CHAPTER 140: IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POET NOMORE AGE OF AQUARIUS LET MIRACLES BEGIN 1975-1978

CHAPTER 140. BEGIN THE MIRACLES. 1975-1978

 I thought our pregnancies were all in the past. When Lois loss the seventh child in 1975, she claimed she had the doctors tie her tubes. It would just be us going forward. I was settled with the idea of never being parents. Life was good as it was. I was satisfied with my job and had an extended family at Laurel Hill Bible Church. We were active, very active, extremely active youth ministers, so in a way we had kids, about fifteen. The great advantage was we didn’t have to feed them and clothe them. The money we made was our own and we could really enjoy the good life. We had no  debt, except an occasional car loan and no homeowner responsibilities. We lived in a perfectly beautiful apartment and any repairs were taken care of by management. We just had to pay the rent every month. The only utility bill we had was electricity. Water, heat, trash pickup all came with the lodging.

Lois was even involved with some things that she seemed to enjoy outside of the Word of Life Club. She had taken up ice skating and at Christmas performed in a Christmas Show at the rink as a Dancing Christmas Tree (right).

We had even had money for some travel now We had been to Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Iowa in the early seventies. In 1976 we headed south to Tennessee, crossed that state and came back via Kentucky. I remember how crowded the highway was that snaked through Gatlinburg, bumper to bumper traffic. We stayed over in Knoxville and then down to  Chattanooga. All along the highway between those two cities were billboard saying, “See Ruby Falls”. We never visited Ruby Falls, however. 

After a day in Chattanooga we turned west for Nashville. We did
get into Greenville and the home of  Andrew Johnson.

We remained in Nashville about three nights. We took a tour of the Stars homes and Spent time in the Wax Museum.

I started off driving with an idea of going to Hannibal, Missouri, the location of much

of Mark Twain’s legend. I had tried making it to there on our previous trip on our way back  from Wisconsin, but halfway down Iowa I couldn’t take the flat land anymore and turned east. Now I thought we could cross Tennessee and go there, but then realized our schedule wouldn’t  allow it and I turned northward into Kentucky instead.

We got to one of the large thoroughbred horse farms. We also toured the Jim Bean distillery. We had a motel in the same town and that evening as we were walking in the town we saw a lady across the street collapse. We hurried  over and she was unconscious. I left Lois with her and knocked  on doors

until a person answer and had them call the police. ) Did not have cell phones in those days, and by that year only 17% of the United States was serviced by 911. The home owner called a local number and soon ambulance and police arrived. As they began attending to the lady, Lois and I just slipped away and returned to the motel. I assume the lady was taken care of, but we didn’t want any fuss made over us. 

One of our last stops in Kentucky was Bowling Green. We ate in this restaurant that had this gigantic salad bar running down the middle. I had never seen anything like it. Not long afterward restaurants back home began featuring salad bars. Perhaps the biggest was La Grande Salad in Glen Mills. It was a big attraction for a number of years, but the fad for large salad bars faded and it closed. A McKenzie’s Brew House occupies the spot now. 

At the end of August of 1977, we took another trip during one of

my vacation weeks, making a tour of Central Pennsylvania. We had made a big circle through the state and near the end of the tour we took a little tram tour through one of the coal mines. After we come out of the ground, Lois complained of not feeling very well. Back at the motel, she said she might be pregnant. How? She claimed her tubes had been tied after the last pregnancy, but she confessed she had lied. (She denies she ever said this today, but she did.) We waited until after another month and she missed her period before following up with her doctor. 

It wasn’t I was concerned about the financial costs of my wife’s pregnancy. We had excellent health insurance, paid for by my employer and if history was any indicator, there would be no resulting child. And there was the real concern, the wellbeing of my wife. She had been devastated by the last baby loss, what would another loss do to her? Even worse, she was risking her life. She had been through this too many times. how much more could her body take?

That was her obstetrician’s stand as well. He had warned before that she was risking her health and doctors had told her she could never have a baby, it was impossible. He stood by those decisions now as he told her she was indeed pregnant. to the point he would not take her case.

There was a doctor attending the church and he was able to obtain a new obstetrician. On October 3 I called my parents to tell them Lois was again expecting. On October 6 she was once again in a hospital being sewn up, a cervical cerclage to hopefully prevent a premature birth…maybe. We’d been down this road before. She came home from the operation on the ninth, then on the tenth was right back to the hospital. She had a reaction to the spinal they had given her. 

