My Life Story - Diskbooks Electronic Publishing

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My Life Story © 2014, 2004, 2013, by G. Edwin Lint My Life Story -- 1 – G. Edwin Lint My Life Story by G. Edwin Lint © 2014, 2012, 2004 by G. Edwin Lint Preamble Send email Updated August 7, 2014 My wife, Nancy, has been bugging me to write my life story for some years, now. It’s not that I’ve ever done anything all that wonderful. But let’s face it; now that I’m in my 80s, the chances increase daily that my memory will fail. If/when it does, a major segment of my life’s history will go with it. Therefore, I’m putting it in writing, via the computer. As my 70th birthday approached in March 2004, the family started talking about the importance of all the Decade Birthdays. So, I dropped the Life Story and wrote an outline I called the Seven Decades of My Life. Once my birthday celebration was off my radar screen, Nancy again reminded me of the life story I was supposed to be writing; so, back to My Life Story. By the time you read this, this will be a history, of a sort. My Life Story is organized by decades starting with the 1930s through 2000s. Under these major headings will be various subheads organized in more or less chronological order. This is a work in progress. If you find an item I have missed and you think it should be included, bring it to my attention. Do the same if you see a factual or typographical error. Since the project is on my computer, it is relatively easy to make changes. If you’re reading this on-line, the best way to navigate through the whole PDF document is to use the bookmark icon that will appear in the gray area to the left of the main text area. So, for your amusement and edification, here is My Life Story. G. Edwin Lint August 7, 2014 My Life Story -- 2 – G. Edwin Lint This book is available on line in PDF format at: http://www.diskbooks.org/mylifestory.pdf Click this link to download this 196-page document to your desktop. My Life Story -- 3 – G. Edwin Lint Table of Contents Preamble Updated August 7, 2014 Table of Contents 1934 through 1939 The Pilgrim Holiness Church of the Northeast The Lint family Rev. J. Franklin Lint, Sr. He had a keen sense of humor He was an excellent public speaker and platform persona Dad and caffeine Clean speech 1940 through 1949 Piano lessons. Pennsylvania Dutch Country School The country church My first full-size bike First sex education My first paying job Moving to Allentown Hello G. Edwin Trumpet Instead of Piano Eddie Heist and Ping Pong Algebra, final exam Mr. Gossey and Miss Burke 1950 through 1959 Dr. Melvin E. Dieter Bob Adams 1949 Mercury New District Parsonage Private School Here is what the 1952 Beacon [yearbook] says about me: Enter the Hile Sisters The Free Lunch Dad’s Girl Lecture I kissed Nancy for the first time on that walk Going Steady Average is better than normal. The 1951 Mercury Parable The First Thanksgiving. Nancy and Grocery Stores EPC Dress Code My Life Story -- 4 – G. Edwin Lint Nancy Moves to Allentown Social Life at EPC Back problems The Break Up Nancy back in Allentown as a college student Part Time Jobs Wet Sheet Packs My First Car Nancy Forever Our First Apartment Wedding Day: August 4, 1956 First New Car Moving to Millville Back to life in a parsonage Should we move to Washington? Time for a family Hello, Judith Carol: September 9, 1958 May I watch teebee? Judy and DogDog Slow going at the church Moving to Cedarville 1960 through 1969 Judy’s Rocking Horse Davy’s bow ties Bachelor of Science in Bible My First EKG Arlene Village Christmas candles in the windows Judy’s first day of school Port Elizabeth Friends Almond Road Colony, Vineland State School Director of Education New Jersey Institutions and Agencies Education Association. Management Trainer Princeton Education Back to Pennsylvania James Alan: October 27, 1967 Moving to Mifflinburg 836 Chestnut Street The broken crystal chandelier The Laurelton carpenter shop welcome party Bill and Irene Culp Seth and Judy Ziegler; Ron and Bonnie Derk My Life Story -- 5 – G. Edwin Lint Vacation at the beach Back to the Newcastle in September, 2013 Baseball and Gene Woodling. Dave’s First Little League Home Run Assistant Superintendent Sequential Training and Evaluation Profile (STEP). Scrip Economy Peace Evangelism Group [PEG]: Pennsylvania Council on Alcohol Problems Should we move to Denver? Dr. Kroner goes into private practice Our last child Good-bye, Mom: July 9, 1971 Jessica Lee: July 25, 1971 Right to Education Consent Agreement Another Harrisburg assignment Interim Pastor of Jersey Shore Nazarene Director of Christian Education The new pastor Buying Radio Station WJJR Christian and Missionary Alliance [CMA] Church in Lewisburg Back to Laurelton and the CSIU 16 Child-Based Information System [CBIS] Laurelton Unit Manager Laid Off Renouncing my Option 2 status The Life Story of my first Novel From Non-essential employee to Unit Manager Administrator on Duty [AOD]. Transferring to the Pennsylvania Department of Education in Harrisburg Commute or Move Working in Harrisburg: November 2, 1979 P.L. 94-142: Education for All Handicapped Children Act 1980 through 1989 Moving to the Harrisburg Area: March 21, 1981 Special Education Resource System. [SERS]. Jim and the Emergency Room Motorcycle fever Hello Apple computers My first computer Christian Life Assembly Our first baby gets married Judy and Pat's wedding; bride's family My Life Story -- 6 – G. Edwin Lint The PennSTAR Team Dr. Gary Makuch out; Tucker in Computer coordinator 1990 through 1999 My fat Elvis days Back on live radio Jack of all trades; master of a few Retirement in sight Final countdown Salvaging PennSTAR and learning to use a Windows computer Welcome back, Republicans! The final days The last day of my employment My first retirement goals DiskBooks Electronic Publishing My first Macintosh computer system Quintuple By-pass Surgery Dillon James Lint Pop and Nana Victoria Madlein Carney, March 5, 1997 Gospel Caravan on hiatus Implantable Cardio Defibrillator [ICD]. Jessi gets married to Steven M. Cherrico, February 1998 Jim marries Victoria Bingham, August 1, 1998. Family Sunday Dinners Upgrading Our House. 2000 through 2009 The Y2K [Year 2 thousand] Scare Broadcasting on Internet Radio Judy moves back home – temporarily! Learning to use a digital camera. Pastor Steve and The Rock Community. Enter Justus Maxwell Cherrico: February 22, 2005 Justus Dedicated to the Lord Back Trouble Revisited A High Tech Christmas The Golden Anniversary Dad Followed Mother in November, 2006 Putting 106 Brookside on the Market Welcome Nathan Jack 2010 through 20xx Harrisburg Hospital, Holy Spirit Hospital, Manor Care rehab center My Life Story -- 7 – G. Edwin Lint 2010 Caddy SRX While at Manor Care, I was scheduled to be on the DaVita Camp Hill dialysis machine for 4.5 hours per session, three sessions per week. One day while I was in the dialysis chair, Joanne Knapp, RN, gave me a booklet about peritoneal dialysis [PD]. With this type of treatment, I could take a portable machine home with me and have more freedom and a more normal diet. Peritoneal dialysis PD is a treatment for patients Nancy’s Fall Timber Cataract surgery Family Portrait Welcome Corina Madlein Cherrico Kidney regression Anti-Obama blogs Kidney problems revisited Graft clotting More graft clotting Big 8-0: Here is the birthday group, on Dave's deck Label, the Endtimes Arch Angel: My first novel, Short of breath again Another Heart Cath West Shore Hospital Bedside Dialysis Thank the Lord for his protection while Nancy was driving alone while I was in the hospital. My Life Story -- 8 – G. Edwin Lint My Life Story by G. Edwin Lint Send email 1934 through 1939 Born into a parsonage. I was born March 10, 1934, into a parsonage while Dad pastored a Pilgrim Holiness Church. The earliest thing I can remember with clarity is going to the altar after a Sunday evening service at the Bush Hollow [Pennsylvania] Pilgrim Holiness Church. After I prayed and asked Jesus to come into my heart, I went back to the front seat where Gram had left her coat before she went up to pray with the seekers. I spread out that coat and fell asleep. I was about four years old. Church played a large role in my young life, just like all kids born into evangelical homes in the thirties. There was Sunday school and church every Sunday morning. Sunday dinner was the big meal of the week followed by a Sunday afternoon nap. Napping was one thing we could do on Sunday that wasn’t against anything in the Church Manual. Sunday evening, there was an evangelistic service often preceded by a “youth service”. Wednesday My Life Story -- 9 – G. Edwin Lint night there was prayer meeting, consisting of a Sunday-type service, often peppered by testimonies. A testimony was supposed to consist of an oral report from worshippers of how the Lord had saved and sanctified them and was helping them during the week. However, many testimonies consisted of a recitation of aches and pains and of trials and tribulations, instead of reports of spiritual victory. Come to think of it, many testimonies I will hear in the next century are more aches and pains than victory reports. When I was born, my parents were living in a Pilgrim Holiness Church parsonage in Coleville, Pennsylvania. This was a suburb of Bellefonte, in Centre County. My Dad was the pastor of the church at Coleville, as well as Bush Hollow. As memory serves, these two churches were on a sort of circuit. My maternal grandmother, Rev. Florein Strohl, was living with our family and also was involved with churches on this circuit in some way. [Since all the principals in this part of the story are now gone to be with the Lord, you’ll have to trust my seventy-eight year memory.] My first personal recollection of the Bible was sitting on the lap of my Gram, Rev. Florein Strohl, as she read to me from the Egermier's Bible Story Book about the Old Testament heroes. I can still see that blue cloth cover with the picture of Jesus talking to the children. What a great way for a little kid to spend a rainy afternoon (or any afternoon, for that matter)! [In this portrait, Frank is sitting on Gram’s lap; I am standing between Gram and Mom.] Gram has been in Heaven now for many years. How she must have shouted the glory down when she first found out about how God had authenticated Himself and His Word for this digital My Life Story -- 10 – G. Edwin Lint generation by inserting key words into the Old Testament via Equidistant Letter Sequencing [ELS]. The Pilgrim Holiness Church of the Northeast. Since Dad was a pastor and Gram was also an ordained minister, I guess I got a larger dose of church than did other kids born in the thirties. Not only was Dad a pastor, he was a pastor in the denomination known as the Pilgrim Holiness Church. The Pilgrim Holiness Church in the northeast was extremely conservative in doctrine and personal behavior. Here are examples of this conservatism from my own family: We boys had to wear long sleeves year around, and this was before the era of churches, homes, and cars having air conditioning. Younger boys with short pants had to wear long, cotton stockings: brown during the week and white on Sundays. Our sister had to wear long sleeves and long, cotton stockings year around, also. She was never allowed to wear slacks or any garment other than dresses and long cotton brown or white stockings. We were never allowed to go to the movies. I can remember once when an educational film was being shown in my class at school, Dad sent a note that I was not allowed to watch it. So, I had to go to another room during the movie. “Worldly amusements” were forbidden. When I played trumpet in the junior high school band, I never went to the football games. Again, Dad sent a note and I had a special status in the band. Everything was OK except football games. The night of my high school graduation, I got into trouble for going bowling with church friends. My Life Story -- 11 – G. Edwin Lint My parents never wore wedding rings. Neither did Nancy [openly] until we had left the Pilgrim Holiness Church. Mom never had short hair. It was always long enough to be put up into a bun. Promiscuous [men and women together] bathing at a public beach or swimming pool was forbidden. Some of these evidences of conservatism were generally true throughout the Pilgrim Holiness Church. Others were peculiar to the northeast. We would hear rumors that the Pilgrim Holiness churches in the South and West were more liberal. I know for a fact that the Washington DC district of the Pilgrim Holiness Church dropped the word “Holiness” from its name. The churches there were known as Pilgrim Churches. Dad took a dim view of this practice. Other standards were based on Dad’s personal convictions. Either way, we Lint kids had to toe the line. It was hard enough for all of us but worst for our sister, Janice. All this was true while Dad was a local pastor in the Pilgrim Holiness Church. When he was elected as District Superintendent of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey District of the Pilgrim Holiness Church, you can be sure that things didn’t become any looser in the then-District Parsonage! The Lint family. I am the oldest of four children. According to my birth certificate, my name is Gxxx Edwin Lint. I have never seen my first name in print anywhere other than when referring to me. My first nickname was Gaylie. Eventually, I dropped my first name, using only the G. in my signature from 1948 onward. Here are my siblings, with their nicknames: My Life Story -- 12 – G. Edwin Lint J. Franklin Lint, Junior; July 3, 1939: [Junie; Junior; Frank] Richard Allen Lint, April 13, 1941: [Dickie; Dick] Janice Elaine Lint, January 31, 1945: [Jan] As we boys grew too old for short pants, we only had the long sleeves for people to stare at in the summer heat. But, Janice also had the long, white stockings! I can remember walking with my family along Sunbury’s main street on a July Saturday evening in the 1940s. All the other little girls were wearing bobby socks. And there was Janice, walking along in the July heat with long, white stockings. I am ashamed to say that I tried to walk a little in front of, or behind the rest of the family so I wouldn’t be associated with such strangeness. Rev. J. Franklin Lint, Sr. Please understand that I have no animosity in my heart toward my parents for the way I was raised. On the contrary, I thank them from the bottom of my heart for my Christian heritage. I clearly understand that they had dual restraints upon them. First, they honestly believed there were spiritual and social benefits for their children in the way they raised them. Second, since Dad was a pastor and later a District Superintendent, he had the official standards of the Pilgrim Holiness Church to uphold. My Life Story -- 13 – G. Edwin Lint Dad had many qualities as a man, a father, and a minister that I still look back on with fondness to this day, including the following: He had a keen sense of humor, often masked by a stern professional demeanor. This humor was always there to be discerned by those who knew and loved him well. He was an excellent public speaker and platform persona. When he conducted a public worship service [from a prayer meeting to a wedding] everything was done decently and in order. He possessed the epitome of what is now known as gravitas. In Judy’s and Jessi’s weddings, I performed the traditional function of giving away the bride. Dad performed Judy’s wedding with his customary dignity and strong voice. When Dad said, “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man,” I responded promptly and clearly, “Her mother, Nancy, and I do.” Things didn’t go so well at Jessi’s wedding. Dad had died in 1993 and Dave Spring, the youth pastor at Christ Church in Nashville handled the “who giveth” part of the ceremony. However, he spoke it in a southern drawl, not at all like how I had heard Dad speak over the years. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I know I booted it, to my eternal chagrin and the rest of the family’s amusement! As Dad started into his final years of life, he became feeble in voice. However, when he was asked to present a public prayer, whether around the family altar or in his local church, his public voice and manner appeared and he sounded just like the old days. My Life Story -- 14 – G. Edwin Lint He maximized his rather limited education with a lot of horse sense. He dropped out of school after completing the eleventh grade. But then, he felt called to preach so he went away to Bible Holiness Seminary in Owosso, Michigan. While at BHS, he earned the high school equivalency certificate, a seminary degree, and a preacher’s license, within three years. [He also met his future wife at Owosso: Madlein Fruchey Strohl]. He was without a doubt the most intelligent man I have ever met who didn’t have a four-year college degree. The list has now been expanded to include my wife, Nancy; my daughters, Judy and Jessi; and my eldest son, Dave. My youngest son, Jim, can’t be on this list. Not because he’s not intelligent; he is, but because he has a four year college degree. Dad had a certain disdain for people that had a number of degrees behind their name, but lacked enough sense to come in out of the rain. He had a special, descriptive phrase for such persons; they were Educated beyond their intelligence! Dad and caffeine, Before Dad was saved, he smoked, drank, chewed, and drank prodigious amounts of coffee. He drank coffee for breakfast, supper, and carried coffee in his lunch pail to work, where he drank it room temperature while eating his lunch. He even ate what he later called coffee soup. This was a bowl of hot coffee with bread broken up into it. However, when Dad went to the altar and got saved, “old things passed away and behold, all things became new.” According to his later testimony, this didn’t happen gradually, over a period of time. He knelt down at the altar, addicted to alcohol, nicotine, My Life Story -- 15 – G. Edwin Lint and caffeine. When he stood and walked away from that altar, he walked away clean. He stayed clean for the rest of his life. To him, caffeine was in the same class with all the other things the Lord had saved him from and he never had a cup of coffee, tea, or drank a cola drink until the day he died. Dad did like a hot breakfast drink called Postum. It is still available and is described as a great hot beverage that is 100% natural and naturally caffeine-free. With a great coffee flavor, it's a great alternative to decaf, which still contains 7 to 10 percent caffeine. As far as I am personally concerned, it always did taste nasty and always will. Clean speech. Dad kept his speech free of all profanity, obscenity, and vulgarity. His speech around the house was just as clean as it was from the pulpit. He expected us kids to do likewise. We were allowed to use the term stinker if we passed gas, but that was as rough as we could get while he was around. To this day, I cannot use the term fart in the presence of anyone but my wife, Nancy. 1940 through 1949 First grade. I started school while our family was living [and pastoring] in Stonington, PA. I can still remember my first day of school. I was to go to a one-room country school with all eight grades in one room, with one teacher. It was about a mile from our house, down US Rt. 122 [now PA Rt. 61]. Mom packed a lunch of a Lebanon bologna sandwich and Dad took me to school. But, somebody had goofed; I wasn't old enough for first grade and had to wait till next year. I can still remember how disappointed I was when the teacher said I had to My Life Story -- 16 – G. Edwin Lint wait a year before starting school. Dad took me back home and I ate my first school lunch at the kitchen table! That house in Stonington had no indoor plumbing in the beginning. There was an old fashioned pump outside the kitchen door, and the proverbial outhouse that served both the house and church. A trip to the outhouse on a cold windy day could be very exhilarating in a variety of ways. There was always a Sears or Wards catalog to use as toilet tissue. The index pages always were used first because they were the most flimsy. I hated it when the catalog wore down to nothing but the glossy, colored pages in the front. [This picture shows Dad and me with the church sign, out along now PA 61]. During the 30s, the Works Progress Administration [WPA] built a lot of outhouses for schools, churches, and highway rest areas. I could always recognize a WPA outhouse because they followed the same basic design. They have all but disappeared from America’s highways and byways. This was the depression and the parsonage family felt the pinch to the degree that the tithing congregation felt it. Sometimes the tithe took the form of produce and products from the farms where the church people lived. I can remember one family at Stonington always seemed to have a surplus of scrapple. Therefore, scrapple appeared on the parsonage table quite frequently. Scrapple with syrup for breakfast, cold scrapple sandwiches with mustard for lunch, and grilled scrapple for supper. I can remember other family members kind of grumbling about the heavy diet of scrapple, but I kind of liked it. