.
I reminded her of who I was and asked if she would
like prayer. She said yes; I prayed for
her comfort, etc. then I witnessed to her.
She gladly accepted Christ and I went on my way. I came back the next day to visit my mother
again and went down to visit her. She
was very pleased that she now had Christ in her life.
A few years later at a class
reunion, one of my classmates thought I was a pastor. The reason being that our other classmate had
told them of my visit with her ailing mother.
I said, “no, just a layman sharing the gospel.” Then she told me that two weeks after I had
seen the cancer stricken lady, so had passed away. My visit was what I call a “Devine
Appointment.”
I had many of those
“appointments” that just can’t be called a coincidence. The same year that I shared the gospel with
my mother, we visited my aunt (her sister) and uncle in Sioux City, Iowa. We never got to see them very often those
years. To make a long story short, they
both said the sinner’s prayer. We left,
never seeing them again. We were very
surprised to hear that they both passed that same year.
That first year after
starting Apex Surveys, things were progressing well, but I had the first of
some health problems come up. I came
down with bronchitis which I had never experienced before. One night, after violently coughing, I
couldn’t get my breath. It took all my
will power to breathe in each breath. I
thought I might die! Again, it just
wasn’t my time yet. The immediate
result, though, was that I was losing my voice more and more until I couldn’t
speak at all.
This put an end to my part
of the evangelism visitations at the church.
However, at one of our last sessions that I went on, a trainee asked for
prayer for someone to visit his grandfather who was in the hospital and was
unchurched. I said, that would be our
responsibility and volunteered. Together
we went to see his grandfather. After witnessing
my own testimony, I led him in a prayer to ask Christ into his life, which he
did. I had to raise my voice to be able
to even speak, albeit a raspy one. I think a few others in the room and hallway
also heard my witnessing! I was not
ashamed or embarrassed. I was told a few
days later that the grandson gave him a bible which he gladly was reading. He passed away a few days later. Soon, I saw a surgeon who upon examining me,
said that I had scar tissues on my larynx.
He set me up for an appointment to have laser surgery to remove the
tissues. My voice was weak, but I
regained it again to a large degree.
In 1995 we purchased our
home in Willingboro, New Jersey and later remodeled the garage into an
office. This remains where we live and
work today.
A year or two passed and an
old back problem suddenly became worse.
The pain was terrible, possibly exceeding the pain I had experienced
with passing a kidney stone a couple of times before. It wasn’t long after that when I had
surgery. The doctor told me it was the
worst herniated disk he’d ever seen and was surprised that I was walking (even
with my cane). In only a few days I felt
like a new man.
About two more years passed
and in 1998 Shirley and I went to Anchorage Alaska to visit Steven and his
family. He was stationed there with the
Navy at the Air Force Base as a cryptologist.
The first night we were there, I arose in the night to use the bathroom
and made a wrong turn, going head first down the flight of stairs. I thanked God I didn’t break any bones
although I was badly bruised. At least
we were able to still enjoy our trip.
In 2001 Shirley was in Iowa
visiting her Dad who was very ill. It
was the day after the 9-11 attack on the Twin Towers that my heart started
beating very erratically. I asked my
neighbor to take me to the hospital.
They controlled it, but set it up for me to receive my first
pacemaker. As the batteries wear out,
new pacemakers are put in. I now have my
fourth one.
In 2005, I had to have a
bowel resection to remove a pre-cancerous polyp. It became difficult for me to eat for some
time afterwards and I was very uncomfortable.
I went in for another surgery by a different surgeon. He discovered that the first surgeon accidentally
sutured too close to my stomach area and my food couldn’t get through
correctly. So I had to have a stomach
bypass done.
The next year I got very
ill, got dehydrated, and passed out on the floor. Fortunately Shirley was home to help me. She couldn’t find a pulse, so she struck my
chest to revive me. I was taken to the
hospital and found that I had E coli. I
remembered that I had bought frozen cheeseburgers and then realized that was
what made me sick.
Other than a few minor
operations, I remained in good health until 2012. We had just arrived in Maryland to go to a
Surveyor Conference. After checking in,
we realized that I needed to cancel my conference and go back home to the
hospital. This time, it was dehydration
from the flu that I had been sick will a few days earlier. They told me that I had severe kidney
trauma. So once again I may have come
close to dying.
Now, five years later, I
thank God for His protection and grace.
I am now 75 years old as I write this, and am still enjoying doing
surveys. It is easier for me now, as I
have an experienced assistant that I have trained for many years. He does most of the physical work of
operating the instrument and digging out property markers. I go along to hold the prism pole that we
measure distances to. We both share the
drafting work using our computers to research and draw, then email back and
forth. I have seen a lot of changes in
the last 53 years when it comes to technology!
To God be the glory for his
protection over my narrow escapes these many times. It was the fact that this couldn’t always be
a coincidence that led me to seek Him in the first place. I will always continue to serve Jesus and
thank Him for dying on that cross to save us and give the free gift of eternal
life to all that will accept Him as their Personal Savior.
Just like I decided to do over forty years
ago, anyone, no matter what they may have done wrong, can ask him to come into
their heart to live and be their Lord and Savior. One who does this and repents, believes that
Jesus died, was buried and rose again on the third day, then shares his new
found faith to someone, will enjoy Heaven and the New Earth forevermore.
A wise and beneficial thing to then start
doing is to read the Bible. I would
suggest the Book of John. Attending a
like-believing fellowship at a church is also very beneficial in one’s new walk
in life. In a church one can learn, be
baptized, be cared and prayed for and make new friends. Remembering that there is no greater friend
than the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