On the 11 my mother and grandmother brought us dinner. Lois was
home, but forbidden  to do much. That first day home she had to lay down and drink 1 ounce of flat soda every hour. From that point forward she was not to do anything for the remainder of the term. I rearranged the living room so she had the sofa available for lying upon or sometimes sitting. The TV was where she could watch and the remote was at hand for her. I placed a cooler nearby within arm’s reach with drinks and some food for her. She was restricted to walking short distances when necessary; she could walk to the bathroom or to the bedroom to sleep at night. Everything else that had to be  done fell to me.

However, the church understood our history and plight. A prayer group formed and met weekly to pray for Lois and the baby. Some of the women brought us meals occasionally or helped with the cleaning. My parents were down on November 1 with dinner and they did our laundry. 

Off and on I ran Lois to the doctor, those were her big outings.  On Christmas, my parents came over and brought the whole turkey dinner with them I was sick, really miserable. My parents were over again on December 27 to take Lois to the doctor since I was still ill. They brought me soup and juice. And so the weeks went. On January 29 my father brought me snow tires already mounted on wheels since I had been unable to find any in Jersey. Everyone was sold out.

 On February 3 my cousin Little Francy’s wife Carol, gave birth totheir first child, a girl they named Kelly (left).

That winter was brutal, cold and windy with occasional rain or snow. This was the case on February 26 when Lois told me to take her to the hospital. She was in her dreaded fifth month. I drove her through the night snowfall to John F. Kennedy Hospital in Stratford, New Jersey, perhaps the longest 4 and a half miles I ever drove.  

She was immediately admitted and placed in a labor room. I sat in
the room with her all night until 4:30 AM. They were giving her an IV to retard any labor. She was complaining of the pain she was in. The doctor asked us if they could try a new drug, it was still experimental, but they thought it would strength the baby’s lungs. They said it was something called steroids.

I called my parents the morning of the 28^th. Lois was still in pain. They had taken some of the stitches out and told me the baby might be born at any time. I called the hospital that evening after getting home from work, but nothing had happened yet.

 

I got the call early Tuesday morning of March 1, 1978. The baby, a girl, had been born at 4:00 AM. Lois had a hard time with the delivery. The baby didn’t need to be spanked, she came out howling, protesting leaving her cozy place in the womb. Who knows, maybe it was Roid Rage. She weighted 5 pounds 1 ounce and was 17 inches long. She had a head full of dark brown hair. We named her Laurel Christine.

She was quite premature and they placed her in an incubator.

 My parents came down on March 4. Lois had come home from the
hospital at 9:45 in the morning, but Laurel had to stay there. She had lost weight since her birth and wouldn’t be released until she gained back up to 5 pounds.  My parents came down and we all went to the hospital to see the baby. She was still in the incubator and would remain there for a while. She was all long legs and arms.

They took her out of the incubator on March 7 and placed her in a crib, but she was still in some danger. She was sleeping more and had lost more weight.

 The hospital called us on March 14 and said we should bring some clothes for the baby. She had finally reached 5 pounds and we could take her home. We came in and they handed her to Lois. We had to dress her before they would allow us to leave. We didn’t have a clue how. The nurses stood about laughing at our attempts to put clothes on Laurel. Even the newborn outfits were too large and she kept squirming and kicking and waving her arms about. She was as easy to handle as a greased eel. After a long time of wrestling, we did get her dressed and at last  placed her in a baby seat in our car and took her home. 

A miracle had happened against all odds and we had a living,
breathing child. It was for those faithful who prayed at church that we named her Laurel, after Laurel Hill Bible. We gave her the middle name of Christine, which is French for “follower of Christ”, because Christ was central in our lives.

Lois said she had her tubes tied after Laurel was born. But did she mean it?

CHAPTER 139: IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POET NOMORE AGE OF AQUARIUS BEGINNING BORN AGAIN LIFE 1975-1977

 CHAPTER 139. BEGINNING OUR NEW BORN AGAIN LIFE   1975 - 1977

 

My writing had fallen off during the mid-years of the 1970’s. Life had become too crowded and busy. I had continued my studies at Temple University until the end of 1971 and I didn’t formally enroll at Camden County College until 1977, so there was no formal education going on in the center of that decade. I did take a couple courses there in between for my own self-development, I guess you could say.

 I took a two month course in Basic Auto Repair, it being a time
when you could still get under the hood and have a chance of recognizing something. There wasn’t a computer dictating every move. I had such tools as a timing gun, battery tester and did such basic tune up procedures as gapping the points and changing the spark plugs, timing the engine and adjusting the carburetor, putting in new filters and so on.  I think the last car I ever changed spark plugs myself you had to take half the engine apart to even see them.  The scariest part of this course was the first  assignment; take your car to a car wash and wash the motor. Everyone was sure their car wouldn’t start after power spraying water all over it. The day I went I stopped at a Pep Boys and bought some

wire drier. Lois and I drove to a nearby do-it-yourself car wash. I was shaking when we got there, I was that nervous. Ever since I was a kid I had seen cars sputter out after driving through a deep puddle and the idea of actually hosing down the motor seemed crazy to me. But I flipped the hood, and with trepidation, made that engine shine. Much to my surprise I had no problem starting it.