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Hunger never knew bad bread.” My Life Story -- 17 – G. Edwin Lint Our diet was a little light on sweets and when we had candy, it was a big occasion. One Easter, Dad bought some chocolatecovered marshmallow pigs, about three inches long. After supper, he would get out a pig and a butcher knife. He would cut off a portion of the pig for each person around the table. Everyone was happy to get a piece of pig, no matter where it came from. Since the parsonage was located along US Route 122, and there were a fair number of hobos on the road in those days, we occasionally got someone looking for a meal or some other handout. One time a hobo was invited to share a meal with us and he sat in the kitchen rocking chair while the meal was being prepared. Later on that evening, I came down to the kitchen in my PJs to hang out; I sat in that same rocking chair. During the night, I came down with a case of the screaming itches. Guess what? I had bedbugs. Fortunately, Mom took care of the problem right away, before the infestation could spread to the rest of the house. That night, Dad taught me how to tell a bed bug from regular night bugs that might come in through the window: squash the suspect bug between the forefinger and thumb. Squashed bed bugs gave a distinctive, pungent musky odor. School in Millville, NJ. I don’t remember much of that first year of school in Temple School in Stonington, but I do remember the second grade. In the summer between first and second grade, Dad took a pastorate in Millville, New Jersey, and I really had to struggle with the city school’s second grade curriculum. My Life Story -- 18 – G. Edwin Lint As I remember it, I almost flunked second grade at that school; I believe it was called Northeastern Primary School. I can even remember a parent-teacher conference when the uncertain progress I was making was discussed. For one thing, I had been learning cursive writing in Stonington’s first grade. Apparently, they skipped manuscript and went straight to cursive. When I got to Millville, I had to go back and learn manuscript writing. No wonder have such terrible handwriting today! I I estimate this picture was taken while I was in 5th grade at the Culver School in Millville. Millville had one thing I liked: sidewalks. Our neighbor worked at the Vineland Training School, a private facility for persons with mental disabilities. [Pearl Buck’s daughter was there.] My parents bought me a reconditioned 16-inch sidewalk bike from that school’s surplus. [Little did I dream that I would, in 1965, be Director of Education at the Vineland State School, and live in a state residence, across the street from the Vineland Training School.] I loved to ride that old bike up and down those city sidewalks. Piano lessons. It must have been about this time that Mom decided I should become a pianist. She, herself, was an evangelical pianist in the strictest sense of the word. She could play any song in any key, by ear or by note. After hearing a song once, she could play it with full improvisations, without ever seeing the printed music. Services she played in were always enhanced by her evangelical piano playing, from prayer meetings, to district conference convocations. [ My Life Story -- 19 – G. Edwin Lint Off and on, Mom gave me piano lessons about a total of six years. Both she and the evangelical music world were disappointed. I was not a pianist, budding or otherwise. Today, I can’t play, but it’s not because Mom didn’t try. I just didn’t practice. [Mom is shown here at the piano in Barboursville, WV in the late 60s.] I finally got out of second grade and moved on up to Culver Elementary School. It was 5-7 blocks straight down Third Street there in Millville. I walked to school and on nice days, I even walked home for lunch. At least I was no longer in danger of flunking. My school clothes were the same as all the other city kids: kneelength knickers, argyle [like Nancy’s Dad wore] socks that came up to the knickers, suspenders, and brown leather loafers. [Here I am with Dad in front of the church in my geek clothes.] Bib overalls and clodhoppers. Then disaster struck my fifth grade life. In December of the 5th grade at Culver School, Dad took a pastorate in Rebuck, PA and we had to move again. So, I went from walking to school along sidewalks, to riding the bus to another oneroom school with eight grades in one room and just one teacher for all of us. More or less like the school on the TV show, The Waltons. When I showed up for my first day of school in Rebuck, all the other kids were wearing bib overalls and clodhoppers with heel and toe cleats. Clodhoppers were like ankle boots that laced up My Life Story -- 20 – G. Edwin Lint the front with the top four rows of fasteners being hooks instead of holes. The cleats were metal plates fastened to the heels and toes. Clodhoppers with cleats make a neat clackety-clack sound on hardwood floors like in our school. [Judy: See where Tori gets her love of clickety-clack shoes?] And there I was, with my knickers and golf socks, this new kid who was a preacher’s boy, with glasses, dressed like a geek, and with the first name of Gxxx. Talk about wanting to keep a low profile! I had GEEK written all over me! This is when I decided to change my name the first chance I got. When I got home from school that first day in the Rebuck school, I demanded an extreme wardrobe makeover. Dad and Mom were sympathetic but I learned that wants and needs are two different things. So, I had to wait until Dad had another payday before I got my bib overalls and clodhoppers. Pennsylvania Dutch. English was a second language in Northumberland County [Pa.] of those days. The first language was Pennsylvania Dutch. The teacher had to be bilingual because some first graders came to school without fluent English. I can remember waiting for my turn in the barbershop, and the only English I heard the whole time was, “You’re next.” Country School. The school was divided into four blocks of two grades: first and second, third and fourth, fifth and sixth, and seventh and eighth. The teacher would call us up to the front area of the room by groups where we would sit on the front row of folded-down desk seats. While one group would be up front for a lesson, the other three groups would do home work, monitor what was going on in the front, or just goof off. My Life Story -- 21 – G. Edwin Lint The school had a well with an old-fashioned pump, but the water in our well was condemned. So, drinking water had to be carried from a farm down the road. Two of the older kids would be assigned to get water, a process that consisted of the following: Walk down the road to the well, Take some boards off the well cover, Drop a bucket down into the well on a rope, Pull the bucket back up, Carry it to the school without spilling all of it, and Pour the water into the water container, a crock with a spigot at the bottom. Shooting spit-balls was perfected to an art by some kids [never me]. Whole sheets of Roberts and Meck lined tablet paper would be stuffed in the mouth and chewed to a pulpy mass. Then this projectile would be catapulted off the end of a school ruler, sometimes up at the ceiling. I’m sure some of those balls are still stuck to the ceiling of that school. Another favorite weapon was the barrel of a bullet pencil. We would pull the bullet pencil off one end and the eraser off the other end. The result: a perfect blow-gun for shooting kernels of wheat. The rest rooms consisted of one outhouse for boys and one for girls. Every one carried a lunch, mostly in an old-fashioned lunch bucket; barn-shaped and hinged in the middle with the top half holding a thermos bottle and the bottom half holding the lunch. During recesses and lunch, we played a lot of “whiffle” ball, using a sponge rubber ball. The girls’ outhouse was second base, and someone trying to stretch a single into a double could be thrown out by bouncing the ball off that outhouse. Throwing a guy out at second had a double blessing: make an out, plus scaring the wits out of any poor girls inside. My Life Story -- 22 – G. Edwin Lint In snowy weather we had snow ball fights or went sledding. There was a long, sloping hill that went down behind the school and ended in a creek. This hill was excellent for belly-flopping. When the creek was frozen, the ride ended with a nice slide down the creek. The school had a pot-bellied stove that the teacher or an older student had to keep fired with coal. When we came in from a recess or lunch break, with snow on the ground, everyone’s gloves [and sometimes socks] would be hung up to dry around that stove. Riding the school bus. I was the first kid to be picked up in the morning, [7:15 AM] and the last to be dropped off at night [4:30 PM]. At least I got to know where all the kids lived; mostly in farmhouses along dirt roads. One winter day, I got the bright idea to load a water pistol with Aqua Velva, an after-shave with menthol in it. When each kid got on the bus, I shot him in the face with the Aqua Velva. I seem to remember the pistol being confiscated by the bus driver but not too much else happened. [Dad and I in front of the Rebuck church about 1965.] The country church. The Rebuck Pilgrim Holiness Church was a true country church, complete with WPA outhouses and a cemetery. What I liked best about it was the large number of kids about my age. Many of the people of that church were named Crissinger [CRISS-ing-ur] or related to Crissingers. There was Irving Crissinger; his family owned the Ford garage in Rebuck. My Life Story -- 23 – G. Edwin Lint Cloyd Crissinger; his family owned a dairy in Trevorton. The Harry Crissinger, Marlin Crissinger, and Henry Crissinger families were prosperous farmers. There were two Crissinger girls. Arlene Crissinger married Harold Garrison. [Mr. Garrison would become my high school principal at Eastern Pilgrim College.] Probably there were others I fail to remember. We got to know the Cloyd Crissinger family best. Jim was about my age. His sisters Naomi [Tootie] and Lois were younger. Jim and I exchanged visits at our homes. When Jim came to visit, his dad would drop him off early in the morning as they made the first milk run of the day. Then we were off for a day of fishing, wading, and roaming through the woods. While we were at Rebuck, Dad organized an old-fashioned tent meeting down the road at Red Cross. A large tent was pitched in a field by a school and we kids loved the tent meeting. We saw it as a chance for socializing more than spiritual growth. I can remember wading in the creek beside the tent with the Crissinger kids. Seems like a creek was always available for our amusement. Summer in the country. The Rebuck parsonage was a great place to live in the summer. The house was right beside a small creek with a bridge. Across the road lived Boyd Fager, a boy about my age. Behind the garage, was a thicket of small trees. There is no end of fun that adolescent boys can have in an environment like that. Summer days were spent wading, fishing, and doing things in and around the creek. My Life Story -- 24 – G. Edwin Lint My shoes came off after church Sunday night and didn’t go back on until time to go to Prayer Meeting Wednesday night. Then after Prayer Meeting, the shoes came off again and didn’t go back on until time for Sunday school, next Sunday. The only exception to this shoe rule was a trip to town [Sunbury]. I can remember one day of good fishing when Boyd Fager, Frank, Jim Crissinger, and I caught over 100 fish: chubs, sun fish, suckers, and other creek fish. [My son, Jim, and I made a nostalgia trip back to the Rebuck creek in the 80s. I was able to find our favorite fishing hole and Jim tried his luck there. But, I guess the old creek was just about fished out.] The 1935 Chevy. When we first moved to Rebuck, Dad was driving a ‘35 Chevy with a straightsix engine and three on the floor. By the mid 40s, the Chevy was showing serious signs of wear. But this was the war years, and all automotive production was directed into making jeeps, army trucks, and other military vehicles. Decrepit as it was, this Chevy will always have a special place in my memory vault. It was the first car I ever drove. I was too short to see out the windshield, so Dad made a box for me to sit on. Every once in a while, before I was 16, he’d get out the box and let me drive down the black top road one mile from the parsonage to the church. The circular drive around the church was another driving opportunity. My Life Story -- 25 – G. Edwin Lint Sometimes Dad would let me shift gears while he was driving. I would watch his left foot and when he depressed the clutch, I would shift into the next higher [or lower] gear. [When my children came along, I can remember introducing them to the same shifting routine for our cars that had standard transmissions.] The last trip our family made in the ‘35 Chevy was memorable. We were coming home from Sunbury and the next day, we were going to pick up a brand new 1946 Ford V-8 from Crissinger Motors in Rebuck. [The first post war car that Crissinger’s sold.] The old Chevy wasn’t going to go quietly into the night, however. There was quite a steep grade coming up from Red Cross, around a curve and past the Lutheran Church and cemetery. As we started up that grade, the Chevy started to miss badly. Dad downshifted to second, but the missing continued and our speed kept dropping. Dad kept praying and downshifted to first. With Dad praying and the Chevy missing, we finally crept over the crest of the hill in first gear at about five miles per hour, probably hitting on only two cylinders. The picture above shows our family with the 1935 Chevy. Mom probably took the picture. From left to right I see Frank, Dick, Ed, Dad, and Jan. It looks like Jan was about one, so I judge this picture was taken in 1946. This may have been a goodbye picture as we got ready to trade the Chevy on a new 1946 Ford, the first new car Crissinger Motors of Rebuck sold after the war. 1946 Ford V-8 four door sedan. The whole family celebrated when Dad brought home that new Ford. My Life Story -- 26 – G. Edwin Lint Here was V-8 power! Here was the shift lever on the steering column instead of the floor. Here was the starter button on the dash instead of on the floor. Here was a radio with pushbuttons. Here was a new car that no one else had ever driven, rather than a hand-me-down that some other family had worn all the shine off of. A fender bender knocked the shine off the right fender, however. One January night, shortly after we got the Ford, we were driving home from visiting the Farm Show in Harrisburg. The weather was typical Farm show-week weather and a wet snow was falling. Outside of Hamburg, there was a long grade that was slippery with the falling snow. Dad was a good driver in the snow but the driver in front of us wasn’t. He lost traction going up the hill, so Dad had to stop behind him and wait. The driver of a car coming toward us down the hill apparently was going too fast for conditions and applied his brakes too sharply when he saw Dad and the car in front of us at the side of the road. Suddenly, he was skidding sideways down the hill. I was in the back seat, but I had a good view of the whole thing through the windshield. I can still hear Dad praying, “Help us, Jesus. Help us, Jesus” as that car came towards us. Dad’s prayer was answered. We got a broken right headlight and bent right fender, but no one in either car was hurt. Dad was able to pry the bent fender away from the tire with the jack handle, and we continued on home to Rebuck. I can remember another travel incident involving that Ford. Dad and I were traveling a country road at night when a deer jumped out and ran across the road in front of us. As is often the case, a second deer was following the first. Dad was able to steer between the two deer without hitting either one. However, the first deer was so frightened by the incident, that he released his urine. Dad My Life Story -- 27 – G. Edwin Lint had to turn on the wipers to see where he was going! [The 46 Ford is shown above with loudspeakers mounted on the top; Dad was publicizing tent meeting in the Rebuck area.] My first full-size bike. The little blue sidewalk bike with no coaster brake I got in Millville had gotten too small for me and Mom and Dad decided I could shop for a new one. Of course we did our shopping in the Sears catalog. My new bike would be a 26 inch red Elgin trimmed in white, with a regular coaster brake. Schwinn bikes came assembled, adjusted, and ready to ride. But not Elgins. Dad and I had to assemble the Elgin from a large cardboard box. Of course there were no sidewalks on which to ride. However, the house was located in a little vale with a dirt road coming down from the black top in either direction. I would get up on the dirt road where it met the black top. Then, I would pedal down the hill and coast down past the house, and part way to the hill at the other end of the vale, where the dirt road met the black top again. One day, I was racing down that hill with Frank on the handlebars when I hit a rock in the road. The bike did an end over end flip and Frank and I went flying. No one was seriously hurt but I still have a scar on my knee as a souvenir. First sex education. Church people didn’t talk much about sex in those days and my parents were no exception. One day, I was rooting around in the old-fashioned attic, with a window at each end, when I found a book on the birds and the bees. It was very formally and clinically written, and completely devoid of pictures or illustration. But it was the first information on sex I had ever seen in print. I took that book over to one of the windows and began to get a neglected sex education. My Life Story -- 28 – G. Edwin Lint One day when I went back to the book’s hiding place, it was gone! I don’t know to this day if Mom inadvertently moved the book while cleaning and I couldn’t find its new location, or if she deliberately brought an end to further sex education. The second book I published on the Internet [in 1996] would be Bible Sex Facts. [I wrote this book under the pen name, J. F. Cogan.] The extent to which the readers of this book have been helped is revealed by Reader Feedback. My first paying job. While living at Rebuck, I became the official lawn boy for the church, cemetery, and parsonage. It was here that I encountered my first gasoline-powered reel lawn mower. It worked just like a manual push mower but it had a motor. However, I couldn’t let the grass get too high before I mowed it or the reel would become bogged down and wouldn’t cut. When that happened, I had to lift the handle while making a pass around the lawn. Then, I had to mow it again with the handle in the normal position. I didn’t let that happen too many times. One Sunday, after having cut the lawn the previous Saturday, we boys found a use for all the grass clippings lying around. We stuffed grass in the tail pipes of the cars in the parking lot while the parents were still in the church for a meeting. We enjoyed watching the owners grinding away on the starter until poof! A wad of grass came flying out of the tail pipe. Moving to Allentown. During June of 1948, Dad was elected as District Superintendent at the District Conference of the Pilgrim Holiness Church, held on the campus of Allentown Bible Institute [later known as Eastern Pilgrim College]. We My Life Story -- 29 – G. Edwin Lint learned that the Lint family would be moving to the District Parsonage at 717 N. Maxwell Street, in Allentown. Since school had dismissed for the summer in May, this meant I wouldn’t even get to say goodbye to my school friends. I can remember riding my bike to visit a couple who lived within biking distance but that’s all. Jim Crissinger would die in an auto accident not too long after that. His sister, Tootie [Naomi] died in January 1995. Miriam Crissinger, died a few years later. Before we left, the church board gave me a check for forty dollars, as payment for all the lawn mowing I had done while living there. Let’s see… I believe that would be about 2 cents per hour. Hello G. Edwin. The first thing I did when we arrived in our new home in Allentown was to change my name. I left GXXX behind with the creek, the thicket, and the one-room school. G. Edwin Lint moved into the District Parsonage and walked the streets of Allentown. Making the personal decision to change my name was only the first step. Now I had to convince my family. Although I had no formal training in behavior modification, I instinctively knew that if you stop rewarding a certain behavior, it would eventually be eliminated. So, when someone called me GXXX or one of its even worse derivatives, I refused to answer or respond until they addressed me as Edwin, Eddie, or Ed. My Life Story -- 30 – G. Edwin Lint I can remember Mom calling me in to supper one evening while I was outside playing basketball with the boys. She called, “GXXX. Supper!” I kept right on playing even though I cringed inside at the thought of my new Allentown friends hearing that name shouted in Mom’s best suppertime voice. She kept calling and I kept right on playing. I had drawn a line in the sand on this name thing and I was going to stick by my guns. Finally, it must have dawned on her what I was doing and she called Ed or Eddie in to supper. I have never been so glad to go in to supper, as I was that night. I won’t say that no one ever called me GXXX again but I had won the name battle at home. Trumpet Instead of Piano. Mom and Dad decided I could learn to play the trumpet instead of the piano. Those years of piano lessons actually helped me learn the trumpet. Since I already knew my lines and spaces, I could concentrate on my fingering and embouchure. Some instruments like the trumpet are pitched in the key of B flat, instead of the key of C, the key the piano and organ are in. This means that I had to learn to transpose music in the church hymnal up one full step to be in pitch with the piano and organ. My first trumpet teacher was Mr. Robert Strock. Mom had explained to Dad about the need to transpose trumpet music if it was to be played in church, so Dad passed the word to Mr. Strock. My trumpet lessons would include a heavy emphasis of transposing by sight out of the hymnal. I learned to sight read transposed music from the hymnal. I am nearsighted, and I had to have the music stand close to see it well enough to transpose it by sight. Since it was such a pain to read and transpose music from the hymnal, I quickly learned to play by ear. Soon, all I had to know was the name of the song and the My Life Story -- 31 – G. Edwin Lint key it was written in and I could play any part [melody, first harmony, second harmony], with improvisations. However, I couldn’t play the trumpet in church today, the way the worship leaders are always moving the keys up a half step as the verse changes or the song is sung a couple times. I always did hate to play in sharps. The best Sunday night and camp meeting songs are usually in 4 flats and that transposes to 2 flats. Here are some examples: Such Love, Glory to His Name, When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder, and Leaning On the Everlasting Arms. I have been able to utilize my trumpet lessons in many ways, including the following: Played in the Harrison-Morton Jr. High School band and orchestra. [The photo above shows me in my HarrisonMorton band uniform. Played in a trumpet trio during much of my time at Allentown Bible Institute and Eastern Pilgrim College. Played in the Central Pennsylvania Gospel Band and trumpet trio Played the tuba [similar fingering] in the Eastern Pilgrim College orchestra while also playing in the trumpet trio. Played in numerous volunteer church and camp meeting orchestras until about 1994. The last orchestra I played in was at Christian Life Assembly in Camp Hill. Used the trumpet to assist in worship leading through 1984, at the New Cumberland Church of the Nazarene. My Life Story -- 32 – G. Edwin Lint From Country School to City School. Mom had learned from my bad experience when I first went to school at Rebuck. She checked around the summer of 1948 and found out what kids were wearing to school at HarrisonMorton Junior High School on Second Street, in Allentown. [Here is my ninth grade home room; I am in the front row, center.] Getting to school was rather novel. No school bus at 7:15 AM. My school transport would be a trolley car that ran right down Hanover Street and let me off just two blocks from the school. The school district gave each of us kids a book of 20 trolley tickets per week. So getting ready for school meant making sure you had your trolley tickets or you would have to pay cash out of your own pocket. I soon learned to avoid that! Harrison-Morton had separate entrances for boys and girls. Although ninth grade was coed, tenth grade homerooms were segregated. We did have one girl in tenth grade homeroom but she was forgettable as far as appearance. Eddie Heist and Ping Pong. Eddie Heist and I were good friends in 9th and 10th grades. He lived on North Maxwell Street, across from Dieter Hall of Eastern Pilgrim College. He introduced me to the fine art of ping-pong playing; he had a regulation table in the basement of his house. Eddie was an accomplished player and I was just a beginner. He was a very good teacher, patient yet thorough. At first, he played me with his left hand, although he was right handed. After quite a long time, I was able to beat him when he played left handed and then he switched to his right hand. My Life Story -- 33 – G. Edwin Lint Eventually, I was able to win the occasional game against his right hand but he always could beat me best of 3 or 7. In future years, I would use the Eddie Heist method of teaching my boys [Dave and Jim] to play Ping Pong. Algebra, final exam. Math has always been my nemesis and ninth grade algebra was horrendous. The teacher’s name was Miss Rahmer and she was both an old maid and homely. I had to get frequent help with solving my problems and would go up to Miss Rahmer’s desk for help. She hated to have anyone lean on her desk while getting help, but I was nearsighted and couldn’t see the problem unless I got closer to the paper. To make a long story short, I did poorly in algebra and failed to get a good enough grade to pass without taking an end of year exam. If I failed that exam, I would have to go to summer school or take algebra again next year. I think I needed an exam score of 75 and I got 78! Close only enough for jazz. Math has always been harder for me than other subjects. But when I got to geometry in 10th grade, it was my turn to shine. Here was a subject that involved logic and this was something I could deal with. Mr. Gossey and Miss Burke. H-M had some good teachers and I was fortunate to have two of them. Mr. Guido Gossey was my tenth grade homeroom and science teacher. As all really good teachers, he was very colorful in speech and mannerisms. Boring people rarely make good teachers of anything. Mr. Gossey was a My Life Story -- 34 – G. Edwin Lint naturalized Filipino who served in the US Marines during World War II. When his students did something that needed changing, he’d say good-naturedly, “That just isn’t done here in the States.” When he wanted us to line up for anything, he’d call out in his best drill instructor’s voice: “Single file; column of twos!” Miss Blanche Sheri Burke was my tenth grade English teacher and was fond of using an inkpad and name stamp to log in our assignment papers. I can still see her stamping those papers. PUHT-ting Blanche Sheri Burke… PUHT-ting Blanche Sheri Burke… PUHT-ting Blanche Sheri Burke…Come to think of it, perhaps some of the guys were infatuated with Blanche Sheri Burke! Not me, though. I was always perfect in all ways! 1950 through 1959 Dr. Melvin E. Dieter. My first contact with Dr. Dieter was while we were living in Allentown and attending the Pilgrim Holiness Church in Bethlehem. Dr. Dieter was teaching the high school Sunday school class at that church. He really made the Bible come alive for me in a way it had never been before. Although I had been raised in a parsonage and attended church all my life, Dr. Dieter gave the Bible a fresh reality. I came to really understand the concepts behind God’s Plan of Salvation. Eddie Heist, my Ping Pong buddy, was a strong Baptist and got me to going to his Bible study. I soon found it was strong in eternal security and predestination. So, I asked if I could have Dr. Dieter come and talk to that Baptist Bible study group. Dr. Dieter gave an excellent presentation. Who knows? He might have changed some lives that day. My Life Story -- 35 – G. Edwin Lint Later, while attending Eastern Pilgrim College, Dr. Dieter taught me Church History, and U.S. History. He still stands out in my mind as the best all-around teacher I’ve ever had! Bob Adams. While attending the Bethlehem Pilgrim Holiness Church, I became good friends with the pastor’s son, Bob Adams. While Dad was District Superintendent, his dad, Rev. R. Lewis Adams, was District Secretary, and on the District Council. Later, when his dad moved on to a church in the Capital District [DC area], Bob moved into the Old Main men’s dorm. We became even closer friends, playing Monopoly until all hours of the night. After we left school, Bob and I stayed close; I was the best man at his wedding and our families visited each other. While visiting the Adams family in Northern Virginia, we saw Ben Hur as a first run movie and attended a Billy Graham Crusade in Griffith Stadium.[That friendship endures to this day: he attended our 40th wedding anniversary party and my 70th birthday party.] In August, 2007, Nancy and I had the privilege of attending Bob and Bertha’s golden wedding anniversary. In fact, just a couple months ago, Bob dropped by for a brief visit while he was driving through on his way to Bethlehem, PA. 1949 Mercury. After we moved to Allentown, Dad traded the 46 Ford on a new 1949 Mercury. Now that was some car, up one step from the Ford but still with V-8 power. It was equipped with a two-speed overdrive standard transmission. That meant that when you got to third gear, you could take your foot off the gas and the transmission would shift up into an overdrive. Theoretically, the overdrive also worked in first and second gears. So, I guess you could say that Merc had a six speed transmission. My Life Story -- 36 – G. Edwin Lint New District Parsonage. One of the elective courses I took at Harrison-Morton was mechanical drawing. When the district council decided to build a new house for the District Superintendent, I got a chance to apply my new skills with the Tsquare and the 30/60 triangle. Dad told me how the house was supposed to look and I drew the draft that was presented to the architect. Private School. Harrison-Morton covered grades 7 through 10, and then I was scheduled to go on to Allentown High School. Mom and Dad decided that I would be going to the academy of the Allentown Bible Institute instead of Allentown High School for the 11th and 12th grades. EPC [later renamed Eastern Pilgrim College] was located at the corner of East Cedar Street and North Maxwell Streets, about four blocks from our home. So, I walked to school until 1953 when my parents moved to New York State. [The picture above was taken in the late 90s, after the college had closed and shortly before Wesley Chapel was demolished.] The classes at EPC were small and the whole setting rather cozy. However, the curriculum was somewhat limited. I have my Dad to thank for my typing ability. I My Life Story -- 37 – G. Edwin Lint can still remember him going head to head with Harold Garrison, the high school principal, about my taking typing. Mr. Garrison thought I didn’t need typing because I was in the College Prep course and not the business course. Dad said, “He of all people needs to take typing because he’s going to college.” Of course Dad seldom lost an argument that involved logic! When it came time to register for 12th grade, I learned I would have enough credits to graduate plus I would be able to take two college-level courses. So I enrolled in college level U.S. History [taught by Dr. Dieter], and Freshman Composition. When I would start college in September of 1952, it would be with two courses under my belt. As I approached graduation day in 1952, I was amazed to learn that I had been named Valedictorian of the high school class. The valedictorian award goes to the student with the highest grades. This person is supposed to say goodbye for the class at the graduation. In Latin, vale means “goodbye”; dictorian means “the one who says”. The salutatorian award goes to the person with the secondhighest grades. This person says “hello” at graduation. There were only 18 graduating seniors at EPC in 1952 so the small class had a lot to do with being the valedictorian. Here is what the 1952 Beacon [yearbook] says about me: Brain of the class . . . Loves to toot his horn . . . Likes to baffle his classmates with big words. Enter the Hile Sisters. Back in those days, church camps were the highlights of the summer. My Life Story -- 38 – G. Edwin Lint While we were living in Coleville, the Bald Eagle Camp in Howard was where we went. While we were living in Millville, we went to Glassboro camp in the summer. When we moved to Rebuck, our camp was Sunbury Camp. In Allentown, the camp was the Allentown Camp, held on the campus of Eastern Pilgrim College. Allentown Camp was held in early summer, in the month of June. That June of 1952, while I was standing on the steps of Wesley Chapel, I saw two cute girls coming up the walk, and the older one was pushing a baby carriage. I did some checking and learned these girls were members of the Hile family, and went to the Milton Pilgrim Holiness Church. I filed this information away for future reference. After all, the district superintendent’s son needed to know about such things. Webster-Chicago Wire Recorder. On one of Dad’s trips around the District, he picked up a used Webster-Chicago Wire Recorder. Dad was always on the lookout for bargains and I think he bought the wire recorder from some preacher that was a little short of cash. Another time, he bought me a slightly used trumpet. My first trumpet was a Silvertone, from the Sears catalog. But this trumpet was a Besson, made in England. It was gold lacquer over brass and I just loved it. Anyway, as the eldest son, I was the recipient of this wire recorder. It became a major hobby that would eventually lead to a ministry in Christian radio broadcasting. Recordings were made on spools of stainless steel wire, in much the same way as later tape recorders would store sound on the oxide surface of My Life Story -- 39 – G. Edwin Lint recording tape. I only had three spools of wire for a total of three hours of recording time. I used those spools over and over again. The recording wire was very fine and somewhat subject to tangling and breaking. When it broke, I just tied the ends in a knot; when the knot passed over the recording/playback heads, you would only hear a slight click. By Sunbury camp meeting time, I had learned to hook up a long mike cord, from the pulpit back to the recorder which was on the floor at my feet as I played trumpet in the orchestra. The camp meeting special music was often provided by such song evangelists as Max Hamilton and his trombone, or the Strader Trio. The sermon was delivered by such men as the late Dr. R. G. Flexon, of Indianapolis, and Rev. P. O. Carpenter of Wilmore, KY. Both of these men stand out in my mind as the Billy Grahams of Sunbury Camp, back when I was a boy. Today, there is only one preacher I know about who can still preach camp meeting-style sermons, week after week: Dr. John Hagee, The family would listen to these recordings over and over again. After all, this was pre-television, at least in the District Parsonage. The summer of 1952, I was BMOC [big man on campus] at Sunbury Camp. I was a high school graduate with two college credits under my belt, my Dad was the District Superintendent, and he had also been elected President of the God’s Holiness Grove Camp Meeting Association! And, I had worked my way up in the Dining Hall crew from dishwasher to official ticket puncher. My Life Story -- 40 – G. Edwin Lint The Free Lunch. It was Thursday of Sunbury camp week, August 1952, Missionary Day, and there was a big crowd in line to get into the dining hall. There I was, minding my own business, punching away on the lunch tickets, trying to keep the little kids from leeching in at the head of the line. Suddenly, the next person in line was that cute Hile girl from the Milton Church. She claimed that she had given her ticket to her Dad who was behind her somewhere in the line, but she wanted to eat with her friends. Could I please let her in and I could punch her ticket when her Dad came through??? How can a BMOC say no to such a cute girl? You guessed it! I trusted her to produce that ticket, and she did! Dad’s Girl Lecture. Camp week was winding down and I didn’t want to waste a single minute of it. Each night, I’d have a “date” with a different girl. These dates consisted of walking down Rt. 11-15 to a roadside burger joint, holding hands, and maybe sneaking a kiss or two on the way home. There was no way that such a BMOC could remain below Dad’s radar for long. So, Dad took me aside and told me I needed to keep a lower profile as far as girls were concerned. Perhaps he was especially concerned about my interest in the eldest Hile girl, with short hair and bobby socks. He’d apparently heard about my date with another girl earlier that week, whom he didn’t completely approve of. Or, he could have heard about my date the night before with a certain girl from the My Life Story -- 41 – G. Edwin Lint Harrisburg area. My first date with Nancy Lee Hile. What I call my first date with Nancy Hile was pretty much a non-date, as dates go. After service Saturday night, Nancy and I were sitting on a park bench in front of the bookstore. I had my arm draped over the back of the bench, and Nancy kind of nestled in close. Nancy has always walked with quick, short steps. I say she scurries, not in an unkind way. That night she was in true scurrying form, scurrying around, and talking to various people. Each time she left my side, I thought, “Well, that’s the end of Nancy Hile. She’s off talking to somebody else. Fun while it lasted. But, each time she popped up to talk to somebody, she came back to her original spot on the bench after that conversation was finished. Each time she returned, she seemed to nestle in a tiny bit closer. That said to me very clearly that she was going to be my girl. Sunday night, Nancy and I sat together in service. She remembers that service this way: During the altar call, Eddie leaned towards me to whisper something. I assumed he was going to ask me to go to the snack bar, or take a walk, but the question he asked was, “Are you saved?” That moment in time set the course of our lives as he established “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”. After service, we had more of a date, as far as camp meeting dates go. We took a walk around the camp drive, up behind the tabernacle. On that walk around the Sunbury Camp property on the last Sunday night of the 1952 encampment, I learned that she My Life Story -- 42 – G. Edwin Lint was 14 years old, would turn 15 November 1, and would be a high school junior in September. She had skipped a grade in elementary school and was kind of young for a junior. [I almost flunked second grade and she skipped fourth grade!] I kissed Nancy for the first time on that walk. Camp was over and it was time to go home. But, we exchanged addresses and promised to write every day. There were 100 Pennsylvania miles separating Dewart [her home town] and Allentown. I had camp meeting romances before and they always died on the vine with the passing of time. But my love affair with Nancy Hile was destined to last forever. There wouldn’t be too many days passing in the next several years that one or the other of us wouldn’t write. Going Steady. Dad traveled around the District quite a bit. One advantage of being the District Superintendent’s son was I could hitch a ride with him if he happened to be going where I wanted to be. I learned he was scheduled to preach in the Allenwood Church October 5, 1952. I knew Allenwood was just across the Susquehanna River from Dewart so I made arrangements to accompany Dad on that trip. After Service, Nancy and I sat talking in Dad’s car. During that conversation, I asked her to go steady and she agreed. Back in those days, going steady meant that neither of us would date other people. We would break up for about a year, in 1954, but we were destined to be together forever and that breakup would cement My Life Story -- 43 – G. Edwin Lint our relationship and lead to marriage. Our going steady was a little disconcerting for Nancy’s parents. I was an 18-year-old high school graduate and Nancy was a 14year-old junior. But on the plus side, I was the District Superintendent’s son and living 100 miles away. Letters couldn’t hurt that much. I would visit Nancy in Dewart as often as I could. Since I didn’t have a car, I had to take the Lakes-to-Sea Trailways bus. Trouble was, the closest I could get to Dewart from Allentown, was Shamokin. So, I had to wait in the bus station until Nancy’s Dad could pick me up. Sometimes that wait could grow to an hour. I hated to wait and still do, to this day. But Nancy was worth the wait, so I learned to live with it. When I visited Nancy, she would often have to baby-sit her sister, Jacki, or work in her Dad’s store. I can remember sitting in the living room in Dewart, listening to the radio. Nancy would be sitting on my lap, and Jacki would be sitting on Nancy’s lap. A triple-decker! I can also remember sneaking a kiss behind the shelves of canned goods in her Dad’s store. By the way, the first time I say Nancy, she was pushing a baby carriage. The baby was her sister, Jacki, who was born in May 1952. Jacki was our flower girl when we got married and in the 70s sang with us in the Higher Ground Singers. Nancy and Jacki are still very close, with frequent phone calls, meals together, and visits. Our daily letter writing gave Nancy’s parents a new opportunity for applying a restriction if [in their opinion] punishment was required. No letters for x number of days! Trouble with that punishment was, it hurt me as much as it did Nancy. My Life Story -- 44 – G. Edwin Lint Average is better than normal. The 1951 Mercury Parable. Dad traded that hot 1949 Mercury V-8 with a standard transmission and overdrive for a new 1951 Mercury V-8, but with Merc–O–Matic automatic transmission. You could measure the new car's 0-60 performance with a sundial instead of a stopwatch. One day, I was taking some friends for a ride in Dad's new car and came to a traffic light. A 1950 Chevy pulled up beside me. I knew that Chevy with a straight stick could whip the Merc–O– Matic away from the light with no sweat. So, as the light started to turn green, I put my dad's Mercury into Neutral and raced the engine. When the light turned green, I floored the accelerator and pulled the shift lever down into Drive. Instead of beating the Chevy away from the light, that Merc never moved from its tracks. This photo of a 1951 Mercury is a jpeg I downloaded from the Internet. When they towed the Merc to the garage, there was a small handful of broken metal parts on the pavement, which I had as a souvenir of the occasion. The autopsy report from the Ford garage: broken universal joint, bent drive shaft, and a repair bill of one hundred-fifty 1953 dollars. I would like to take this opportunity to ask Dad’s forgiveness for that foolish act on my part. Of course I apologized when it happened but I want to put it in writing, here and now, just in case they have Internet access up in Heaven. My Life Story -- 45 – G. Edwin Lint In fact, I have a special web page that documents this story. It’s called: Normal Is Better Than Average The First Thanksgiving. Nancy invited me to visit her in Dewart over Thanksgiving, 1952. That sounded great to me, but Mom was devastated. She had never heard of someone visiting another family on Thanksgiving Day. She would have been even more devastated if she had known I would be eating Thanksgiving Dinner in a restaurant. As I remember it, we drove up to the Turkey Ranch, North of Williamsport. Nancy and Grocery Stores. Since her Dad owned a grocery store, the food selling business was in her blood. While still living at home, she had a part-time job in the Milton Acme store. That job was to be followed by a succession of part-time jobs at A & P, Acme, and IGA markets in various places we lived. When you work in a large grocery store, your clothes pick up a distinctive odor from the food. Guess what the most clinging odor is of all food? Not onions, not garlic, not every stinky cheese. It’s celery. That’s right, celery. So, when Nancy came out of a grocery store after a shift and kissed me hello, she smelled like celery. The smell of celery and Nancy came to be closely associated in a very positive way. Moving to New York State. The Lint family had a major disruption in June of 1953. Dad was not reelected as District Superintendent. Suddenly, after five years as DS, he was looking for a job. For reasons I will never understand until I get to heaven, Dad wasn’t offered a church My Life Story -- 46 – G. Edwin Lint in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey District of the Pilgrim Holiness Church. That denomination elected pastors by congregational nomination and vote rather than administrative appointment and Dad didn’t get a call from a church until the end of the summer. And then, the call came from a rather small congregation in New York State. When the family moved to New York, I had to move into the men’s dormitory of Eastern Pilgrim College: Old Main. Not only did I have to move on campus but I had to eat in the dining hall, too. And, for the first time in my life, I had to worry about how I would get my laundry done. I bought a laundry mailing container and would ship my dirty clothes to Mom in New York. She would fold my clean clothes into the mailer and mail them back to me in Allentown. Thanks, Mom. That must have been a real pain. During the summers, I had part time jobs to earn money for college. Mostly I had laboring jobs, but I did work one day as a short order cook in a diner. That was enough to convince me that my future led elsewhere. Later, my brother, Frank, attended Easter Pilgrim College in Allentown. He didn’t like it, and went home after one day. He went back to New York State and worked in the diner where I had quit after one day. However, Frank went on to make a career out of the food service business. He worked for Shoney’s Restaurants, where he became Vice President for North and South Carolina Operations. He now works for a Harris-Teeter Food Market in Fort Mill, SC where he is chef in the Deli. Visiting Nancy during the summer was now even more complicated than while I was living in Allentown. I had to catch a train in Port Jervis, travel north to Binghamton, then catch a My Life Story -- 47 – G. Edwin Lint Lakes-to-Sea bus from Binghamton South to Dewart. The whole trip took about eight hours. Getting to see Nancy was worth it, though. EPC Dress Code. It goes without saying that the girls’ dress code placed major emphasis on modesty. But the boys’ code impacted on me most directly and I’ll elaborate on that. Since EPC placed a major emphasis on preparing young men for the ministry, all men were expected to wear a shirt, tie, and jacket to all activities on campus. This included all classes, and all meals in the dining hall. I did my best to confirm to the spirit and letter of this dress code, within the limits of my meager wardrobe. I remember a maroon corduroy sport coat that I wore to most classes, with various shirt, tie, and slack combos. The picture above shows me on the right, wearing that maroon jacket. The building is Old Main, the men’s dorm. However, some guys would push the envelope to the limit. I can remember some pretty strange outfits at Saturday morning breakfasts. I can remember one guy wearing an open, flannel shirt over a colored T-shirt, with a bow tie clipped to the T-shirt. Nancy Moves to Allentown. Nancy and I grew tired of all the letter writing and traveling so Nancy began to work on her parents to send her down to Allentown to complete her senior year in high school. Her parents agreed and they made plans to send her to Allentown in September, 1953. Social Life at EPC [Eastern Pilgrim Academy and College]. Nancy was now on the same campus with me but our contact was limited by the social rules of the college: My Life Story -- 48 – G. Edwin Lint • We could only talk legally between 1:00 and 1:30 p.m. Nancy waited on tables in the dining room to help defray her expenses, she ate her own lunch between 1:00 and 1:30. I could talk to her while she ate lunch. This was when I first learned that she could not stand to get her upper lip wet when she drank from a glass. So, she would curl it up in a cute way to keep it dry. She still always has to drink from a straw to keep her upper lip dry. The demerits shown here were given to Nancy by Dr. Melvin E. Dieter for talking to me at an unauthorized time and place. No demerit cards issued to me have survived the passing of time. Maybe I never got any. [Not] • We could apply for an SP: Social Privileges. If our application for SPs was approved by the college, we could walk off campus to a restaurant, like Tops up on Union Blvd. Or, we could spend an evening together in the first floor living room of Dieter Hall, the girls’ dorm. • One time, I wasted a whole SP with Nancy by paying more attention to a stupid basketball game on the radio than I did to her. Big mistake! Maybe that’s why today, I absolutely detest March Madness and the Final Four to this day! • Talking together and going on an SP could be denied if our demerits went above a certain point. • We got demerits for such things as talking together at other My Life Story -- 49 – G. Edwin Lint than the approved times. We lost demerits by such things as doing chores around the college. I remember one time, I worked all night scrubbing down the kitchen [including walls] just so my demerits would be low enough for me to go on an SP. Nancy Graduates from High School. The 1954 Beacon [year book] says this about her: Nancy is a little girl with a big smile and a very likeable disposition. She can be seen playing in the orchestra with her alto horn. Nancy has a weakness for fuzz and lint but not lung trouble. Singing in the mixed chorus seems to take up some of this girl’s boundless time and energy. Her love for daring exploits might come in handy on the mission field. Back problems. In the mid 50s, I developed back problems, probably related to hoisting cartons of lady’s handbags while working as a shipping clerk. The first evidence of this happened one day in the college dining room. A waitress came up behind me to hand me something. When I turned to take it, a knife-like pain hit me right between the shoulder blades. When I got one of these back attacks, the cure would be to lie flat on my back on the floor until the pain subsided. One time, Nancy and I were waiting at the Dewart bus stop for the Lakes to Sea bus to take me home after a weekend visit. When I saw the bus cross the bridge and start down the hill, I bent over to pick up my suitcase, Wham! I was hit with a back attack. So, I had to let the bus drive on without me, walk back to Nancy’s house, call my boss and tell him I couldn’t be back to work tomorrow, and stay an extra day. [Sob, Sob!] My Life Story -- 50 – G. Edwin Lint The Break Up. Dates usually stick in my mind, but I have suppressed the actual date Nancy and I broke up and started to date other people. It was sometime after her graduation from high school in May, 1954. I can only remember it was a dark time in my life. Nancy back in Allentown as a college student. September 1955 saw Nancy back in Allentown as a college student. It surely was strange, seeing her as a just another student instead of my steady girl. Part Time Jobs. I worked my way through school with a wide variety of part time and short term jobs, including the following: Winding coils at an electrical parts factory, working as shipping clerk at a ladies’ handbag factory, weekend chauffeur for a mop salesman who didn’t drive, driving delivery truck for a rescue mission [picking up donations of furniture and other odds and ends], working in a feed mill, and working in a dairy. First Full time Job. In September 1955, I took my first full-time job working as an attendant on the 2:30 to 11:00 PM shift at the Allentown State Hospital. The 1957 Beacon pictured 23 students who worked fulltime at the State hospital while going to school. [Little did I realize that this would lead to working for the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, with a retirement in December 1994.] At first, I hated the state hospital job and quit every day for two weeks. But, the next day, I’d find myself walking up the hill to my orientation class, which met every day from 2:30-4:30. I think My Life Story -- 51 – G. Edwin Lint that orientation class is what kept me on the job. If I had gone straight to the wards at 2:30, I’d really have quit after the first day. Wet Sheet Packs. Thorazine as a medication for mental illness had been in common use a short time and most patients were