I took a second course the next year. This had nothing to do with
cars. This was a  Japanese form of Martial Arts called Aikido, or loosely translated, “The Way of Harmony of the Spirit”. What I liked about it was everything was self-defense. With a name like that one might think it was a gentler, kinder self-defense than some of the other forms of battle. True, there were no offense or aggressive movements and you were urged to avoid a fight if at all possible, but if your attacker persisted the object was to disarm them quickly and effectively. Effectively usually meant you left them dead or maimed. It did have its brutal aspects. For instance, if some bully grabbed your shirt front you could easily twist him away and drop him to the ground. As shown in the illustration this was not particularly gently done. It might just leave him writhing about with a broken finger and dislocated shoulder, but it effectively ended any fight in the bully. 

There was a good bit of that “harmony of the spirit” stuff mixed in because it was all wrapped around Far Eastern religion and philosophy, even though my class was a modern form. There was a lot of talk about your “ki” and your opponent’s “ki”. Ki is kind of like your essence or spirit and aiki is focusing on that spirit and controlling it. 

An example of one exercise was this. Suppose a tough threw you down and was holding you prone. You would imagine you are fallen into mud on your hands and knees. You now focus on the “ki” of the mud, that it is sucking you down and you cannot pull free. You are pulled deeper and deeper helplessly. Soon, without a sense that it is happening, you find yourself flat on the floor imprisoned by this nonexistent mud. To escape you reverse gears and focus on your own “ki”, and soon you have pulled free and are standing. 

This kind of thing sounded silly to me, frankly, perhaps a form of self-hypnosis. Nonetheless, it worked magically. You could use that imaginary mud to your advantage to pin a much bigger opponent and kept him contained. You are on top and now you key on that mud and it is pulling you down, further and further, except now your opponent is beneath you and the mud is sucking him down and down and he can’t push you off. I saw some of the smallest young women in the class hold some of the largest men helpless applying this technique. I learned to apply it to a number of life situations. Am I trying to open a pickle jar for the first time? I could picture some force turning it beneath my hand and pop, the stubbornest jar would surrender to the force. Maybe I was becoming a Jedi Knight. Of course now with having ALS I cannot turn even a water bottle cap.

I had become very engaged at Welded Tube, though, especially in 1976 when I took on the duties of the Computer Systems Manager along with being Assistant Controller. More and more of my time outside of work was taken up by Church. Still my writing career continued to some extent.

 Into the early ’70, of course, I was still writing features for
“Philadelphia After Dark” and poetry here and there. In 1970 two of my poems had been selected for inclusion in an anthology of modern American poetry, Dance of the Muse. My last short stories from “Magazine of Horror” also appeared at the beginning of that period.  In 1974, “Animal Lover’s Magazine” bought and published my essay, “Ian”. Other of my work was being published unawares, so I never received the payments due me. “Conjured” appeared in the the March issue of “Startling Mystery Stories”, which featured me as one of the authors listed on the cover. This was the same magazine that published Stephen King’s first professional story in 1967, a year before I sold my first to “Magazine of Horror”. Both publications were owned by the same publisher, Health-Knowledge, Inc. of New York, NY.  

Meanwhile two of my previously published stories were included
in overseas anthologies. “Last Letter from Norman Underwood” (entitled “La ultima carta de Norman Underwood”) was included along with work by Robert Bloch and others in La Chica de Marte y otros relatos (The Mars Girl and other stories). “Les Oeuvres D’Elwin Adams” (“Writings of Elwin Adams” was in the collection, Histoires D’Objects Malefiques (1975 - Stories of Evil Objects) edited by E. C. Bertin, which also contained a stories by Robert Bloch, Agatha Christie and others. 

By then I wasn’t writing about the kind of spirits that go bump in the night, but about the Spirit of God. In 1976 I helped the teens  in the Word of Life Club start and publish their own magazine, “Teens on the Scene for Jesus Christ”, for which I occasionally wrote an essay or poem, but mostly edited what the

kids wrote. Then in 1977 came my play, “Words of Life”, which I directed and we performed about the area.