pretty well controlled by this and other psychotropic drugs. However, some patients did need passive restraints from time to time and wet sheet packs were used officially by Allentown State Hospital as a means of keeping violent people under control. Packing involved wrapping the patient with wet sheets from chin to toes in a special way. After a couple months, I attended a training class to learn how to put a patient into a pack. Trained packers would sometime be called to female wards when violent patients would become so active that the nurses and female attendants couldn’t get them safely into a pack. By virtue of the training I had, I was a member of a pack crew. I can remember one case when I and another packer from my ward were called to a female ward to help pack a violent patient. This young woman had crawled up onto the curved covering about the shower controls in the bathroom. Then she stood up on that covering and locked her arms around the four-inch soil pipe in the corner. The nurse in charge assessed the situation and decided that I should climb up a ladder and get the patient. If I had been in my right mind, I would have said NO WAY, JOSE! But, I was young, foolish, and said, Yes, Ma’am.” When I got up there, I My Life Story -- 52 – G. Edwin Lint saw there was an eight-foot drop down to the commodes and a hard terrazzo floor. All I had to do was get this woman to unlock her arms from the pipe and slide down the ladder. It’s a miracle that no one got hurt! On the plus side, this was a good job for a college student. After the patients were put to bed, around 9:30 PM, we were free to read or study until 11:00 when the third shift came on. My First Car. A full time job did allow me to consider buying a car. Dad agreed to loan me $600 and I bought a 1950 V-8 Ford. My first car was a beauty: flathead V/8, that I dressed up with dual glass packs, white walls, fender skirts, front spinner wheel covers, hooded headlight rims, bull nose hood ornament, and chrome radio knobs, Nancy front license plate, twin faux rear deck radio antennae. Here she is, all dressed up for the wedding. By the way, there is a story to tell about the dual glass packs. They sure made pretty music, giving out a low rumble at cruising speed, and popping and cracking during deceleration. On Easter Sunday 1956, Nancy and I were going down to Quakertown to sing. As I drove along, I happened to see a State Cop on the side of the road, with some guy pulled over. I should have held my speed because I was doing a legal 50 mph. However, I made the mistake of taking my foot off the gas. Before I could push in the clutch, those glass packs told that cop about their presence and popped off. That cop did a fast U-turn and came after us. After he pulled me My Life Story -- 53 – G. Edwin Lint over, he told me to step on the gas. He wanted to check the sound. I tapped the pedal and they rumbled a little. The cop said, “I told you to step on the gas.” That time, I stepped on the gas and when I released the accelerator, the glass packs very dutifully gave a loud rumble followed by a pop and crack! For that, I had to give the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania an Easter gift of fifteen dollars. One of my friends, Paul Pierponte, had a 51 Ford and offered to buy the glass packs for $20. Trouble was the timing on his car would never allow the pop and crack that my car produced. [A couple years ago, I came across Paul’s phone number and called him down in Florida where he is pastoring a large church. I asked him if he remembered the glass packs. He did, and started to complain about the lack of popping and cracking.] Nancy Forever. After January 1, 1956, Nancy and I began to gravitate back together again. We had come to the mutual agreement that we were really meant for each over, and this time it would be for keeps! We began to plan a summer wedding. That Spring, I came down with another case of the screaming itches. The cause was the same as it was back in Stonington, when I was a little kid. I had bed bugs! Apparently a sofa bed that I bought from the rescue mission for a couple bucks was infested with bed bugs. I never did get rid of those bed bugs until I moved out of the men’s dorm and into my own apartment. I don’t know what happened to that sofa bed, and I don’t want to know! Our First Apartment. With marriage coming in August, I rented a furnished third floor apartment July 1, 1956. I moved out of Old Main [and the bed bugs]. My address was now North My Life Story -- 54 – G. Edwin Lint Sixth Street, Allentown. That first month, I lived on soup and Lebanon bologna. Sometimes they were cooked together, too! Wedding Day: August 4, 1956. It all started in the lunch line at Sunbury Camp in August 1952. We came together in Holy Matrimony at the altar of the Milton, PA Pilgrim Holiness Church, with Rev. J. Franklin Lint officiating: Mr. and Mrs. G. Edwin Lint: Nancy and Eddie. After a wedding reception at the Turbotville community center, Nancy and I drove in our Ford to our apartment in Allentown. As I remember, it was raining during that trip, but we were happy anyway. So, we “set up housekeeping” in our furnished walkup apartment on the third floor. Our honeymoon consisted of my not needing to go to school until September - just work. Marriage, School, and Working. For that first year of marriage, I was finishing up my Th.B. degree at EPC while working 40 hours a week at the State Hospital. So, I would kiss Nancy goodbye and go to school, by 7:30 AM. By the time I got home from school at 1:00 PM, Nancy would already be at her full-time job, at the A&P. I went to work at 2:30 PM, and wouldn’t get home until almost 11:30 PM. Then I would see my new bride for the first time since 7:30 AM. But we were in love, and love survives many hardships. My Life Story -- 55 – G. Edwin Lint I am still fond of saying I taught Nancy to cook. And I did. After every meal, we had an autopsy. We would look at all the evidence and review all the data, kind of like CSI. To her everlasting credit, Nancy was always willing to listen to my contributions and consider what needed to be done to improve the next meal. Both Mom and Dad were excellent cooks, and I had the memories of their meals to use as a standard to measure Nancy’s cooking. Rev.and Mrs. J. Franklin Lint, Mr. and Mrs. G. Edwin Lint, Mr. and Mrs. Max L. Hile Sometimes, I would say, “don’t ever fix it the way Mom used to do”. For example, for Mom, spaghetti was pouring tomato soup over a bowl of pasta and mixing it altogether. And, Mom’s salad consisted of a bowl of lettuce with salad dressing on it [the kind that comes in a mayonnaise jar.] Our first thanksgiving meal was a little shaky. I seem to remember the turkey being undercooked, with the dark meat rather rare and pink. But, by Christmas, she had mastered the turkey and put a good meal on the table. New furniture and another apartment. We decided we wanted to have our own furniture and not use someone else’s hand-me-downs. So we rented another apartment, on Ninth Street in Allentown. This was only on the second floor, but it had a semi-private bathroom. This meant we would be sharing a bathroom with another tenant. Ugh! I can’t believe we ever did that? So we went down to the Leon’s-on-the-Square Furniture Store and bought a living room couch, two chairs, a dinette set, a bed, My Life Story -- 56 – G. Edwin Lint dresser, and chest of drawers. Then we moved into the unfurnished apartment. The 1957 Beacon. My senior year was made even busier by my being elected as Assistant Year Book Editor. The Editor, got a few more votes than I did in the class election, but he turned out to be more of a politician than a worker. He would leave most of the grunt work to me. In this photo of the 1957 graduating class, I am seated in the front row, second from the right. The editor is on my right. Let’s put it this way; when I saw a job that needed to be done, I naturally jumped in and took up the slack. College Graduation. As graduation time approached, I was being considered by at least one congregation as their pastor. Guess where that church was? Millville, New Jersey. This was the same church Dad had pastored in the 40s. To make a long story short, I preached a trial sermon from the 23rd Psalm at the Millville Pilgrim Holiness Church and the board gave us a call to come be their pastor. My Life Story -- 57 – G. Edwin Lint First New Car. As Nancy’s Dad considered us moving all the way down to Millville, he decided we needed a better car than the Ford. He helped us buy a new Chevy up at Turbotville. Stan Garrison rode up with me to turn in the Ford and bring the new Chevy down to Allentown. It was a 1957 Chevrolet V/8, 210 twodoor, with automatic transmission, and red and white paint. [Later, I would regret this choice of color.] On my graduation day from Eastern Pilgrim College, I had a new car, a Th.B. Degree, and a bride of ten months. And, I was the new pastor of the Millville Pilgrim Holiness Church. This church offered a salary of $40 week plus a parsonage. Moving to Millville. This move was so complicated, I’m not sure I’ll be able to explain it well enough for you to understand it. So, I’ll take it step by step: 1. We rented a U-Haul truck in Allentown and tried to load all our furniture onto it. However, it didn’t all fit. [We should have bought our furniture down in Millville; then we wouldn’t have to move it down.] We got what we could into the truck, anyway. 2. We unloaded the truck at the Millville parsonage and then rented a trailer down there. 3. We put the rented trailer in the truck with a lube lift where we rented the trailer and got the trailer back up to Allentown in that way. [I drove the truck and Nancy followed me in the Chevy.] 4. In Allentown, we went to a special place that rented lube lifts to people that liked to change their own oil and tinker around. We raised the lube lift to the level of the truck bed My Life Story -- 58 – G. Edwin Lint and rolled the trailer onto the lube lift. Then we lowered the lift to ground level and hitched the trailer to the Chevy, returned the truck, and went back to the apartment on Ninth Street to get the rest of our stuff. Looking back over what I’ve just written, I can’t believe we lived through this whole process. Back to life in a parsonage. I’ve often said that small churches like Millville should be pastored by experienced men with a lot of good ideas, instead of young guys just out of school. It goes without saying that being a pastor was hard work: spiritually and psychologically. Two sermons every Sunday plus a Bible study every Wednesday doesn’t come easily or naturally. Later, Bob Wanner would ask to buy the old sermon outlines I had used in Millville, not because my sermons were so good but because he knew how hard it was to create them from scratch. Should we move to Washington? Somewhere along the way, I met up with the District Superintendent of the Capitol District of the Pilgrim [Holiness] Church. He felt I would be the kind of pastor he was looking for in starting a new church in Falls Church, Virginia. We considered it, and Nancy and I even traveled down to Washington to look over the area. However, we just didn’t feel right about it and decided to stay where we were. Time for a family. During our first year in Millville, we decided it was time to start a family. At the time, Nancy was working in a grocery store to supplement my $40 weekly salary from the church. But as Nancy’s pregnancy began to advance during the Spring of 1958, she had to quit work and I began to look for part-time work to help replace the income she had been bringing in. My Life Story -- 59 – G. Edwin Lint I tried, at various times, to make extra money by working on a soft drink delivery truck [a wooden case of glass bottles is quite heavy], selling Fuller brushes door to door [direct sales never was my thing], and substitute teaching. The only job I really cared for and pursued was substitute teaching. I applied for and got a job teaching at the Cedarville Elementary School, with Mr. Ezio M. Baruffi as my principal. My job began the last Friday in August with an orientation meeting for all teachers, new and old. I can still remember my first day on the job as a professional educator. The school district where I was going to teach had called a meeting of all teachers so we could get information for the coming school year. Let me describe that meeting: All the teachers were talking to each other in their outdoor, not indoor, voices. They had pulled the chairs out of their orderly rows and clustered them into informal coffee klatches. When it was time to begin the meeting, the person in charge had to make repeated calls for order before anything meaningful could be accomplished. The first thing I learned that day was that the primary difference between students and teachers was their physical size. [That didn't even apply to many high school students and their teachers.] I My first day of teaching was the Tuesday after Labor Day, September 1958. I think worked that Tuesday and Wednesday, and then had to go on sick leave. Nancy felt the baby was on the way! My Life Story -- 60 – G. Edwin Lint Hello, Judith Carol: September 9, 1958. I took Nancy to the Vineland Newcomb Hospital and after some false labor and then some extended real labor, our first child came into the world. Since I had a bad experience with my name, I was determined to name our own children with care. A child’s name had to meet the following criteria: 1. Common enough so that anyone could pronounce and spell it without difficulty. 2. Could yield a nickname to be used in childhood. 3. Look appropriate as a signature in adult life. The name Judith Carol met all these criteria. And we loved her intensely from Day 1 minus 9 months. My prayer for all my children and grandchildren while they were being carried would go something like this: Lord, lay down a ring of Holy First around this tiny cluster of cells. And as the cells, divide and subdivide, may each new cell be according to the specifications you have laid down from the beginning of time. Our first child was perfect for beginning parents: she cried very little. The first time Dad came to visit his first granddaughter in Millville, we asked him to dedicate her to the Lord. That was a day of great joy, and pride for all of us. Dad would eventually dedicate the other three children as they arrived. Unfortunately, he went to be with the Lord in November 1993, before the first grandchild came along. My Life Story -- 61 – G. Edwin Lint In 1988, I wrote a novel about life in an evangelical Parsonage. If you click the link on the word dedicate, you’ll get a sense of the kind of infant dedication services Dad used to conduct. Once Judy began to talk, she made up for the early lack of crying: she talked incessantly, in a high, squeaky voice. I would say she was vaccinated with a phonograph needle! She would invent words when she needed to. For example, little odds and ends she played with were bizzeries. And, bizzeries were kept in a mensidore. And sometimes, she would transpose consonants in a compound word: basket would become back-set. May I watch teebee? Judy was always a very obedient child and would try her best to please us. She knew she was not allowed to watch unlimited television, so she made a special point to come to Nancy or me and ask, “May I watch teebee?” before she ever switched it on. Judy and DogDog. Judy developed an early affinity for a large stuffed dog she called DogDog. Everywhere Judy went, DogDog went too. He became her pillow/prop while watching TV. He was her sleeping companion. And when she rode in the back seat of the car [especially on long trips to Watsontown or West Virginia], DogDog took good care of her. His services were needed because this was before mandatory child seats and seat belts. Slow going at the church. Meanwhile, things were not going well for me in my role as a pastor. Back in the days when Dad was the pastor of the Millville church [early 40s], I guess we had about 100 in Sunday school. In the beginning of my own era [1957-59], the church was running something like 50 or 60 in My Life Story -- 62 – G. Edwin Lint Sunday school. And even on our best Sunday, like a Rally Day with a special speaker, the attendance rarely went over 100. Looking back on things now, I believe my poor performance as a first-year pastor was a function of a variety of things, including the following: • The first time I spoke at the church for my trial sermon, one of the men asked me what color car we were going to get. [He’d heard we had ordered a new car.] When I said “red”, he put his foot up on the bumper of his car and said, “I’ve been thinking of painting the chrome on this car black.” • I had a fender bender with the 57 Chevy and the left rear quarter panel got dinged in. Instead of getting the Chevy fixed, Nancy’s Dad helped us trade the 57 on a new 1959 Chevy Bel Air four door. Here was the preacher getting two new cars, a 1957 and a 1959 Chevrolet, in just two years. For whatever reasons, the attendance began to drop off until I cancelled the Sunday night services and Wednesday night prayer meeting. On Sunday nights and Wednesday nights, we started attending the Church of the Nazarene in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey. Judy had one characteristic the other three children would never have. She was the only child born as a preacher’s kid [PK] into a parsonage. By the end of June 1959, I resigned as pastor of the Millville Pilgrim Holiness Church. I would be a full-time educator until my retirement in December 1994. The pastor of the Port Elizabeth Church of the Nazarene was Rev. I. Robert Wanner; his wife’s name was Lois. My Life Story -- 63 – G. Edwin Lint Moving to Cedarville. Resigning the pastorate at Millville meant finding another place to live. We rented a half of a double house in the village of Cedarville, close to the school where I taught. However, the landlord lived in the other half of the house and we used the same well and pump. Since Judy was still in diapers, Nancy had to wash clothes on a regular basis. The landlady was Italian and spoke with an accent. One day she felt Nancy was using too much water for the washing machine and told her, “You make the pump smell like robber.” High Street in Millville. So, we were looking for another place to live. We found a rather strange apartment back in Millville, on High Street. The part of the house we rented consisted of a large living room, a large kitchen, a laundry room, and a shower. But no bedroom. By this time, Nancy’s parents had given us a sectional sofa that pulled out into twin beds. The sofa was set up in the living room by day and each night, we had to pull the two sections out into twin beds. We would do this every night until we moved into Arlene Village. Nancy remembers the High Street apartment this way: One advantage to living on the main street of town was having a front row seat to all the parades. Our first movie camera took pictures of Judy and Davy giving their letters to Santa at the Thanksgiving Day parade. In the back of the apartment, they had a swing set. We look back on those simple uncomplicated days as some of the best times of our lives. My Life Story -- 64 – G. Edwin Lint 1960 through 1969 David Edwin: August 25, 1961. While living on High Street, God blessed us with a second child: David Edwin, born August 25, 1961. Davy cried quite a bit at first; Nancy thought he might have colic. But he rapidly developed into a lovable little boy, who just adored his big sister, Judy. In fact, we nicknamed him the Participator. Everywhere Judy went, Davy would want to follow. And everything Judy did, Davy wanted to do, also. This included Judy’s Brownie Troop 85. Davy went along to the troop meetings [Nancy was the troop leader.] Since we didn’t have a regular bathtub, the kids took their baths in the twin laundry tubs: a tub for each kid. Davy was pretty fond of a pacifier. He called it his Pal and used it during all waking hours. We even fastened it to his PJs so he could flip it into his mouth when he lost it during the night. Davy also was prone to get out of bed at night and roam around the apartment. Once, I woke up in the middle of the night to see Davy’s Pal bobbing up and down, just millimeters from my face. We decided that pacifiers were OK for My Life Story -- 65 – G. Edwin Lint babies but not for big boys. So, we told Davy that on his second birthday, his Pal was going to go swimming in the river. True to our word, on his second birthday, we took him down to the Maurice River in Millville, with the movie camera rolling, and he threw his Pal into the river. When it came time for his afternoon nap, he fussed a little, wanting his Pal. We told him, “Remember, your Pal is swimming in the river.” By bedtime that night, Davy was cured of the Pal problem, and hasn’t used one since, I think. Judy’s Rocking Horse. Judy’s favorite toy of this era was a rocking horse. This was a molded body of a horse that was suspended from a frame at four points by steel springs. I call it a “rocking horse,” but Judy did more bouncing than rocking. She would get that horse bouncing so vigorously that it’s frame would hop up and down on the floor. One time, she came down with a nasty gastrointestinal disturbance with a fair amount of regurgitation with very little warning. Nancy told her she had to take a container with her everywhere she went in the apartment, and she gave her an old white enamel coffee pot to use to catch a sudden onslaught of regurgitation. I can still see her bouncing on her horse there in the kitchen, banging on the upside-down coffee pot like a bongo drum and singing away. Davy liked the horse, too. However, he never could quite get the hang of getting that horse to bounce. For him, it was always a rocking horse. Those kids bounced and rocked that horse until the four suspension spring literally wore completely through. I bought a set of replacement springs at a hardware store and I think they wore the second set out, too. In the picture above, Davy is waving Judy off so he can learn to bounce the horse, too. My Life Story -- 66 – G. Edwin Lint Davy’s bow ties. Davy always liked to look his best, even as a tiny boy. For a while, he became fixated on clip-on bow ties, and wore one 24/7. During the day, he had to have a bow tie affixed to whatever shirt he was wearing. At night, he had to have a bow tie clipped to his PJ top. In addition to his bow tie, he had to have a wooden gun Grandpa Lint made for him, plus a stuffed Yogi Bear he got for Christmas. [The picture proves it.] We believe Davy had childhood asthma. It wasn’t talked about that much in those days but Davy had trouble breathing, especially at night. He couldn’t use a pillow with feathers. Once, I had to make a flying trip down to Northeast Nazarene Camp because Davy had forgotten to take his foam pillow and the camp feather pillow was keeping him awake at night. Talking about Northeast Camp brings to mind another story that doesn’t directly involve our kids but it did involve me. A bunch of Nazarene Church boys about ten years old had gone to Northeast camp. At the end of the week, I drove the church van down to pick them up. One of the boys [Glen Garside] had put his belongings in a cardboard box and placed it on the floor. On the way home, young Seth Ziegler got carsick and threw up into Glenn Garside’s box. Now what do I do? I stopped at a minimart and bought a small bag of kitty litter and dumped the contents on everything that was in Glenn’s box. When I dropped Seth off at his house, I handed Glenn’s box and everything in it to Seth’s mother, Judy Ziegler. As far as I know, Glenn eventually got his belongings back, including his tooth brush. Bachelor of Science in Bible. In the winter of 1962, I got a letter from Eastern Pilgrim College informing me that a review of my transcripts revealed that I was eligible for a BS in Bible. I had received the Bachelor of Theology [Th.B] when I graduated in 1957. Now I would also hold the BS in Bible. All I My Life Story -- 67 – G. Edwin Lint had to do was pay a diploma fee and show up at graduation. By this time, my old friend and mentor, Dr. Melvin E. Dieter, was president of the college. That makes that diploma extra special. My First EKG. There was a large tree behind the apartment. One morning, Nancy’s cat got spooked and ran up that tree. I shinnied up the tree, after the cat. When I got back on the ground, my heart was pounding rapidly. It was time to go to work in Vineland, so I got in the car and drove North on Delsea Drive. While I was driving past the Millville Hospital, I got to feeling so bad, I pulled in and told the lady at the desk I thought I might be having a heart attack. If you ever want to see people move fast in a hospital, just say chest pains! In nothing flat, they had me hooked up to an EKG and determined I was having a paroxysmal atrial fibrillation [PAT], with very rapid heart rate and shortness of breath. They determined I was not having a heart attack but I was admitted overnight for observation. [For the next 15 years or so, I would have periodic PATs until Dr. Fasano, in Mifflinburg, prescribed digoxin to control them. The PATs went away completely after my quintuple bypass in 1996. Arlene Village. In 1962, we were able to rent a five-room unit in a housing development called Arlene Village. We got an end unit, so the kids had a big common front yard, and a nice side yard. Nancy remembers it as “a development of many units – mostly families – and lots of kids to play with…” Christmas candles in the windows. While living at Arlene Village, we began the practice of putting electric candles in the windows, and that practice has continued to this day. My Life Story -- 68 – G. Edwin Lint Burning candles may have started as a pagan practice/ For us, candles in the windows is a testimony that Jesus Christ is the light of the word, not just at Christmas but 365 days a year. Judy’s first day of school. Judy went to her first day of school while we lived in Arlene Village. I took time off work so I could take home movies as she marched away into her future, holding to Nancy’s hand. Port Elizabeth Friends. We developed close friendships during the time we worshipped in the Port Elizabeth Church of the Nazarene. The pastor of the Port Elizabeth Church of the Nazarene was Rev. I. Robert Wanner; his wife’s name was Lois. In addition to Bob and Lois Wanner, these friendships included George and Nancy Morse, and Lee and Linda Cox. We became very active in the Port Elizabeth Church of the Nazarene. While attending there, I would serve in the following capacities: director of Christian Service Training, choir director, and Sunday school teacher. At one time, Pastor Bob Wanner gave me the following note: Dear Ed, I just want you to know how pleased I am with the work you are doing in the Christian Service Training course. I believe the people are gaining something from the course. It is the first time we have attempted something like this and I, as the pastor, am thrilled at the interest that has been displayed, both on the part of the teachers, and you, as the instructor. I appreciate what you are doing, Ed. Just mark it down that I, as your pastor, feel indeed blessed to have you and Nancy in the church. Keep up the good work. … God bless you both. Your pastor, My Life Story -- 69 – G. Edwin Lint A member of the church was taking a year off from Eastern Nazarene College in order to help his dad get back on his feet following the death of his mother. During the 1959-60 school year, he was working as a teacher at the Almond Road Colony of the Vineland State School. He knew I had worked at the Allentown State Hospital. As his year at Vineland began to end, he started talking to me about taking his job when he left. The Vineland job would be twelve months a year instead of just a tenmonth teaching contract. During the time, this church member spent in Port Elizabeth, he and his wife became very friendly with Nancy and me. We visited in each other’s homes and had good Christian fellowship. [This relationship is key to the problems in which I became embroiled in the late 70s in the Mifflinburg church.] People talk about teachers having it made: work just ten months a year with the summers off. But my first teaching contract was for 10 equal payments and that meant no pay during July and August. During the summer of 1959, I worked at a cannery owned by a school board member. Canning cases of asparagus isn’t all that much fun and sure doesn’t require a college education. Meanwhile, we were enjoying worshipping at the Port Elizabeth Church of the Nazarene. Almond Road Colony, Vineland State School. So, I applied for and got my friend’s old job at the Colony of the Vineland State School, a state institution for females with mental deficiencies. In those days, they were called mentally retarded. My official title was Vocational Coordinator, but Civil Service considered me a Teacher II, the entry-level teacher’s position. I would spend half time working with the vocational training My Life Story -- 70 – G. Edwin Lint program and half time teaching adult education classes to the residents. My combination office-classroom was on the second floor of H Building, one of the newer buildings on campus. Three people stand out in my mind as my mentors while working at Vineland: Mrs. Gladys M. Wikoff, Supervisor of Academic Instruction: Miss Anne B. Gregory, Supervisor of Vocational Instruction: Mr. David Rosen, Director of Education. These people all took a personal interest in me and, as they got promoted, they recommended me to be their replacement. While I was working over at the Almond Road Colony, Mr. Rosen appointed me as In-service Training Coordinator for the State School. He knew of my experience at the Allentown State Hospital as well as my experience as training director for the church. So, I became the trainer for new attendants, trying to give new employees the same good start that I enjoyed when I started working at Allentown. On November 22, 1963, I had gotten part way through the afternoon session when Dave Rosen came in and announced that President Kennedy had been shot. The class was over for the day, and I assumed the sad duty of going out on the front lawn and lowering the flag to half-staff. My Life Story -- 71 – G. Edwin Lint Supervisor of Instruction. Mrs. Wikoff was transferred to a position over at the main campus of the Vineland State School, and, on July 1, 1964, I was named as her replacement at the Colony. One year later, Miss Gregory took a job in Trenton and I was transferred to her job as Supervisor of Vocational Instruction. Before I could really get settled in that job, Mr. Rosen was promoted to be Superintendent of Woodbridge State School. In the process, Vineland State School: c. Sept. 1966. Here I am pictured with the Department of Education. I am front row, left end. Harry Wall, I whom I hired as Supervisor of Instruction, is to my left. My became the Director of secretary is second from the right end of the front row. Education for the Vineland State School. Director of Education. On October 1, 1965, we moved into the official residence of the Director of Education, on Landis Avenue in Vineland. In five years, I had gone from an entry-level position to the head of the department, with a private office and a full-time secretary. The Department of Education involved about 75 professionals and paraprofessionals in such divisions as: academic instruction, vocational instruction, arts and crafts, recreation, and employee orientation. In addition, I was responsible for providing religious services for the residents in the auditorium every Sunday. [Here are many of the employees in the Education Department. I am front row, extreme left.] Now I had a private office with a secretary [Madeline Baumbach] who could actually take dictation. [Remember, this was the old days.] On one occasion, I made arrangements for Jacki Hile, and her Gospel Teens girls’ trio to come down from Pennsylvania and give a Sunday concert in the auditorium for the residents. The music was good and lively and all the My Life Story -- 72 – G. Edwin Lint residents loved it. In additional to an increase in salary, the new job brought a significant housing benefit: rent of a 10-room house at $40 per month including all utilities, the right to buy food in the company store [the butcher shop had some great buys], free lawn care/snow removal, free screens and storm windows on/off, and free building maintenance. Nancy remembers life at the Vineland State School this way: With a promotion, Ed was entitled to a residence at Vineland State School, and we moved there to a wonderful old house with lots of rooms and places for the children to play. Ed was able to walk to work, and the family enjoyed taking advantage of “Movie Night”, where we saw first run movies in the balcony away from the residents, who would usually spot us and start yelling up to us and waving. In addition to all the good stuff, there was also some extra responsibility. I had to be “on call” every Tuesday night and every fifth weekend. Being on call meant that the main switchboard operator had to know where I was at all My Life Story -- 73 – G. Edwin Lint times. In addition to a regular phone from the phone company, we had a separate phone that was hooked up directly to the switchboard. One of the institution rules required that the on call officer be notified if a resident died. One night, we were awakened by a phone call; I think Nancy took it. She got very upset, when she heard that a resident had just died. Since my parents were now living down in West Virginia, and her parents were up in Pennsylvania, it was very unnerving to hear that someone had died in the middle of the night. New Jersey Institutions and Agencies Education Association. In 1965, I was elected president of the New Jersey Institutions and Agencies Education Association, an affiliate of the NJEA [New Jersey Education Association. This was the closest I would ever come to getting involved with union management.] This involved presiding at the November conference in Atlantic City. Our organization’s booth was on the mezzanine of Convention Hall, the site of the Miss America Pageant. I can remember washing my hands at a lavatory with Miss Ohio 1965 pasted on the mirror. In addition to the convention, I was responsible for convening and chairing monthly meetings around the state. Management Trainer. My reputation as a trainer found its way to Trenton and I was designated as an official trainer for New Jersey’s Institutions and Agencies. Every so often, I would be asked to travel to Trenton and conduct a seminar for managers from various institutions, and agencies. My Life Story -- 74 – G. Edwin Lint 1966: Master of Arts in Educational Supervision and Administration. Soon after starting to teach in Cedarville in 1958, I started to take courses toward permanent certification at Glassboro State College [now known as Rowan University.] Along with classes toward permanent teacher certification, I took graduate courses toward my Masters. By June 1966, I was eligible for a Masters degree. Nancy remembers my Glassboro graduation day this way: His graduation was held outdoors on the hottest day of the summer of 1966 in Glassboro! I have not taken another college-level course since that Glassboro graduation day. However, I now hold the following professional education certificates: Elementary Principal, Pennsylvania Elementary Teacher, New Jersey General Elementary Supervisor, New Jersey Special Education Teacher, Pennsylvania Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction, Pennsylvania Supervisor of Special Education, Pennsylvania After I received my Master’s, Glassboro asked me to teach some evening special education courses. I did that for the 66-67 and 67-68 school years. West Virginia Trips to See Grandpa and Grandma. While I was a kid growing up, I rarely got a chance My Life Story -- 75 – G. Edwin Lint to visit with my grandparents, aunts and uncles in Clarksville, Pa. So I made every effort to make at least two trips a year with our family down to West Virginia. We made the first such trip in December 1959. Dad was pastoring at Campbell’s Creek, on the eastern edge of Charlestown. Of course, we drove into the western edge of Charleston and called Dad for directions. He said it was too complicated to explain how to get to his house, so he came to meet us; a trip of 45 minutes or so. And, that was on the tail end of a 15-hour trip over a lot of twisty roads. The most memorable trip to West Virginia was made in 1989 when the kids were grown. We were living in Mechanicsburg at the time and we wanted the whole family to go to Grandpa’s for Thanksgiving. We were driving a 1989 Eagle and a 1986 Buick Century at the time. We piled everyone in these two cars and started around noon the Friday after Thanksgiving. Before we got very far, it started to snow and it kept snowing until we were on the other side of the mountains in Cumberland, MD. The roads had improved over the years and the trip in good weather would have taken about six hours. However, it was slow going with the snow, and we didn’t pull into Smiley’s Motel at Hurricane, WVa. until after midnight. I think this was the only time our entire family [at the time] ever visited Grandpa Lint at the same time. [This picture was taken with an auto-release Polaroid propped in the room divider between the kitchen and the dining room: seated, L-R, Nancy and Emily; standing L-R, Judy, Pat, Jessi, Jim Grandma Laura, Dave, Grandpa, Ed. I can hear the girls yelling now. We had just traveled 12 hours in the snow and we were having a bad hair day!] Now, back to the 60s. Individual differences. When you’re taking My Life Story -- 76 – G. Edwin Lint psychology classes in college, you always learn about the importance of individual differences. This fact really showed up in the way Judy and Davy learned to ride a two-wheel bike. We had given Judy a two-wheeler with training wheels. In a few months, she was saying, “Daddy, I want to learn to ride a bike. Please take my training wheels off.” So, I’d take the training wheels off. But she would take a spill and would immediately ask me to restore the training wheels. Like a good father, I did as she asked. After all, she did say Please. On Judy’s seventh birthday, September 9, 1965, she asked for the training wheels to come off again. Now she was a big girl and should be riding a bike. To make a long story short, history repeated itself and she took a spill. And again, she wanted the training wheels back on. Davy had been watching this whole operation; he had just turned four August 25, 1965. However, he decided it was now his turn to ride the two-wheel bike sans training wheels. So I put him on, gave him a running shove, told him to keep pedaling. He’s been riding ever since. He got a Harley the spring of 2006. Judy was so motivated by Davy’s learning to ride a bike before she did that she demanded to have another try. I gave her the same drill I had just given Davy and she, too, has been riding ever since. Pat had a motorcycle before Tori was born and now they’re planning to get a Harley the spring of 2006, also. Princeton Education. I can honestly say I went to school at Princeton. During the Spring of 1967, I was designated by Vineland to attend a one-week Executive Development Seminar [EDS] and it was held at Princeton. Dave Rosen had appointed Ezio M. Baruffi as Vineland’s Assistant Superintendent. [Mr. Baruffi was my principal when I started teaching in Cedarville in My Life Story -- 77 – G. Edwin Lint 1958. However, Baruffi was sweating during this EDS because he had failed the Assistant Superintendent’s Civil Service exam. On the other hand, I had taken the same exam [kind of as a lark,] and I had passed it. After all, a lot of the stuff on the exam, was what I had been teaching in my seminars for Trenton. So, during the EDS, Baruffi was asking me for tips on how to pass the Assistant Superintendent’s exam when it came up again. A more important thing happened during the EDS in Princeton. When I called home, Nancy told me we were having another baby, probably in October. Back to Pennsylvania. Although we very active in the local church, I still felt drawn to a deeper involvement in Christian service. In addition, Nancy and I were still thinking about trying to get to Pennsylvania somehow. One day, during the summer of 1967, I hosted some dignitary who was making an official visit from Trenton. As we were going through the lunch line in the employee cafeteria, this guy happened to mention that Laurelton State School in Pennsylvania was looking for a Director of Education. That set the wheels to turning. I knew that Laurelton was close to Mifflinburg, and the Church of the Nazarene in Mifflinburg was one of the largest in the District. Nancy and I discussed the situation and realized that this might be God’s way of answering our prayers: becoming more involved in church work and moving back to Pennsylvania. As a result, I sent letters to Rev. Fred D. Pick, pastor of the Mifflinburg Church, and to Lawrence R. Kroner, MD, superintendent of Laurelton. Arrangements were made for us to attend a service at Mifflinburg on a Sunday morning in September and have a job interview at Laurelton the following Monday. My Life Story -- 78 – G. Edwin Lint When we visited Mifflinburg, I told Pastor Pick that I didn’t want to do anything that would replace church members who were already doing things in the church. I may have led worship that Sunday and I think Nancy and I sang a duet. I should remind you that Nancy and I had at this point in our lives, quite a bit of experience in singing special music. While going to school in Allentown, I sang in the mixed choir, the male chorus, and at least one male quartet. Nancy and her sister, Marceille had sung duets from childhood. While in Allentown, she sang in the mixed choir and a mixed quartet. She has always had the better voice. She is an excellent sight reader and is also excellent at harmonizing. When we used to sing duets, she would sing whatever part I didn’t, and was very good at covering up my mistakes. Back to the Mifflinburg visit: We didn’t realize it at the time, but a woman of the church had been designated choir director, and was teaching the young adults Sunday school class. Remember, I had already told Pastor Pick that I didn’t want to take a responsibility that was already being filled by someone else in the church. We learned later that word got around that in the Port Elizabeth Church, I was choir director and young adult Sunday school teacher. File this fact away; I’ll come back to it later. The next day, I had my interview with Dr. Kroner, superintendent at Laurelton. I learned he was hoping to fill a civil service position known as Supervising Principal. He would call this new employee Director of Rehabilitation Services. I had the paper qualification for this new job and the responsibilities would be very similar to what I had been doing at the Vineland State School for almost three years. When we went back to Vineland after the weekend in Mifflinburg, we felt we knew two things: My Life Story -- 79 – G. Edwin Lint 1. Pastor Pick was planning to use me in the Church of the Nazarene if we took a job at Laurelton and moved to the Mifflinburg area. 2. Dr. Kroner would hire me as the new Director of Rehabilitation Services, if I wanted the job. There were both positives and negatives connected with the move to Mifflinburg: Positive: • Slight increase in salary in my day job. • We would be within 25 miles of Nancy’s family in Watsontown. • I would have a chance to become involved in the programs of a much larger church. Negative: • Judy was now in 4th grade and Davy was in first. It would mean a mid-year school change for them. I knew from personal experience how disruptive a mid-year school change could be for kids. • We were expecting our third child in October, so we would be making the move with a tiny baby. • We would lose the significant housing benefits of the state housing that went with the Vineland job. • We would be leaving many good friends we had made My Life Story -- 80 – G. Edwin Lint in Port Elizabeth. After careful and prayerful consideration of all the pros and cons, I decided to take the job at the Laurelton State School and move to Mifflinburg, Pa. James Alan: October 27, 1967. Jimmy was always a sunny baby and generally loved life. When Nancy would take him along with her to the stores, people would exclaim, “Of what a pretty little girl!” He had long kind of wavy hair and a cute snub nose. He was gorgeous. Here, Judy and Davy make sure Jimmy’s first bath is done properly! Moving to Mifflinburg. Two things had to be done before we could move: rent a house in the Mifflinburg area and buy a used car. We bought a used 1959 Ford two door in Milton, that I would drive back and forth to work in Laurelton. Cost: $100. [That car was parked at the Hile home in Watsontown until we could move to Pennsylvania.] Nancy would use our 1964 Oldsmobile F-85 during the day. The move to Mifflinburg would be in two stages. First, we borrowed a pickup truck and open trailer from a friend at the church, loaded up all the bikes and outside stuff on this rig, and hauled this up to Mifflinburg. The final load would be by the largest U-Haul truck we could find. My replacement as Director of Education in Vineland would be William F. Dotts, Jr. He was a guy I had hired a year or so earlier to head a Federal project. Dotts was a cigar-smoker. During my last two weeks at Vineland, he sat at my elbow for a transition briefing. However, I told him My Life Story -- 81 – G. Edwin Lint that as long as this was still my office, there would be no cigar smoking. My official means of on-campus transportation was a Harley Davidson golf cart with a freight body and instant-start. [As soon as you took your foot off the gas pedal, the engine would stop; when you pressed the pedal, it would start instantly and start moving again]. I used it during the day for driving around the campus. At the end of the day, I would drive it home along campus drives and park it in my garage over night. I can still remember that last drive home with Dotts beside me in the passenger seat. I hopped, out, went into the house, and got ready to move to Mifflinburg. Dotts drove back over to my old office and would soon move into our former home. On January 10, 2006, I did an Advanced www.google.com search on both William Dotts and the Vineland State School. No mention was found of Dotts. Most of the recent references to the Vineland State School had to do with EPA matters. Looks like I did the right thing at the right time, despite all that will be said in the next several paragraphs. 