I did manage to put together another collection of secular short fiction in 1976 called Sins of the Sons. Most of these stories dealt with psychologic crime, including one conceived by my wife and written by us both (she used the pen name of Jean O’Heaney). Three of the 12 stories would be called ironic humor and two were semi-autobiographic, both based on occurrences during my Boy Scout years: “Death of a Scout” and “A Brother to All”. These dealt with prejudice, hazing and bullying. One story in the collection, “Homicide”, was taken many years later (2011) by Fantasist Enterprises.

The tallest man in the world enjoyed it very much. With his eyes shaded from the orange balloon not far above, he swept the city with a gentle turn of head. He saw over the pointed towers of the buildings and counted the wire nettings of tinfoil spiders. He viewed the distant bridges spanning the river, not quite seeing the dirty water, but he could watch the smoke clouding the factories along the banks. The smoke was thick as pudding at places and thin as soup steam at others.

The tallest man in the world looked upon the smaller people. The tiny nervous dots moving as bumbling masses below him. He smiled, almost laughed. For the first time in life he was satisfied and glad he had made a decision. It was pleasant to know the wind with such intimacy. The tallest man  in the world relaxed against the concrete wall.

An artificial voice from the artificial world roared through the canyons and echoed from the skyscraping peaks around him. The words were like sound inside a pipe.

“Professor, listen to us.”

Excerpt from “Homicide” (1966)

First Writes

Fantastic Enterprise

Published 2011

William H. Hornet, Editer

Malvern, Pa.

In my collection, Sins of the Sons (1974)

 

Our social life outside of the church was mostly with Victor and Marsha Ernest and sometimes with Joe and Linda Rubio. Otherwise there were several people we occasionally visited with connected to the

church. I had mentioned the Van der veers, Webbers, McFalls and Biads earlier. We had also become friends with a people in our apartment complex, a nice young couple who we got together with named Dale (left) and Cathy (right) Yonkin. They had a toddler  son named Andrew.

Another person we became friends with from church was Wayne Bonner (bottom left). He was a young man and independent contractor who was building homes in South Jersey. We had discussed buying a house at the time, but we just couldn’t decide, which was probably God guiding us away from a bad decision.

 It was in this period we went with several other couples to the
Poconos. We did this both at the end of 1975 and 1976, driving up the day after Christmas and remaining until the day after New Year. We had occasionally gotten together with these people over the years. We met them through Mary Lou Marple Pappolla, one of Lois’ longtime friends from her grade school days (right with Lois). Mary Lou had been one of the Bridesmaids in our wedding party.

 Most of the others had been or were coworkers or college friends of Mary Lou and their husbands or boyfriends.  Mary Lou, Ruth, Judy (napping on the left) and a couple others were Social Workers and I think all had graduated from Penn State. I had been a Sociology Major at Temple University, so I was somewhat familiar with the field. There were a  number of very interesting conversations indulged in during our gatherings. I’m not sure if Rich, who went with Ruth was also a Social Worker or not (Rich and Ruth on right). Mary Lou’s husband, Tommy, definitely wasn’t.

Tommy (with Rich on the right helping bring the Christmas Tree
after getting it off the  car roof) and Mary Lou were so diametrically opposite in all except height (both were rather short, Mary Lou was only 4 foot 10). She was the college grad, champion of the downtrodden, a vocal Liberal. He was the street-savvy, self-made construction contractor, and a vocal anti-liberal. I can’t quite imagine what dinner table conversations were like at their home, just as I have trouble picturing James Carville and Mary Matalin co-existing. Tommy and Mary Lou would be like Archie Bunker married to Maude. I liked Tommy. He was funny and honest, and always ready to help someone. He had poor health in the decades that followed our  Pocono outing. He lost his legs to diabetes. He died at age 75 in February 2007. His children from a previous marriage, Wayne and Donnamarie spent those New Years with us at Nemanie Lodge above Lake Wallenpaupack.

We rented out all of Cottage #1, which had room to sleep 10 couples. It had a kitchen and a great room where we usually gathered in the evenings before a large fireplace and held our discussions. Every couple brought food for the week and we took turns with the cooking. I remember the first night we planned to pop popcorn over the hearth, but no one had brought popping oil. The only oil we had was garlic oil, which cooked up an odd tasting and smelly popcorn. Richard, Tommy and I

drove down  along the mountain next day and found an open general store where we could buy some oil. (Right, me at Lake Wallenpaupack cabins, 1975.)

While on this trek, Richard s
potted an iceboat for rent and we hauled that back to the lodge atop the roof of his jeep. I don’t recall seeing any other people around during those end-of-year  trips, we always had the Lake to ourselves. There was a rugged drive from the cabin to the lakefront and we drove down and right out onto the ice. That is how cold was that winter. The ice was thick and strong enough you could drive a jeep right across it. We launched the iceboat and took turns riding the winds. It had a triangular frame with ice blades at each point and a sail. The wind really carried it across that ice and you had to learn how to control the gusts and currents, but man, what fun. 

We had a big spread on New Year’s Eve and then blasted in the
New Year itself. Those are times I do sometimes miss. My wife was a very sexy looking snow  bunny. We did a lot of sledding down the long slope of the mountain side onto the ice, but of course, like life, afterward we had to make the slough back up with sled in tow.

1975, ’76 and ’77 went by in a blur of activity and really a  kind of peace. As is often said, all was right with the world and the hope was it wouldn’t change.

But it would

.

In the midst of everything, Lois looked at me  one day and said, “I think I’m pregnant.” Hey, she had been pregnant seven times so she ought to know, but how was this possible. She had said she her tubes tied after the last loss? Well, she lied and now she was sure she was two months along. We went back to her OBY guy and he wouldn’t take her, he insisted it was impossible and dangerous for her and I guess he feared a lawsuit. It was, as they say, a pickle.

CHAPTER 138: IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POET NOMORE AGE OF AQUARIUS A CHRISTIAN LIFE 1975-1977

CHAPTER 138.  A CHRISTIAN AGE BEGINS.  1975 - 1977

 

Just to review where we were at this time in our lives. We had lost our seventh baby due to a weakness in my wife’s cervix. She could not hold the fetus in place beyond 5 months. Four of the losses came in the fourth month, just short of that deadline; three were born after five months had been reached. If before the five months they were classified as miscarriages; after as still births. Although these three lived briefly after being born it wasn’t for long. . If these early births had occurred in our present day most, if not all, would have probably survived. That is how far birth science has progressed. This was not the situation in the 1960s and 1970s. The doctors concluded my wife would not and could not ever carry a baby to a point of viability and warned against any future pregnancy. My wife claimed she had now complied and had her tubes tied after she lost the seventh child, a girl we called Amy.

After we lost the seventh baby, my wife sank into a debilitating depression and in desperation we did what we had avoided for nearly a decade. We entered a church. Its name was Laurel Hill Bible Church, a spanking new construction along Blackwood-Clementon Road just down the road from our apartment. 

 Although the building and location were new, the Pastor and Congregation were not. They had simply outgrew their old building called Laurel Springs Church (right). How strangely coincidental wasn’t it? Here was this Atheist, whose wife had lost seven babies, who suddenly accepted that a God might exist because he listened to the heart beat of a last doomed child, but still needed something further to complete that message. It is odd, is it not, that in Biblical numerology the number 7 stands for completeness.  This last loss completed a phase of our lives and the lost of any more babies. 

Although the label on the bulletin handed to me as we entered that
church scared me to death because it read, “Fundamentalist”, nothing untoward happened, no weird behavior, no people slammed a Bible over my head, nothing except friendliness and a invite to come again.

Come again we did. We came the next Sunday and the next. On that third visit the Pastor, Fred Diven preached from James 5, 15-18.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

 I was caught by the words I was hearing. It seemed as if Pastor Diven was speaking directly to me, everything he said was my life up until that moment. At the end of the service he stated anyone who wanted prayer should raise their hand. I raised my hand. What could it hurt? They did an alter call almost every Sunday and did so that day as well, but I wasn’t making that trip out in front of everyone. We were all supposed to have our eyes closed, but maybe someone was peaking. I often did.

But his message of redemption and salvation stayed with me. Having been brought up by hook or crook against my will in the Methodist Church, before it turned too liberal, I did know the basic procedure and something of the Sinner’s Prayer. That Tuesday I knelt down next to my desk where I wrote and stumbled through my version of it.

There wasn’t any sudden flash of light or voices from Heaven. I
didn’t burst out in song, nothing like that. That mysterious cross did not appear again on any of my walls. I think the first thing I  did was follow an urge and toss all the pornographic magazines I tucked about the apartment into the trash. Well, that’s no big deal. It is the kind of thing many do when they believe that they had an epiphany about something, one of those spur of the moment actions in a burst of

enthusiasm,  like a smoker crushing his cigarettes or an alcoholic pouring her cooking sherry into the toilet. How could I be sure I wouldn’t be running to the nearest adult bookstore by Thursday.

I did feel different. I felt light as if some burden had been taken off me, but what really convinced me of real change was when I dug a Bible off the bookshelf. I hadn’t done that much in recent years, the top of the thing was pretty dusty. I sat down and read at random and that was when I noticed something. I had read Bible passages many times in my life and most of them made very little sense to me. Now a sudden I could understand what I read. And amazingly, it was interesting. The more I read the Bible, the more it made logical sense, and the more I wanted to read.