836 Chestnut Street. For our new home in Mifflinburg, we rented a doctor’s former house at 836 Chestnut Street. We would move into that house the first weekend in February 1968. This house was a real dichotomy of styles. The family room was new and had a flagstone floor with real brick fireplace. The living room, dining room, and parlor had My Life Story -- 82 – G. Edwin Lint thick-pile wall-to-wall carpets, crystal chandeliers, and fresh wallpaper. However, the kitchen and bathroom went back to the 20s. Speaking of bathroom, there was only one. After having two in Vineland, this required a little readjustment. Fortunately, there was a commode base over a soil pipe down in the basement. In the event of an emergency, it was possible to use that base and then flush it by pouring a bucket of water down the commode. Double Dipping. One nice thing happened when we moved from Vineland to Mifflinburg. I had accumulated quite a bit of compensatory time as a result of all the time I had been on call. And there was also accumulated vacation that I had coming. Vineland decided to keep me on the payroll until those obligations were satisfied instead of paying me in a single lump sum. So, when we moved, I got two paychecks every month until the middle of April: one from the State of New Jersey and one from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The broken crystal chandelier. One time, while we were having all the Watsontown family over for a meal or a party, the kids got to playing keep-away in the parlor. [The house had a parlor, living room, and dining room.] Nancy had always had a strict rule about playing any kind of ball game in the house. I may never know what really happened that day, but I know this for sure: a ball was thrown; all the kids were involved; but Dave and Max had touched the ball last; a crystal globe of a chandelier was broken. I have always taught my kids the importance of restitution. Since Dave had touched the ball last, and since Judy was also in the game, they would be the ones to make restitution. There was an old, little-used carriage house on this property and it had a lot of My Life Story -- 83 – G. Edwin Lint old barn boards stored in it. With the landlord’s blessing, Judy and Dave would haul those boards out into the yard where I would cut them up for wood for the fireplace. The job was made more interesting because the boards were covered with old rat droppings. So each time the kids would lift another board, they would call out “New rat poo!” At first, I thought the replacement of the broken crystal might be several hundred dollars. I shopped around Mifflinburg and Lewisburg but couldn’t find a match. Finally, I found an exact match down in Northumberland but it had to be special-ordered. The cost? The whole family was happy to learn it was only $45! Dave and Judy were off the hook. Judy and Davy walking home from school. One day, Judy and Davy missed the bus and decided to walk home from school. [With all her keen intellect, Judy has my poor sense of direction. I tell people I have geographic dyslexia. To this day, I have to make a real effort to memorize where I have parked my car in a mall parking lot, or I won’t be able to find it.] Anyway, the way home from school was fairly simple. All the kids had to do was walk down the hill from the school and turn left when they got to Chestnut Street and our house would be four blocks down Chestnut. Well, they turned right on Chestnut and by time the town cop stopped and gave them a ride, they were well out of town, heading East on Route 45. However, Jimmy always knew where home was. Once, when he was about five, we had special singers at the church. After service, there was a lot of confusion as we helped the singers tear down their stuff. In that confusion, Nancy and I both drove home in separate cars. Just like Jesus, Jimmy was left behind at the church. When he realized he had been left behind, he went out to Route 45 [a busy state highway] and starting hoofing it for home. My Life Story -- 84 – G. Edwin Lint When Nancy and I got home and realized that no one had Jimmy, I raced back to look for him. There he was, hiking down the highway and heading for home. He was quite indignant at being left behind! Mifflinburg Nazarene was not what we had hoped for. It didn’t take us long to learn that the Mifflinburg Nazarenes were not waiting with bated breath for us to hit the ground running. Either things had changed since that first visit, or I had badly misinterpreted how Pastor Pick would be using us. True to what I had told Pastor Pick in the beginning, I made no move to encroach on anyone’s established turf. I did start a youth choir because no one else was doing that. But the feel of frost was definitely in the air. The Laurelton carpenter shop welcome party. When I reported for work Monday morning, one of the first things that happened was several of the people who were to be my department heads invited me to a 60 minutes–plus coffee and doughnuts bash in the carpenter shop. Sounds like an innocent welcome to Laurelton gesture on their part, right? However, I soon learned that the carpenter shop party was not an incident but a pattern. Apparently these people started every workday with loafing around in the carpenter shop for an hour or more. Please remember that I was used to managing a fairly large multidisciplinary department of institutional employees, I had a master’s degree in supervision and administration, and I was an experienced management trainer. The people who now reported directly to me previously had been reporting to the superintendent. They included the following: • School Principal: he had been hoping to get a promotion to the My Life Story -- 85 – G. Edwin Lint new position created for me but I was hired from the outside. • Director of Vocational Training: this was a fairly sharp, young guy and someone with whom I believed I could work effectively. • Director of Recreation: this was an older man who had the best interests of the residents at heart as long as he didn’t have to work at it too hard. • Director of Occupational Therapy: this guy was the only minority who talked a good game but shared the creative energy of the recreation director. • Chaplain: this guy smoked a big cigar so you can guess what I thought of him as a man of the cloth. • Volunteer Coordinator: this was an older guy approaching retirement and a typical state employee. • Librarian: this maiden lady took me under her wing and shared all the gossip about everyone. I can honestly say that she was the first real friend I made at Laurelton. My former Vineland employees and fellow workers would not be surprised at my first official act as the new Director of Rehabilitation Services. After checking with the superintendent, I wrote a memo to all department heads, ending the morning carpenter shop coffee parties, unless the time spent there would be in lieu of morning and afternoon breaks and the noon lunch hour. There was no secretary that went with my new job, but I was given the authority to recruit one. The applicant I hired was the pastor’s wife at the Mifflinburg Assembly of God Church. My office was located on the second floor of the administration building in an area that had originally been set up to house My Life Story -- 86 – G. Edwin Lint employees. I had an office and the secretary had a separate office, connected with a full bath! I told the superintendent that I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to do business by walking back and forth through a bathroom. He agreed, and told the carpenter shop to wall off the tub and commode, leaving only the lavatory visible when walking between offices. Bill and Irene Culp. Things weren’t going well at the church, and things weren’t going too smoothly at Laurelton, either. One day, I was feeling especially depressed by the whole Pennsylvania situation [Laurelton and Mifflinburg]. When I got home from work, Nancy had good news: we had been invited over to Bill and Irene Culp’s for dinner. That was the beginning of a long, close friendship with the Culps. Then a couple years ago, we had to make a sad journey to Mifflinburg for Bill’s funeral. The Culps introduced us to the fine art of playing Rook. [Nazarene poker.] As the Culps accepted us, others in the church did, also. We would have problems at that church and would eventually leave because of the alleged sexual escapades of the new pastor who came when Pastor Pick retired. Lack of friends would never be part of the problem. Keeping Jimmy dressed up in Sunday clothes. Remember the story about the individual differences between Judy and Davy learning to ride a bike? In this chapter, we’ll talk about a comparison between Davy and Jimmy and their Sunday clothes. When Davy was little, he loved to get all dressed up for church. And if he could wear a jacket and bow tie, so much the better. When Jimmy came along, Nancy naturally wanted to dress him up the way she used to do for Davy. After all, he was gorgeous. But Jimmy was entirely different. He hated wearing a jacket and tie. On the five-minute ride home from church in the car, he My Life Story -- 87 – G. Edwin Lint would take off his jacket [if he was wearing one], as well as his shirt and pants. We would be lucky if we could get him into the house with his underwear still on. Seth and Judy Ziegler; Ron and Bonnie Derk. I’ve already mentioned all the Rook playing we did in Mifflinburg. Much of it would be with the Zieglers and Derks. Back in those days, Sunday evening worship began at 7:30 and was usually over by 9:00. Often we would arrange to go to someone’s house for refreshments and Rook. We’d take along the kids’ PJs and get them bedded down on the floor and couches. It would not be unusual to get home from a Rook party around 2:00 a.m. with everyone needing to go to work and school the next day. Oh well, we were young in those days! Davy was comical when he got home from a Rook party. He would say, “I’m so sleepy, I’m going straight to bed.” However, his trip straight to bed usually went via the kitchen and a Quick chocolate milk snack. Vacation at the beach. When I was a kid growing up, we seldom went on a vacation and I can only remember going to the beach once, and that was just to walk in the sand and wade in the shallows. While we were living in Vineland, Ocean City was only 30 minutes from our home. My summer hours were 9:00 – 3:30 so it was easy to zip down to the beach for a swim after work in the afternoon. That was before the days of such things as beach passes; we’d just find a place to park and jump in. Several young adult couples at Mifflinburg would take a vacation trip to Virginia Beach and we were invited to participate. Up to this time, we’d never stayed overnight at a beach motel, and planning to stay a long weekend at the beach was out of the My Life Story -- 88 – G. Edwin Lint question. What if it rained all weekend? But the Virginia Beach vacations set our family pattern of beach vacations. Our favorite Va. Beach spot was the Newcastle Motel, Ocean Front and 13th Street. They had free bikes for riding on the marked bike path along the boardwalk. Unfortunately, Virginia Beach has never caught the vision of beachfront condominiums so in later years, we have gravitated farther south to Myrtle Beach, SC. Back to the Newcastle in September, 2013: Myrtle Beach was nice but was a long drive. Judy and Pat joined us in vacations to Ocean City, NJ, Rehoboth Beach, DE, but none were as nice as Virginia Beach and the Newcastle. So, in 2013, we decided to make a reservation for the Newcastle Hotel. The Newcastle had been completely redone and was really quite nice. I had made arrangements to do my dialysis at DaVita in Virginia Beach, also. Here’s our Myrtle Beach gang for the summer of 2005, ready to head for home. [L-R: Ed, Nancy, Dillon, Dave, Emily, Amy Pat, Judy, Tori, Steve, Justus, Jessi. My camera is on a tripod with a delayed shutter release.] It was the first trip to the beach for Justus. Unfortunately, Jim and Vicki couldn’t join us. They were in Hawaii with her folks. Poor babies! In all the years we’ve vacationed at the beach, we’ve only been rained out once and that was by Hurricane Floyd at Virginia Beach in 1999; we were evacuated on a Wednesday. One year, at Myrtle Beach, we were delayed one day in checking into our condo. My Life Story -- 89 – G. Edwin Lint We were married in 1956 so 2006 would be our Golden Anniversary year. Nancy and I; plus Judy, Dave, Jim, and Jessi, with their families, nade reservations for an August 2006 vacation at Myrtle Beach. As an anniversary gift, the kids picked up our tab for the condo. Thank you very much! Baseball and Gene Woodling. Baseball has always played a major role in the recreational life of our family. To start with, Gene Woodling was a Major League player for the New York Yankees during the Yankees’ glory days of the 1950s. And Gene Woodling was the first cousin of Nancy’s Dad, Max Hile. Gene played with such Yankee legends as Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Phil Rizzuto. Davy got his start with the sport by playing catch with me in the family room when he was in the first grade. When we bought the farmhouse, it was time to create our own improvised ball field out of a corner of the cornfield. I was soon hitting him long fly balls and he was catching them with ease. Davy joined a Little League farm team complete with uniforms. Back in those days, there was no such thing as hitting the ball off a T or even having the coach pitch to their own players. Playing farm team ball meant stepping up to the plate, ready to hit a good pitch, or duck a wild one. When Davy moved on up to a regular Little League team, he strapped on the tools of ignorance and became a catcher behind the plate. When he aged out of Little League, he went on to play American Legion ball, and then varsity baseball in high school. My Life Story -- 90 – G. Edwin Lint Dave’s First Little League Home Run. Nancy and I went to as many of the boys games as we could manage. I can remember one particular Little League game on Memorial Day. Dave was playing, and Judy was playing her clarinet with the Mifflinburg High School marching band. As any good father would, I wanted to be watching the game and watching Judy march in the parade. Unfortunately, on this particular day, Dave’s game was in New Berlin which was a neighboring town to Mifflinburg. I had to make the tough call to watch the parade in Mifflinburg, and then race to New Berlin (about a 10 minute drive) to catch the rest of the game. Of course, the parade lasted a little longer than expected, and I arrived at the game just as it was ending. Dave approached me with a bittersweet expression on his face. I asked (as I always do), “what was the final score?” Dave muttered, “we lost 92…when did you get here”? I had to admit that I had just gotten to the field and so I then asked (as I always do), “how did you do”? Dave said, “I was 2 for 2 with a double, a catcher’s interference (which doesn’t count as an official at-bat)…and a solo home run over the center field fence”. This was Dave’s first official ‘over the fence’ home run. It was at this point that I understood the look on his face. Dave still gives me light hearted grief about missing that moment, but he has long since forgiven me. It was one of those moments in fatherhood that you wish you could clone yourself. Ironically, Dave had to make a similar decision about 36 years later when his son Dillon was playing in a game, and his daughter Amy was singing in a praise band at a church function. You guessed it, Dave (who has been Dillon’s coach for 9 years) chose to watch Amy in her praise band performance. There was no ‘over the My Life Story -- 91 – G. Edwin Lint fence home run’, but Dillon did deliver a go ahead RBI single in the last inning to clinch the game. When Dave graduated from high school, he started playing slowpitch softball in a variety of church leagues and community leagues. His interest in baseball has not been limited to playing. He has coached and umpired Little League games, also. Of course, when Jimmy came along, he followed right in his big brother’s footsteps, as far as farm team, Little League, and slow pitch softball are concerned. He has taken his interest in baseball to another level. Jimmy is a baseball card and memorabilia collector as well as a fan of fantasy baseball. Several years ago, both Dave and Jim were playing on separate teams for Christian Life Assembly. Each year, the church softball players looked forward to making a pilgrimage to Valley Forge Christian College to participate in a regional softball tournament. That year, the teams Dave and Jim played on met in a championship game. Of course, I was there in my usual role as proud fan of anything that my kids were involved in. This time, however, I had a boy playing on both teams. So, I made it a policy to always root for the team that was at the plate. I can’t remember who won that game but it was fun, rooting for both teams. Judy has never played organized baseball but she is a fervent and extremely knowledgeable baseball fan in general and a Yankees fan in particular. Jessi played in a girls’ softball league for a while. As I remember, she was more interested in the trips to the Rakestraws ice cream parlor after the game than in the game itself. However, Jessi equals Judy in her feelings for the Yankees and likes nothing better than to make a trip to Yankees Stadium to see her Bronx My Life Story -- 92 – G. Edwin Lint Bombers play in the House that Ruth Built. Assistant Superintendent. Dr. Kroner was a psychiatrist by profession as well as a student of management theory. I guess he liked me well enough, because he soon gave me a title upgrade from Director to Assistant Superintendent. He also moved my office downstairs to a two-room suite on the main floor of the administration building. Now I could talk to my secretary without walking through a bathroom, even if the tub and commode were walled off. Sequential Training and Evaluation Profile (STEP). By December of 1968, Dr. Kroner had assigned me to develop an institution-wide curriculum, with a parallel evaluation component that was quite progressive for it’s time. It came to be known as the Sequential Training and Evaluation Profile (STEP) [Similar in concept to President Bush’s No Child Left Behind program.] More about STEP later. The STEP program was based on functional skills needed by persons with mental disabilities to be able to live and work effectively in the community. I no longer have the original STEP program on disk. However, it lives on in the digital world, after two reincarnations, as the PennSTAR Master Curriculum. Click to see an outline: There are 16 Subject Areas and 105 Goal Areas. The Goal Areas are arranged in alphabetical order under the Subject Areas. You can click here for a free download of the entire PennSTAR Master Curriculum as a single pdf file. Scrip Economy. Another program I developed while at Laurelton was an institution-wide scrip economy. Here is the My Life Story -- 93 – G. Edwin Lint general definition I included in my 1996 eBook for a token economy: You Can Be a Teacher, Too Delayed reinforcement (token economy): A token economy is based on delayed reinforcement. Again, the employee/employer relationship provides an example. When an employee comes to work and performs the tasks listed in the job description, the reinforcement comes at the end of the pay period in the form of a paycheck or envelope. When working with younger students, instead of using edibles (Fruit Loops) for immediate reinforcement, use tokens for delayed reinforcement. You can make tokens out of small squares of colored construction paper. These tokens may then be exchanged for prizes or privileges. The Laurelton Scrip Economy included the following components: • An institutional monetary system was developed, complete with currency, coins, and a bank. • Students were paid for good behavior such as attending classes, going to assigned vocational training activities, and performing “public service”. Payment to higher level students would come in the form of a paycheck, which they could deposit at the scrip bank into a checking or saving account, or cash for spending money. • Students were charged for participating in special activities such as movies on campus, taking off-campus trips, and buying things at the scrip store. My Life Story -- 94 – G. Edwin Lint • Students were fined for negative behaviors. Buying our first house. By May, 1969, it was time to stop paying rent and start building equity. So, we decided to start looking for a house to buy. We found an old farm house along Route 45, about one half mile east of the Buffalo Valley Shopping Center. I say old based on the following facts: There was an unused gas-light fixture in the front foyer. The original wiring consisted of separate wires held in place with ceramic insulators. The exterior walls were filled with two-by-fours laid on top of each other. [I believe I’ve heard this form of construction called a rail house.] We estimated the house was built in the Civil War era. However, it had a lot of room in which to raise our family, and came with 11 acres. [We rented 10 acres to a local farmer but kept one acre close to the house for our own “whiffle” ball field. The lower end of our property even included a small creek, for Dave and Jim to mess around in. The house consisted of a “main house” plus a three room apartment that we could rent. And it had a two car modern garage connected to the house with a breezeway. At first, we lived in the main house and rented the apartment. But we found the extra room with another bath would be worth My Life Story -- 95 – G. Edwin Lint more than the potential rent money. So we took over the whole house. We turned the apartment’s living room/kitchen into a family room with fireplace, and the upstairs bedrooms into a Ping Pong room. My Life Story -- 96 – G. Edwin Lint 1970 through 1979 If not Mifflinburg Nazarene, then other ministries. When opportunities for ministry seemed to be limited at the Nazarene church, we began to branch out into other ministries outside the church, including the following: Radio Broadcasting: I started as a parttime staff announcer at WPGM-FM, in Danville. I got a tip about the Danville job from one of my employees at Laurelton who was the former General Manager of WKOK in Sunbury. I started working every Tuesday from 6:00 to 11:00 PM and Sundays from 2:30 to 10:00 P.M. One of the programs I engineered was a program called Melody Time. It ran weekdays for 30 minutes and Saturdays for one hour. I taped these programs and Larry Souder, the General Manager, liked my on-air style and so Gospel Caravan was born. The first shows ran Saturday afternoons from 1:00 until 5:00 with call-in requests taken. Gospel Caravan became so popular that Larry hired an engineer to run the station while I just sat in a studio, took calls, and played requests. This became a first for WPGM. Flood of 1972: Danville was a 25-mile drive from Mifflinburg by the most direct route. However, during the flood of 1972, the Susquehanna My Life Story -- 97 – G. Edwin Lint River was flooded and the only bridge above the high water was the Interstate 80 bridge. So, I made my way to Danville, to help out on the transmitter in this time of emergency. When I arrived at Danville, the water was so high in the streets, that I had to get into a rowboat and be taken to the station that way. In 1975, Mifflinburg got a radio station that was willing to play Gospel music. So, I transferred to WJJR-FM in Mifflinburg. Now, I was on the air weekdays from 6:05 to 7:00 p.m. and Saturday afternoons. The phone traffic became so heavy, it must have taxed the Buffalo Valley Phone Company to the limit. I remember that one time when I answered the phone, there were three people on the same line at the same time. While Judy was still a junior in high school, she began to work at WJJR, also. It was a thrill to get her started on the air. She has gone on to other things but I still used her on occasion to make spots for my Internet Radio work. I always called her “One Take Judy”. When our family created a “this is your life” style Max L. Hile audio-visual documentary in the summer of 2004, Judy narrated the entire 30minute program. Dave did the voice for a letter written by Max in 1941 and Jimmy put the whole production together on his G4 Power Mac down in Philly. Peace Evangelism Group [PEG]: With the help of two friends, I founded a non-profit organization called the Peace Evangelism Group in the early 70s. The primary purpose for PEG was to make the Plan of Salvation available to the person on the street. Our primary form of evangelism was a free-standing witnessing booth known as The Quiet Place, to be set up at malls. The Quiet Place made its debut at the Bloomsburg Fair, in 1971; it was eventually used in various malls such as the East Mall in Harrisburg, and the Nittany Mall in State College. This booth contained a multimedia presentation of God’s plan for our salvation; the content was much along the lines of the Plan of Salvation that I have on the Internet today. The booth was made of two feet by six feet plywood panels that were framed with 1 by 1s. These panels were My Life Story -- 98 – G. Edwin Lint held together with ordinary two-inch hinges and ten penny nails were the hinge pins [Easy in and out.]