We began being church mice; that is, we were attending other

than just Sunday morning. We were going to the  the Sunday evening service and the Wednesday Night Bible Study and Prayer Meeting. I noticed as we did that my wife was coming out of her depression, she was becoming human again. We also began to make friends with people at Laurel Hill. A couple we  began socializing with was Rick and Mary Lee

Webber. I had begun bonding with Rick through shared ministries we were involved in, especially the sound and sight controls for services. I had been in Audio-Visual Club in Junior High School so it seemed an area they had a need that I could fill. 

 

Rick was already involved in this activity and now we worked together. We sat in a small booth at the top and rear of the balcony and ran all the sound equipment, projectors, etc. during services. We didn’t work every Sunday, we shared duties with a few others so no one was stuck doing it every week; however, Rick (left) and I sort of became the chief operators and we generally did any special services as well as every third Sunday.

Being together a lot in that little booth we became quick friends and soon he and his wife, Mary Lee Webber (right), and we would visit each other.  

Rick and Mary Lee were very active, perhaps a bit too much.

Their children were growing up in the church quite literally. They were at the building so often the sanctuary was a playground to the kids. There is a saying sometimes bandied about in the church community, “So Heavenly minded you’re no earthly good”.  Sometimes we forget that serving God may actually entail a bit less serving the building and a bit more exampling the faith. 

 I was certainly in danger of this. I was quickly into all sorts of ministry, even though I was a new Christian and needed more guidance than being a guide, but like many a new convert in anything my enthusiasm was unbounded. On Sundays when I wasn’t manning the audio-visual booth, I was Ushering. Then before one could blink I became an active member of the Visitation Team, going out on Tuesday evening to the home of anyone who dropped a visitor card in the collection plate.  Lois and I also joined the Adult Fellowship almost immediately. Despite being new members of Laurel Hill and having accept Christ as my Savior only in September, Lois and I were elected the Leaders of the Adult Fellowship (left) by that December. 

 

Things got even more active in 1976. I assisted as a leader for Boy’s Brigade, a Christian organization patterned after the Cub Scouts. I taught Bible School that summer. If I wasn’t at work, I was at the church doing something.

Bill Bright’s Campus Crusade for Christ  launched a nationwide campaign called “I Found It”. I became the Publicity Coordinator for the South Jersey area. I was training people, making speeches, meeting with media and ministers. I was at a phone bank along  Philadelphia’s City Line Avenue making calls. At one point I was on the street making cold home visits in neighborhoods and delivering the Gospel message. It was an intense and busy time. We handed out small booklets called “Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws:

Law one: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life

Law two: Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he can not know and experience God’s love and plan for his life

Law three: Jesus Christ is God’s ONLY provision for man’s sin. Through Him you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life 

Law Four: We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our life

Lois and I also attended the week long seminar at the Philadelphia

Convention Center of Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts Seminar. In fact, we attended two years in a row. 

Before the year was out we

became youth ministers for Laurel Hill’s chapter of Word of Life Bible Clubs. With two other married couples, we planned, designed and ran the meetings of the junior high aged kids in our church. This was almost a full time job in itself and Lois was never really happy doing it, but did it because she knew how much I wanted to. In the photo we stand in the rear next to another couple on our team, The Ditmans. One of the other leaders, Bruce Gardner, is on the far right. I think Bruce’s wife took the picture. We were doing a Christian Service of cleaning car windows, thus the paper towels.

Thirteen to fifteen year olds can be a rough bunch to deal with,

I’m sure most junior high school teachers will tell you that. To herd them together more at the insistence of their parents  than themselves for some Bible lessons and goody-two-shoes talk is a challenge.  I found it interesting, probably harking back to my teen years in MYF. I wasn’t afraid to challenge them to think more than lecture on dos and don’ts.

I had quite a record collection by then, all kinds of music. Pastor Diven and others were trying to urge youth to destroy their Rock records, but I thought it would be better to utilize them for lessons. We sat about and analyzed the lyrics, broke down what the subject was and how it was presented. Better to understand what was being aimed at you then just be told it was evil. 

In 1976 I wrote a long piece called “Words of Life”, which combined Bible passages with hymns. Every kid in the club had a part in the play and we took it on the road, performing at other churches and in Nursing Homes (generally referred to in those days as “Old Folks’ Homes”).

I sometimes wrote short plays for our meetings.

PREACHER: Come on.  I heard you say you wish you could fly away/

(The curtain closes behind them and the stage is darkened while two chairs are placed down stage center.  When the lights come back up, TOM and the PREACHER are in these seats as if they were flying an airplane.)

TOM: (Looking nervous.)  How can you fly?  It’s so overcast can’t even see the airport lights.

PREACHER: Relax.  I’m flying by instruments.

TOM: Hey! We’re dipping!

PREACHER: No, we’re flying level.

TOM: We’re going down! Do something! Pull us up!

PREACHER: Tom, what you’re experiencing is called vertigo.  You’re letting feelings rule the facts.  Pilot’s that do that end up crashing.  Look here.  See these instruments?  This is my bank and turn indicator.  It tells me which way and how fast I make a turn.  Here is my artificial horizon.  It gives me my relationship to earth.  And this is my directional gyro, which shows me the course.  I can see we are flying straight and level, but with no outside perspective you feel as if you were falling.  See, you can’t trust your feelings.  The same is true in spiritual matters.  Don’t listen to Satan or anyone else. Turn to your instrument panel, the Bible, for the facts.  Then you will fly straight.

(Exit TOM and the PREACHER.  Enter LEADER, who stands at the lectern.)

LEADER: Like TOM in the play, you may have doubts.  Old Satan steps in and disarms you, and you crash.  A doubting dizzy Christian is worth more to Satan than a dozen drunkards.  When the Lord saves you, it’s forever.  Done. Complete. You get reborn, you can’t be unborn.  No man can pluck you from Jesus’ hand.  You will still sin.  But when you do, confess it to the Lord and he’ll forgive and forget.  He promised.

Except from a short play, So You Got Saved Last Night (1977)

            originally staged at the Laurel Hill Bible Church, Laurel Springs, N. J.,

January 19, 1977 at 7:30 PM.

                  Written and directed by Larry E. Meredith

In between weekly meetings we did either social fellowships, such as going horseback riding, or Christian Service. One Christian Service we did was go  to the nearby strip malls and wash car windows in the parking lot. We would place a tract under the

wipers. If a car owner appeared we explained what  we were doing and tell them, we weren’t raising funds. If they tried to give us any money, we would refuse it and simply ask they read the tract. 

One of the weekly challenges we gave was when in school that

week to tell their classmates they were a Christian. We didn’t ask them to go into any long spiel, just to tell other kids they  were Christian and see where that led. Part of this was to get them over any fear of presenting their belief publicly. Of course, anything we assigned to the kids, we leaders had to do. Therefore we had to tell our fellow workers we were Christians. I met with no problem from anyone I told. Some asked some questions, most just accepted it matter of fact; however, after that I found when someone in the office was struggling with life difficulties, they would come and ask to talk with me. The kids reported back with kind of the same experience. This was in the mid 1970s; I am not sure what would have happened if the same assignment was given today. The kids would have probably been reprimanded for such religious activity within their schools.

This was our life then, working and going to church.

We quickly lost some of our old friends, especially the Stones. We had tried continuing getting together, but they felt we had changed too much, we were now too boring and we just stopped seeing each other. Bill died a few years ago, I do not know where Grace is today assuming she is still alive. Bill had been ten years older than Grace, Lois and I. If he were alive he’d be 89 now.

 The Pastor was Dr. Frederick C. Diven and his wife was JoyMundell Diven. They had two children, Gwen Olivia and a son Douglas.  Dr. Diven died July 28, 2017 in Sebastian, Florida from myasthenia graves complications. He was 82 years old. His wife preceded him in death.

His wife was very quiet and receded into the background. Her name was Joy, but it wasn’t an emotion she displayed very often. Joy was never really joyful. She was somewhat mousy and a nervous woman. Joy Louise Diven died in February 17, of 2015 at the age of 81.

The photo was taken late in Pastor Diven’s life. I remember him from when he was in his early 40s. We didn’t socialize with Pastor Diven, he was not the socializing type. Frankly, he was rather oft-putting. He was somewhat prideful, although sometimes in laughable ways. He wore a cheap toupee and dressed often in a green leisure suit on Sundays, one of those outfits with the oversized lapels. He had grand schemes for Laurel Hill, none of which materialized, at least while we were there. One was a desire to open a Christian school, a strange desire since he really was uncomfortable with the kids attending Word of Life events in the church, fearful constantly of their scuffing up the floors or breaking something.

He also had a strong desire to become a radio evangelist.

Frederick Diven was a dour man, stand offish, not at all likable as his brother-in-law, Pastor Raymond Van der veer, who was married to Joy’s sister Pearl. Pearl was very outgoing and down to earth, she and
Lois bonded and wrote each other until Pearl’s death. Pearl  died on February 28, 2015 in Stratford, NJ. She was 91 years old Her husband, Reverend Raymond Van der veer died at the age of 77, on September 14, 2001. Pearl and Ray ran the Cedar Lane Missionary homes when Lois and I befriends them in 1975. Previously they had together founded Bible Baptist Church in Claymont, Delaware. Pastor Diven’ wife’s Joy’s sister, Pearl, is the one who should have had the name of Joy. She and her husband, Reverend Raymond Van der veer were both joyful people. Lois and Pearl became friends and for many after those years they still wrote to each other. Pearl passed away in 1917.