. There were two compartments inside the booth. The main compartment had a place for a client to sit and view the Plan of Salvation on a rear projection screen. The second compartment [unseen by the clients] housed a 35 mm Kodak projector plus a special recorder with a continuous loop tape cartridge [similar to the old 8 track tapes.] In addition to voice and music portraying the plan of salvation, the tape carried inaudible signals to the projector. These signals kept the slides in synch with the sound track, returned the projector to the first slide, and stopped both machines, ready for the next client to push the start button for another presentation. Remember, this was in 1971, long before laptop computers and high tech presentation software, such as Sunday Plus. This whole operation would fit in the back of our Matador station wagon, including a special heavy duty dolly I built to carry it through the malls. I could back up to a mall service entrance, unload everything onto the dolly, wheel it to the designated spot, and set it up all by myself, within an hour. All I needed was a 110 outlet and floor space to set up. Transporting the Quiet Place prompted me to break a cardinal marriage rule and make a major decision without discussing it with Nancy first. I traded the 1964 Olds F-85 in the clunky Matador. Nancy was not pleased! She dearly loved that F-85. Before The Quiet Place would appear at a mall, I would run display ads in the local newspapers. The ads would simply say, Don’t pass up a chance to visit The Quiet Place. Then, when shoppers would be strolling though the mall and see the sign for The Quiet Place, they just had to stop and see what this was all about. Higher Ground Gospel Music: Nancy and I saw the great interest our area had in good Gospel My Life Story -- 99 – G. Edwin Lint music, so we decided to sell it. At first, we held Tupper Ware-style parties in a host’s home, where we would set up a display of records, tapes, and sheet music and the party guests would order what they wanted to buy. That soon became a major pain in the neck, so we converted our breezeway into a music store, put a sign out along the highway, and put a buzzer on the breezeway door. Nancy did all the hard work [bookkeeping] and Judy and Dave were part-time clerks. Higher Ground Singers: At first, Judy and Seth Zeigler sang with Nancy and me. But then, Jacki Hile and Wayne Ranck joined the group, with Pearl Culp as the pianist and our Dave playing drums. Here is our publicity photo: L-R: Pearl Culp piano; Ed, bass; Wayne Ranch, bass guitar, tenor, soloist; Dave, drums; Nancy, alto, soloist; Jacki, soprano, soloist. Pennsylvania Council on Alcohol Problems: I became involved with this organization as a Sunday speaker and fund raiser. Should we move to Denver? In May, 1971, we got a call from George and Nancy Morse [our good friends from the Port Elizabeth days in New Jersey] saying their Nazarene Church out there was looking for a full-time salaried Associate Pastor. Would we like to fly out and check it out? Since the church in Denver would be paying our round trip airfare, this was an invitation to which we said Yes. It would be good to have a salaried position with a job description, it would be good to have free My Life Story -- 100 – G. Edwin Lint housing, [there was an apartment attached to the church that we would use], and it would be good to see old friends again. This was the first time either Nancy or I had flown and the Williamsport to Pittsburgh leg was pretty bumpy. However, the Pittsburgh to Denver flight was as smooth as our living room couch. We did the trial Sunday routine and gave them a sample of our bag of tricks. The church seemed to like us, and called a few days later to say the board had given us a formal call to come be their Associate Pastor. However, when we prayed about it, we just couldn’t get a clear, good feeling about going to Denver. So, in spite of tension at Mifflinburg Nazarene, we decided to stay put, for the time being. Dr. Kroner goes into private practice. Things were going well for me at Laurelton until Dr. Kroner decided to resign as superintendent and go into private practice over in Lewisburg. Bill Sleighter, the business manager, was made Acting Superintendent until a replacement could be found. Sleighter was our neighbor on Chestnut Street in Mifflinburg. Middy, our cat, liked to roan the neighborhood and that included the Sleighter home. Some time earlier, he had complained to me about Middy’s interest in the song birds that Sleighter liked to feed. I told him he shouldn’t worry until God taught cats how to fly. When he became acting Superintendent, he cut me off at the knees and backed my department heads who longed to go back to the coffee in the carpenter shop days, both figuratively and literally. Since Dr. Kroner had created the assistant superintendent position for me, and since Kroner was now gone, my situation became uncomfortable to say the least. At about this time, Dr. Donald Jolly, Director of the Division of Mental Retardation in the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, visited Laurelton on official business. I made an appointment with Dr. Jolly and formally requested a functional demotion from Assistant Superintendent to supervising principal with no loss of pay. My Civil Service title had always been Supervising Principal. My Life Story -- 101 – G. Edwin Lint My request was granted, and the members of the original carpenter shop coffee parties were allowed to revert to their original ways. Our last child. When we learned that our fourth child was on the way, I said “four and no more” and I made an appointment for a vasectomy. The doctor said that by the time the new baby was born, my fathering days would be over. About a day after the simple operation in the doctor’s office, we were making a trip to visit friends. We made the trip via the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Wouldn’t you know? We had a flat tire on the trip. That was the most painful tire I’ve ever changed. Good-bye, Mom: July 9, 1971. Dad called me early one July morning and told me Mom had died during the night of an apparent heart attack. She was just 59. This time, it was no false alarm from the Vineland State School operator. This was the real thing. Mom was gone. I heard an Amish buggy and horse clip-clopping by the house while I was on the phone with Dad. I remember thinking, “That’s the same sound heard in the land the day Mom was born, back in 1912.” The last time I had seen Mom was the day of Frank’s wedding in Charlotte, North Carolina, in late May 1971. Dad and I left Peggy’s home at the same time, with him and Mom heading toward Barboursville, WV and my family and me heading toward Williamsburg, Va. where we were going to take a mini vacation on the way home to Mifflinburg. For a while, we traveled on the same highway. But as both cars moved on to their separate destinations, we came to a V in the interstates and we began diverge. Mom kept looking across at us and waving good-bye for as long as we could see her, almost as though she sensed that we would never meet again in this life. The next time I saw her, she was in a casket. Nancy was expecting any day, and there was no way she would be making the 12-hour trip to West Virginia for Mom’s funeral. So, my good buddies, Judy and Dave, made that sad, long trip with me. Looking back over it now, I’m convinced Mom had congestive heart My Life Story -- 102 – G. Edwin Lint failure [CHF] for some time before she died. Jessica Lee: July 25, 1971. Nancy remembers the birth of our fourth child this way: Of course the most notable occurrence in the 70s was the birth of our fourth child, Jessica Lee Lint on July 25, 1971. She was born into a busy household. She took her time getting here, and after finally making her entrance around 6:00 p.m. that Sunday evening, Ed kissed her and Nancy quickly, and headed to Milton to preach in the evening service at the Wesleyan Church, where he had been asked to fill in for the vacationing pastor. The birth of Jessi followed the sudden home-going of her Grandma Madlein just two weeks before. We like to think they met each other in passing as Jessi was on her way down from Heaven to live with us and Mom was on her up to Heaven to be with Jesus. When Judy, Dave, and Jim were born, the old fashioned practice of banishing the father to the waiting room was still in vogue. But when Jessi was born, things were more modern, and I was invited into the delivery room – if I could handle it. Could I? I wouldn’t miss that for the world. I was given a surgical mask to wear so I could get up close and personal. When Jessi was still in the birth canal from her waist down, she started howling and hasn’t stopped making noise since. I even got to hold her before Nancy did. See! It pays to be able to see blood without any danger of fainting! Jessi quickly became queen of the walk, in her mind, at least. Seriously, she developed a vivacious personality at a very young age. Bill Umbel, a friend from church, called her Miss Personality. Her Aunt Jacki called her the 30-year-old midget. When Jessi was about five, Nancy did the original version of Down by the Creek Bank for the DVBS closing program. Jessi was featured in the solo, Germs, My Invisible Dog. She never saw a microphone she didn’t love. My Life Story -- 103 – G. Edwin Lint Right to Education Consent Agreement. The Pennsylvania Departments of Public Welfare and Education became embroiled in a class action law suit about children with mental disabilities being refused a free and public education solely on the basis of the disabilities. To make a long story short, the State lost the suit and a court master was appointed to assure that the consent decree would be fully implemented. The first stage of this implementation was the development of a statewide curriculum to be used by all institutions and school districts serving children with mental disabilities. I was appointed as the coordinator for the development of this curriculum and would be placed on detached service, working out of Harrisburg, but paid by the Laurelton State School. So, in the spring of 1972, Laurelton issued me a state car and I began a daily commute to Harrisburg. On July 25, 1972, I was on my way home for Jessi’s first birthday party when someone pulled out in front of me on Second Street and I had to stand on the breaks to avoid a collision. I can remember continuing home, thinking of how close I had come to missing Jessi’s first birthday party, and maybe all the rest of her parties as well. Another Harrisburg assignment. The Right to Education Consent Agreement would require that all school-age persons in Pennsylvania would be offered a free and public education, regardless of the type and degree of disability. School-age was defined as birth through 20. Furthermore, this education would be provided by Intermediate Units [IUs]. An IU was defined as the agency to assist the local school districts in providing all specialized services, including Special Education. I was named to create the transition process whereby employees of state institutions [such as Laurelton] and employees of Intermediate Units would work cooperatively to provide Special Education for all schoolaged persons. So, starting in February 1973, I would again be driving to Harrisburg every day. This time, I would be driving my own car, the 1968 VW, and getting mileage. My headquarters would be the Division of Mental My Life Story -- 104 – G. Edwin Lint Retardation in the Department of Public Welfare My lead worker would be Mr. Gary Makuch [muh-KOOCH]. My task involved finding a way of continuing to provide an education for the students involved while protecting the employment and retirement of the professionals and paraprofessionals involved. Two major state departments [Education and Public Welfare] had to be brought to a point of compromise. [I have always defined compromise as an agreement equally disagreeable to both parties.] In addition, all the involved bargaining groups had to be in accord with my plan, including the Pennsylvania State Education Association [PSEA] and the American Federation Teachers [AFT]. Since I was a state employee, I had a starting point for this Herculean task: what would work best for me? The plan I created offered all employees involved in the education of school aged students with one of two options. Option 1: A civil service employee would resign his state employment and be hired back by the local Intermediate Unit. Such new employment would assure the equivalent salary of a 12 month employee, but prorated for the 10 months of a normal school year. Option 2: A civil service employee would retain his civil service status but would agree to work under the direct supervision of the Intermediate Unit. Such supervision could be provided by either an Option 1 employee, an Option 2 employee, or someone who had never worked as a civil service employee. All involved parties agreed to the provision of this transition plan and it would be fully implemented September 1, 1973. I chose Option 2 and went under the general supervision of the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit 16 with headquarters in Lewisburg. Interim Pastor of Jersey Shore Nazarene. The district superintendent asked me to fill in as interim pastor of the Jersey Shore Church of the Nazarene while they were between pastors. So, for several My Life Story -- 105 – G. Edwin Lint months, I drove up to Jersey Shore twice a Sunday. They actually wanted to hire me as their full-time pastor but I didn’t feel the Lord’s leading in that direction. Director of Christian Education. Meanwhile, back at the Nazarene Church, some of our friends were making note of the fact that I had branched out into other areas of Christian service. They began to mount a campaign to have me appointed as Director of Christian Education with a part time salary. These friends included Bill and Irene Culp, Bill and Pat Umbel, Bob and Anne Stover, and Seth and Judy Ziegler. I gently reminded them of the earlier resistance we had felt in the church regarding our having any official capacity. Several years ago, I had applied for and received a District License to serve as Director of Christian Education so I had the paper credential for that job. They assured me that those negative attitudes had dissipated and that things were different, now. I didn’t resist their making a proposal at a board meeting and I was appointed as DCE with a $50 weekly salary. I accepted the salary because I felt that would help pave the way for better cooperation than if I volunteered my services gratis. I was an ex officio member of all boards but without a vote. I was fond of saying, “I can only make a commotion, not a motion!” Several things grew out of that appointment, including the following: • Nancy and I started a junior church program. • I started a Community Bible Study. • We started taping the Sunday morning church service for broadcast Sunday afternoons. My Life Story -- 106 – G. Edwin Lint Pastor Fred D. Pick retires. Pastor Pick reached the point he wanted to retire. However, the church manual required that a paid assistant resign when the pastor that appointed him left. So I put in my letter of resignation, also. In the picture, I am greeting Evelyn Pick, Pastor Pick’s wife, on their final Sunday. The new pastor. When the new pastor came, he rehired me immediately as DCE and I continued as I had under Pastor Pick. Buying Radio Station WJJR. Around 1977, the local radio station was up for sale. The church board began to give serious consideration to buying the station as an extension of our ministry. The transmitter would remain up on the hill but the broadcast studios would be located in the ground floor of the church. At first, the new pastor seemed to support the idea of buying the radio station. However, on the night the board was to vote on the issue, I was away, singing with the Higher Ground Singers. The pastor withdrew his support and the motion failed. This was providential in the light of all that would happen. The pastor’s alleged sexual infidelity. Not too long after that radio station board meeting, I was mowing the grass before Wednesday evening prayer service when a motorist pulled off the road and started to talk to me. He introduced himself as the father of a student at Laurelton. I thought he wanted to talk about education issues but he was really there to talk about his wife. She was an acquaintance of Nancy’s from back in the earlier days. Soon he explained that our new pastor had a consensual sexual relationship with his wife before the pastor moved to Mifflinburg. At first, there had been a confession of guilt but then the pastor dug in his heels and began accusing the lady of promiscuity and her husband of violent and irrational behavior. As it turned out, Nancy had known this lady for years through the Milton Wesleyan Church. She eventually provided a detailed affidavit of her earlier relationship with the pastor. At first, I didn’t know what to think. My Life Story -- 107 – G. Edwin Lint But then I came to the realization that I couldn’t continue with the pastor in an employer/employee relationship unless there was sincere repentance. The church board and constituency were sharply divided on this issue. It was such a mess, the District convened a meeting of the District Council at our church for the express purpose of seeking resolution. Remember the friend from our earlier Port Elizabeth and Vineland days? That same man had become a successful pastor on the district and was a member of the District Council. He openly opposed me and my position, kind of like the Blue Wall you hear about in matters involving police misconduct. There was a pastoral recall meeting coming up in a week or so, where the church membership would be voting on whether this pastor would continue at our church. Nancy and I hoped that vote would solve the problem and he would be voted out and sent on his way. That would not be the case. The pastor received a favorable vote in spite of Nancy, Judy, and I voting NO. According to my memory of that voting meeting, Nancy, Judy, and I got up and walked out when the results were announced. [Nancy doesn’t remember the walking out part.] This much is fact because I have copies the following letters from the pastor: • November 27, 1978: My resignation as Director of Christian Education was accepted. • February 19, 1979: Our resignations as members of the Mifflinburg Church of the Nazarene were accepted. Nancy and I have never joined another church to this day. Judy has, of course. By the time you read this, it will all be ancient history. My Life Story -- 108 – G. Edwin Lint Christian and Missionary Alliance [CMA] Church in Lewisburg. After the mental pain of Mifflinburg Nazarene, our family needed a church where we could keep a low profile and lick our wounds. Nancy’s family had begun worshipping with the CMA congregation in Lewisburg. They were in the process of building a church. On Sunday morning, they met in an auditorium on the campus of Bucknell University. In the evening, they met in a restaurant. But what that church lacked in facilities, it gained in a pastor. Rev. Leslie Conklin was an excellent preacher. Sunday after Sunday, he had one of the highest batting averages of than any pastor I’ve known. Gradually we became active in the program of the church. The first time we let our heads above the fox hole was when Nancy and I sang a duet with a sound track. I guess that was a success because a man from the congregation asked me if we were lip synching a recording or really singing. By the time we were in the new church, Nancy and I were back in it. Church work was in our blood. Our activities included the following: Singing special music Playing in the orchestra Teaching Sunday school class Conducting Junior Church Daily Vacation Bible School Christmas program After we moved to Mechanicsburg to live, I still drove up to Lewisburg every Sunday to complete a special series I had started in the young adult Sunday school class. Back to Laurelton and the CSIU 16. While the whole Mifflinburg radio station and pastor sex scandal thing were going on, I still had a full time job working for the IU with my office in Laurelton. It’s a wonder I didn’t lose my mind; maybe I did! My Life Story -- 109 – G. Edwin Lint Child-Based Information System [CBIS] The IU was in the process of developing a computer-assisted curriculum, and I was named to be the lead worker for the curriculum development portion. This was based on my experience with the Laurelton STEP program, and the Right to Education consent decree curriculum I have developed for Harrisburg. The computer-assisted portion was in charge of Russell Guthrie, my cousin in law. [He is married to one of Nancy’s first cousins.] This program was driven by an HP-3000 minicomputer with dumb terminal work stations set up around the IU with dial-up connections back to the HP. This computer was in no way a desktop unit but it was smaller than the IBM main frames. By the way, this was my first contact with a computer of any size or type. Three offices and three administrative assistants. Now I had three offices for each of my three major responsibilities. CBIS: IU headquarters in Lewisburg, where Gaile was my administrative assistant. IU Special Education classes at Laurelton, where Gayle was my administrative assistant. IU Special Education classes at Selinsgrove Center, where Gail was my administrative assistant. You read that right. Three ladies with names that were pronounced the same but spelled differently. These three ladies had something in common besides the pronunciation of their name. Each was as sharp as a tack and followed my management philosophy to a T. What was that philosophy? I learned it from Robert McNamara [of General Motors and Department of Defense fame]. Each Gayle/Gaile/Gail had the authority to make decisions in my name in broad areas, and each knew what those areas were. McNamara and I called this Management by Exception. You have the authority to do everything except . . . My Life Story -- 110 – G. Edwin Lint Laurelton Unit Manager. The state was going through a budget crunch about this time so they made a show of laying off certain “non-essential” persons to bring pressure on the legislature. Since I was on Option 2 employee who was paid by the state but worked for the IU, the Laurelton Superintendent considered me definitely non-essential and I was laid off. Laid Off. The Executive Director of the IU considered me essential to their program so the IU hired me back. So the whole thing was a paper exercise and I was just a pawn. Renouncing my Option 2 status. That layoff taught me it was time to renounce my Option 2 status and become a full-fledged state employee with no ties to the IU. The Life Story of my first Novel The first full-length book I wrote was a novel about the rapture of Jesus Christ, titled Gone. Gone was written in the late 70s on an IBM Selectric typewriter. Imagine typing a 200-page novel on a typewriter! I submitted my proposal to publishers great and small and accumulated a fat file of rejection notices. Gone was revised and retyped in 1984 on my then-new Apple IIe computer using the AppleWorks word processing module. Now I had a novel on disk. The publishers weren't impressed, though. More rejection notices. In 1986, I imported the Gone files into a Macintosh using Microsoft Word word processing software. The desktop publishing revolution had arrived. Now I had the capability to produce camera-ready originals of publication quality using a laser printer. I contracted with a publishing company in Michigan to print and bind 3,000 copies of Gone. However, I lacked the distribution contacts and some of that original run is still in storage. My Life Story -- 111 – G. Edwin Lint Although I sold relatively few copies of the hard copy book, I’ve had it available for free internet download for several years. During the month of December 2005, 1,141 copies of Gone were downloaded. Here is the download link. Click it for a free pdf download of the entire novel in a single file: http://www.diskbooks.org/gone.pdf My plan was to sell lots of copies of Gone and become as famous as Frank Peretti. God obviously had another plan. By the way, for several years, I have made it a practice to leave a copy of Gone in every hotel room where I’ve stayed. From Non-essential employee to Unit Manager. In the mid 70s, Laurelton had gone to the unit system of institutional management. The whole facility was divided into three major units with a senior administrator in charge of each unit. One of the unit manager positions was vacant so when I renounced my Option 2 status, I went from being a non-essential employee subject to a lay off, to a unit manager in charge of one third of all the employees. I became Director of Education and Unit Manager. [The other two unit managers were the head nurse for the whole institution, and the chief psychologist.] Administrator on Duty [AOD]. Wi th the Unit Manager’s job came the responsibility of taking my turn as Administrator on Duty [AOD] And the policy included all major holidays and every weekend. When I came on duty for a shift as AOD, I had to make sure there were enough care employees in all the cottages to provide at least minimum coverage. [Aides, LPNs, and RNs.] If a cottage was short while another was over, I homogenized the coverage by making ad hoc transfers for that shift. However, if a cottage was sort and no cottage was over, I had to go to overtime. First, I would try to recruit a volunteer among the people going home and try to get someone to work a double. If that didn’t work, we would start calling people at home and try to get a volunteer to come in and work a double. My Life Story -- 112 – G. Edwin Lint But if that didn’t work, we’d go to mandatory overtime. Careful records were kept of which employees had done a mandatory overtime shift, and when it was done. Assigning mandatory OT was hard mental and psychological work, especially on weekends and holidays. When I started an AOD shift, the first thing I would do was review the log of the AOD going off duty, to see what kind of problems I could anticipate. Next, I would strap on a two way radio that used an FM band and make sure my battery was fully charged. The operator could then page me if I was needed in a particular area of the institution. Transferring to the Pennsylvania Department of Education in Harrisburg. My old friend, Dr. Gary Makuch, was now Director of the Bureau of Special Education in the Pennsylvania Department of Education. He had been asking me off and on to take a job in Harrisburg. In September 1979, I agreed to go down to Harrisburg for an interview. As a result, he offered me a position as a Special Education Adviser. I accepted his offer and began making plans to transfer to Harrisburg. In November, the Laurelton crew gave me a farewell party; they had taken up a collection and bought me a portable three-way TV for the car: AC, 12 volt, or flashlight batteries. This was to help keep me company on the 3-hour round trip drive to Harrisburg. I can remember hearing rumors that Laurelton was going to close when I first started in February 1968. By November 1979, it was still operating. It did close sometime in the 90s but I was long gone by then. As far as I know, it still stands deserted. All those gorgeous mountain stone buildings standing empty and forlorn. Fun while it lasted. Commute or Move. Nancy and I had given this careful consideration and again, there was the welfare of the children to consider. Judy had graduated and was working, Dave was attending Mansfield, but Jim was in 7th grade and Jessi was in 3rd grade.. I knew a move would be very disruptive for them, socially and educationally. So I elected to make the commute in our faithful 68 Bug. My Life Story -- 113 – G. Edwin Lint Working in Harrisburg: November 2, 1979. The first challenge of the new job was finding a place to park while I was working. The Education Department was located at 333 Market Street in a building that was attached to the Chestnut Street Parking Garage. If you parked there, you had to pay by the hour, or be approved through an application process to have free parking. To save money, I chose to find nearby off-street and reasonable parking, and walk to 333 Market Street. I had worked for the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania since August 1960. In that entire time, I had never been without a parking space and an office with a door that I could close. That all changed when I started working in Harrisburg. 