Ray and Pearl during the 1970s directed the Cedar Lane Missionary Homes, located just behind Laurel Hill. These were cottages where missionaries would come to from off the mission field at times and stay.  They also retired to Florida and it was there that Ray died, after which Pearl moved to New Jersey. Pearl never liked Florida and she moved back to live with their daughter Gwen.

It is a small world, for Ray and Pearl often spoke with fondness, and some wistfulness, about a church they had started  and Pastored in Claymont Delaware called Bible Baptist. They had begun it in an abandoned movie theater and finally been able to build a proper church (left). It was called Bible Baptist and would play a role in my life some years later. 

 We also became friends with Rusty and Beth Van der veer (right),

who were closer to our age. Rusty was Ray and Pearl’s son. At one point Rusty and I began writing a play we titled, A Little Fuss. The concept was how the Passion Week would be covered if the media of 1976 existed then. 

(A Street in Bethany during Tuesday evening.)

(CLAY ADAMS enters, looking at the houses.)

(ADAMS is a reporter. He is middle-aged, hardened, cynical, and at the moment, dusty.)

(Another MAN enters the street from the other direction.)

CLAY

Excuse me, sir.

MAN

Uh?

CLAY

Excuse me, but could you tell me where to find Simon the Leper’s house.

MAN

(Suspiciously.)

You one of his?

CLAY

Whose?

MAN

That Nazarene, Jesu barJoseph.

CLAY

Never met the man. But I am looking for him. I was told I’d find him at Simon the Leper’s tonight.

MAN

(Pointing.)

That house. Eating with lepers and sinners. One don’t kill him, the other might.  Listen, don’t go falling for any of his talk. I hear he’s a fancy talker.

CLAY

You never heard him yourself?

MAN

Never heard him. Never seen him. Never want to. Nothing good ever came out of Nazareth

.(Whispers.)

I hear rumors, though. I hear he’s illegitimate.

CLAY

May I quote you?

MAN

Say what? Quote me? To who?

CLAY

My names Clay Adams. I’m a reporter for the Times. We heard there was a little fuss in Jerusalem last Sunday. I was sent down to check out the story, if there is one.

MAN

You can quote this: those people in Jerusalem were fools. They 

think he’s some kind of king. Well, I say he’s the son of a whore and  should be put away before trouble starts for us all. He’ll come to a bad end, mark my words.

Excerpt from the Play,A Little Fuzz (1977)

By Larry Eugene Meredith & Rusty Van der veer

Pine Hill, N.J.

Unfortunately we never finished it. We also collaborated on a story called, “Monster of Little Big Bridge”, but we didn’t finish that work either. 

Another couple we became involved with for a short time were
Abderrahim and Lennie Biad. They were missionaries stateside on furlough and staying at Cedar Lane. He was from Morocco, a country he could not return to because he had a price on his head for preaching Christ. They were in the states raising support to return to the mission field, which would be to the Muslim population in Paris. They  did eventually go to France, but I don’t know their fate after they left New Jersey.

All our new friends weren’t directly connected to churches or missions. For instance we befriended the Bob McFalls, (left with his family) who was a Special Agent of the FBI, even if he didn’t look like Hollywood’s version of an FBI Agent.

Our life in the mid 1970s was

far from what it had been when the decade started. The porno magazines had all been replaced by Christian books and my record collection now had such artists as Jimmy Swaggart, The Harbor Lights, Honeytree  (Nancy Heniggbaum - right), Bill Gaither Trio, Tony Valenti and other Christian singers then popular. My car radio was preset on WVCH, a Christian station out of Chester, Pennsylvania that broadcast such shows as Chuck Swindoll and Oliver B.  Green, or Harold Camping’s (left) Family Radio. This was many years before Camping got into predicting the date the world

would end. He was a fairly respected Christian commentator back then. He fell into disgrace after predicting the Second coming of Christ. Camping had strayed from Scripture in his later years and he had predicted the Second Coming would be about September 6, 1994. When  it didn’t happen he changed the date to May 21, 2011. Many people believed him and they lost everything when it didn’t happen.  In October 2011 he retired from actively preaching on radio. He died in Alameda, CA. on

December 15, 2013 at the age of 92.

My life was busy and happy, actually, but I was definitely into too much too early as a new Christian. Something would soon change all this over involvement and that something was indeed a miracle.