333 Market Street was a brand new building, just occupied in October 1979. Most of the floors were cut up into work cubicles by five-foot movable walls. That included the Seventh Floor, the home of the Bureau of Special Education. When I arrived, the only offices with solid walls and doors were for people like the Bureau Director and his assistants. As low man on the totem pole, I was assigned to an interior cubicle without windows. Inter-office communication was often accomplished by standing up and calling across to another cubicle. Or, just calling without standing up. This created a level of ambient noise that was not conducive to creative thinking. Although the floor had white noise piped in to mask the ambient noise, it would be months before I could learn to work in a cubicle. When I had something creative to do, I would seek out a quiet work area, such as an empty conference room with a door, where I could hear myself think. P.L. 94-142: Education for All Handicapped Children Act In 1975, Congress had passed legislation that made a free, appropriate, public education mandatory for all school-aged person in the country, not just in Pennsylvania. With that law came a lot of Federal money to help implement it. Pennsylvania’s share was about $40 million. My Life Story -- 114 – G. Edwin Lint My first assignment was to create a streamlined process whereby local school districts and IUs could apply for their share of the pot, based on the number of students with disabilities that they served. Before I moved to Harrisburg, they were using a complicated and convoluted process for getting this Federal money to the people who needed it. This was designed by some guy with a clerical background who knew nothing about education. Gary Makuch and I had worked together before [1973] and he knew that my style of straight-line thinking could make sense out of the existing nonsense. 1980 through 1989 Moving to the Harrisburg Area: March 21, 1981. My application for a Free Parking card was approved but commuting was still a pain in the rump. Each day, I would leave the house in Mifflinburg about 5:50 AM in order to be at my desk by 7:30 AM. And I wouldn’t get home in the evening until 5:30 PM. That meant in the winter months, I never saw my family or house in natural sunlight from Sunday afternoon until Saturday morning. Nancy remembers the moving process this way: After almost a year of commuting to Harrisburg from Mifflinburg in a car without air conditioning, one August day, he declared he wanted to move closer to Harrisburg. Since I had also gotten a job at the Department of Labor and Industry in Harrisburg, I had started feeling the need to stop the long commute, also. The next day after Ed and I agreed to move, a friend came to the house and asked if we ever considered selling the house and moving closer to work. God works in My Life Story -- 115 – G. Edwin Lint mysterious ways – as soon as we decided to move, He found a buyer for the house! Now we needed a place to live in the Harrisburg area. Should we build or should we buy? We went back and forth and finally decided we would most likely buy. However, any house we would buy would need certain specifications: 1. Fairly close to shopping. 2. Enough yard room for the kids to play. 3. Central air conditioning. 4. Master bath off the master bedroom. Nancy had a friend named Mona from the Arlene Village days in Millville. Mona’s husband sold real estate. When he showed us a house in the Mechanicsburg area, we felt this was the house for us. In addition to meeting all four of our criteria, this house had city water and sewer. Back in Mifflinburg, we had a massive garage sale that ran for weeks. All the stuff we were trying to sell was arrayed on tables in the garage and we activated the breezeway buzzer to alert us to customers. The kids were our sales staff. If they sold something that had belonged to them, they got to keep the money. And if they sold something that was not their personal property, they got to keep a commission. What we didn’t sell, we threw out in the back yard and a truck came and hauled it away. Jim and Jessi suffered the most from the move. It would be new schools, friends, and church for them. It was Judy and Davy’s pain in the Vineland to Mifflinburg move, all over again. Special Education Resource System. [SERS]. About $4 million of Pennsylvania’s share of the federal money was set My Life Story -- 116 – G. Edwin Lint aside for regional resource centers and special projects that could pinpoint a special statewide need. Gary Makuch saw what I had done for the funds application process, so he designated me as coordinator of the SERS. This became effective October 1, 1981. SERS included three regional centers located in Harrisburg, for the Central Region, Gibsonia [Pittsburgh] for the Western Region, and King of Prussia for the Eastern Region. All SERS programs and projects were funded through local IUs. My role was to serve as overall liaison and coordinator with the Bureau of Special Education in Harrisburg. The various centers and programs of SERS were tied in with an electronic communication system. So, this was my first chance to use e-mail. The Individualized Education Program [IEP]. The fine print of PL 94-142 included something called the Individualized Education Program [IEP] That fine print is shown below. I only show it because the concept of the IEP became a thread that would flow through the rest of my professional my life, and into retirement. The term 'individualized education program' means a written statement for each handicapped child developed in any meeting by a representative of the local educational agency or an intermediate educational unit who shall be qualified to provide, or supervise the provision of, specially designed instruction to meet the unique needs of handicapped children, the teacher, the parents or guardian such child, and, whenever appropriate, such child, which statement shall include My Life Story -- 117 – G. Edwin Lint (A) a statement of the present levels of educational performance of such child, (B) a statement of annual goals, including short-term instructional objectives, (C) a statement of the specific educational services to be provided to such child, and the extent to which such child will be able to participate in regular educational programs, (D) the projected date for initiation and anticipated duration of such services, and (E) appropriate objective criteria and evaluation procedures and schedules for determining, on at least an annual basis, whether instructional objectives are being achieved.1 I knew from my earlier work with CBIS in Lewisburg that a computer could play an active role in translating curriculum into instruction. Now, the computer world was starting to talk about a personal computer that would be small enough to sit on your desktop. I also knew from my STEP work at Laurelton in the late 60s that curriculum and lesson plans could have a real cause and effect relationship to instruction delivered to students in the classroom. After being in Harrisburg a relatively short time, I could sense that the IEP was becoming a compliance document and not a resource document. Schools were going through the motions of having IEP meetings and creating a paper IEP, which was then filed away 1 Please note that the language printed here and elsewhere in this document is from relatively old documents and may not be current. My Life Story -- 118 – G. Edwin Lint and forgotten until next year when it was time to have another IEP meeting. When inspectors from Harrisburg would check, the IEP was always on file and ready to show. Jim and the Emergency Room. Jim seemed to have a great affinity for the emergency room. I remember one such trip was made necessary by Jim catching the back of his head while trying to cast his fishing lure out where the big ones were. He came home, yelling for help but neither Nancy nor I could get the barbed hook out of the back of his head. So, we made another run up to the Holy Spirit Hospital Emergency Room. Motorcycle fever. The midlife crisis hit me in the form of a strong urge to own a motorcycle. A Yamaha Exciter 185 is small in comparison to the Harleys Dave and Pat would buy in the Spring of 2006, but it was big enough for me to keep up with the traffic while traveling on a highway. I bought a new Yamaha 185 in the Spring of 1983 and had fun buzzing around the local neighborhood. Owning a motorcycle could made a trip to buy a loaf of bread a small adventure. The longest trip I took was up to Hughesville Camp, close to 100 miles. On at least one occasion, I rode it to work over in Harrisburg. On July 14, 1983, my duties took me to the Embers down in Carlisle for an all-day meeting. During the lunch break, I took my bike out for a spin around the local neighborhood. On my drive, I came to a rather sharp turn and the roadway was covered with cinders. [The cinders may have been the result of kids hotrodding through the curve or they may have been left over from winter.] At any rate, I skidded off the pavement in that curve and my left toe hit a grass hummock. The result: the bike went down, my left foot was twisted to the left, and I sustained a broken and dislocated ankle. The bike was scuffed up a little but I would wear a long-leg cast for twelve weeks. My Life Story -- 119 – G. Edwin Lint Here I am, one year to the day, from the accident in Carlisle. [Judy’s 77 Ford Pinto is in the background.] Jim inherited the Yamaha and he really enjoyed riding it, but it was totaled in a collision at an intersection when a lady said she didn’t see him. Hello Apple computers. Now computers were coming on the market that were practical, functional, and relatively easy to use for anyone who could type. In those days, Apple had about 85% of the school market, and SERS had quite a few, also. I made it my business to become computer literate, at the user level and not at the programmer level. I soon learned that computer users are to computers as mechanics are to cars. Anyone can learn to drive a car, but just a few people need to learn how to work on engines. My first computer. I bought my first computer November 2, 1984. It was an Apple IIe with two 5.25 inch floppy drives, 128 K of ram, and a wide carriage Apple ImageWriter dot matrix printer. The whole rig cost $2,000. Christian Life Assembly. When we first moved to Mechanicsburg, we looked around for an evangelical church to attend. At first, we tried the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Mechanicsburg. However, the CMA just wasn’t the same without Pastor Conklin. Next, we tried the Church of the Nazarene in New Cumberland and became rather active in that church. I taught the young adult Sunday school class, led worship with my trumpet, and directed the choir. Nancy got involved with children’s ministries, Dave played on the softball team, and Judy fell in love with Pat My Life Story -- 120 – G. Edwin Lint Carney, a young man in that church and they were planning a May 1985 wedding. But, in February 1985, I felt a need to look for another church. Nancy remembers it this way: . . . there were no young people Jessi and Jim’s age. While I continued working with the children, Ed started visiting other area churches in search of a youth group for the two youngest Lints. In the morning, I taught my SS class and led worship. But Sunday evening, I would go out church shopping. You already know about my geographic dyslexia. That helped me find our new church. I was trying to get to a church along Route 15 in Camp Hill named Christ Community Church. But, I took a wrong turn and ended up at a smaller church. Since I was already there, I decided to go inside and check it out. The church was practically empty, but a man told me that the service was being held in the middle school auditorium next door. When I entered that auditorium, the place was really jumping. People were singing, and clapping, and a small volunteer orchestra [with a standout trombone player] was going full blast. Reminded me of a combination of a revival service at Mifflinburg Nazarene with Wally and Ginger Laxon as song evangelists, and the last Sunday night of Sunbury Camp. There was a special speaker that night, a missionary to India. And he reminded me of Evangelist R.G. Flexon! When I got home that night, I told Nancy that I thought that I might have found The Church. However, there was one thing I needed to do before I could be sure we would go to that church again. I made an appointment to meet with the youth pastor. Since this was an Assemblies of God My Life Story -- 121 – G. Edwin Lint church, I had to know where they stood on speaking in tongues 2 before I would turn over the souls and minds of Jimmy and Jessi to their care. Pastor Jeff assured me that their teaching on the gifts of the spirit was consistent with 1 Corinthian 14 and that speaking in tongues was neither commanded nor forbidden. That was the middle of February, 1985. By March 14, 1985, Jimmy was saved, delivered, and both he and Jessi were involved with Pastor Jeff’s youth group. Our first baby gets married. When we were attending the New Cumberland Church of the Nazarene, Judy became friends with some of the young people of the church; most specifically she became friends with Patrick M. Carney. In fact, this friendship became so close, they decided to get married in May 1985. Again, Dad performed the ceremony in the New Cumberland Church of the Nazarene, with Rev. Fred D. Pick3 assisting. In fact, Pastor Pick played a key role; he handled the ring ceremony portion of the wedding. Dad would have nothing to do with rings. Pat was employed by the local Hechinger Store and later went on to work for Middletown Lumber. He has been a big help to Nancy and me in making modifications to our house. We were happy to learn that Judy and Pat would rent an apartment in nearby Hummelstown; later they bought a small house in even more nearby Lemoyne. 2 We had some knowledge of the charismatic movement while living in Mifflinburg. We attended several services at the United Pentecostal Revival Tabernacle in Milton, and surely knew of the work of the Lanny Wolfe Trio. 3 Retired pastor of the Mifflinburg Church of the Nazarene. My Life Story -- 122 – G. Edwin Lint Judy and Pat's wedding; bride's family; Names are shown as they were when the picture was taken: [Front row, L-R]: Chris Wert, Jerilee Wert, Janelle Harrison, Joseph Herbst, Jesse Lint, Jim Lint, Jessi Lint, Emily Bihl. Second row, seated: Jacki Herbst, Marilyn Wert, Nancy Lint, Laura Lint, Jerri Hile Judy Carney, Pat Carney; back row: Nora and Bob Hile, Dominic Herbst, Mareille Harrison, Don Wert, Ed Lint, LeAnn Burden, Dave Lint, J. Franklin Lint, Sr. Max Harrison, Debby Harrison, Max L. Hile, J. Franklin Lint, Jr., Peggy Lint, Jody and Dick Lint The PennSTAR Team. I was still thinking about ways in which we could use computers to help to create and implement IEPs. There were many computer utilization people working in the SERS. I knew quite a lot about curriculum development from my STEP and CBIS days. Therefore, I put together a team of curriculum and computer specialists to study the issue. The result was the PennSTAR IEP and Curriculum System. I was the overall team leader as well as the director of curriculum development. James Randecker, an IU 16 employee who worked for one of the SERS projects, was in charge of software development. My Life Story -- 123 – G. Edwin Lint The PennSTAR System included two programs, which were related yet independent. Both ran on Apple II computers only. Educators could use either or both. PennSTAR System software was written in ProDOS, was menu-driven, and very userfriendly. Users had access to an extensive array of OPEN-APPLE keyboard commands for operational shortcuts. All lists were accessed from pop-down menus and selections were entered by positioning the cursor and pressing RETURN. Lists were also user-modifiable. Actual typing was limited to student-specific data such as name, and present educational levels. The first PennSTAR Team agreed unanimously that the foundation of the curriculum base should be Intermediate Unit 16's CBIS which, in turn, had its roots in Laurelton's STEP. Therefore, the development of the PennSTAR Master Curriculum began with 16 years of field-testing under its belt. The developing and refining of the PennSTAR Master Curriculum was done in three stages over a period of 18 months. The workers during the first stage were 18 special education consultants in the various projects of SERS. After their initial work was completed, the various Goal Areas were farmed out to a total of 72 Pennsylvania teachers for review and editing. The third and final stage of the process was carried out by 21 professors in Pennsylvania universities who gave it the final polish. My overall duties relating to the development and implementation of the PennSTAR System included the following: Wrote, Drafted, and/or edited over 4800 student learning objectives. Edited more than 2700 related instructional activities. My Life Story -- 124 – G. Edwin Lint Reviewed and approved all software features before code was written. Bench tested all features of the actual software on real computers. Wrote separate and complete user manuals for the IEP and Planned Course [curriculum development] components of the software. Wrote all training materials. Conducted numerous computer workshops for teachers in the use of the PennSTAR System, both in Pennsylvania and across the nation. The primary purpose for the PennSTAR System was to help students get an appropriate education. However, a strong secondary benefit was, helped catapult hundreds of teachers into the digital age during the late 80s and early 90s, including those who were willing well as those who were unwilling. Wrote all sales materials for marketing PennSTAR in Pennsylvania and across the nation. 4 4 it as We made a nominal charge for PennSTAR to cover the cost of materials. In Pennsylvania, it was $25; out of state, it was $50. Since the PennSTAR System was developed with PL 94-142 Federal funds, I felt that taxpayers shouldn’t be charged twice for the same product. My Life Story -- 125 – G. Edwin Lint Headed a team of four PennSTAR representatives to display this product at various education conventions across the country, including Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco. Our second child gets married. The year 1985 was sure a busy year for the Lint family. Judy got married in May and Dave got married in October to Emily Bihl of Camp Hill. Nancy and I were a little tense by Dave’s selection of a lifelong mate and the mother of his children. She was a devout Roman Catholic. Dave had also adopted CLA as his home church and he and Emily worked out an agreement regarding church attendance. One Sunday, they would go to the Catholic Church and the next Sunday they would attend CLA. Over time, Emily came to feel about worship at CLA pretty much the way I felt after the first CLA service I attended that Sunday night in February. As time passed, they started coming to CLA more and more, and going to the Catholic church less and less. Then Emily accepted Jesus Christ as Bud and Janet Bihl, Emily and Dave Lint, Nancy and Ed Lint her personal Savior, and was baptized. The next logical step was for Dave and Emily to join CLA as members. Dr. Gary Makuch out; Tucker in. The Republicans lost the state Capitol and the Democrats moved in. My old friend, Gary Makuch, eventually left and he was replaced as Bureau Director by a guy named Tucker. I was pretty much My Life Story -- 126 – G. Edwin Lint apolitical in the work I did, but eventually I was touched by the incoming Democrats. Tucker decided to reassign me and I was moved out of the SERS spot. The way he did it was reminiscent of the way the Mifflinburg pastor had called a vote on buying the radio station back in the 70s. Dad’s second wife, Laura Killen Lint, broke her hip and I went down to West Virginia for a week to lend a hand. While I was gone, Tucker reorganized the SERS. When I got back, I was no longer involved. For a while, I was still involved with PennSTAR, but before I retired, the Apple IIe computer was dying on the vine. PennSTAR was scheduled for the scrap heap, also. There was never sufficient interest or funds to upgrade PennSTAR to run on Windows or Mac computers. Computer coordinator. Tucker had one strong point; he was very interested in Macintosh computers. Macs began appearing on everyone’s desk, and believe it or not, I knew more about personal computers than anyone else working in that Bureau. Therefore, I became the de facto computer coordinator. Anytime anyone had a problem with hardware or software, they’d call for me. Before long, we had a network of at least 42 Macs with four Apple LaserWriter printers. We used one of the early networks known as PhoneNet. A special adapter would be plugged into the Mac’s printer port. These PhoneNet adapters would accept a regular telephone jack. So, the Macs and printers could be connected with regular phone cords that ran under the floor in the wire chases. My Life Story -- 127 – G. Edwin Lint 1990 through 1999 My fat Elvis days. Near the end of 1991, our family physician, Dr. Joseph Cincotta, felt I was in danger of become diabetic and should lose some weight. As I look back over the pictures taken around that time, I clearly see why our kids refer to this time in my life as my Fat Elvis Days. The doctor put me on a 1500 calorie diet and recommended I do daily exercise. I think my weight hit a high of around 220. Within three months, it had dropped to around 160 5. I know one thing for sure; I had to get all my clothes altered or replaced. Nothing fit any more. Back on live radio. My live broadcast of Gospel Caravan on WTGC Lewisburg ended when we moved to Mechanicsburg in 1981. After we moved, Gospel Caravan and Something Beautiful went into syndication on 50 stations across the country. Then one day, I heard at CLA that Messiah College was going to start up their campus radio station and might be looking for community volunteers. I checked it out and starting January 14, 1991, Gospel Caravan was back on the air live over WVMM-FM at 90.7 on the dial. However, this station was rated at effective radiated power of 100 watts, about the power of a desk lamp. People in their cars could get it from Carlisle to Duncannon. Those who really wanted to listen could hook up a dipole antenna and even get it on their house radios, too. Unfortunately, WVMM played Christian contemporary music except for the Gospel Caravan oasis, from 1:00 – 5:00 PM on Saturdays. 5 This morning, the scale read 170. My Life Story -- 128 – G. Edwin Lint I made arrangements to tape the CLA morning worship services and they were broadcast Sundays from 3:30 to 5:00 PM. I did all the engineering at the church and the radio station. Jack of all trades; master of a few6 By this point in my career, I had a wide range of skills and experiences so I could fit in just about anywhere. Computer coordinator, trainer, and trouble-shooter for the Bureau of Special Education. Compliance monitor 7 for all school districts in IUs 3 and 23 [suburban Pittsburgh Philly areas] Policy adviser for the Bureau of Special Education. Planned Course specialist and trainer: Chapter 5 of the Regulations of the Pennsylvania State Board of Education required that all curriculum8 be in planned course format While working in the area of Planned Courses, I became interested in Outcome-Based Education [OBE]. Retirement in sight. I would turn 60 on March 10, 1994. At that point, I would be eligible for state retirement. However, my retirement counselor recommended that I delay my retirement until the end of the last pay period in 1994. That would make my last day of work December 23, 1994. Jessi leaves home. Jessi was a great fan of Contemporary Christian music with such artists as Margaret Becker, Mylon Lefevre, and Russ Taff being high on her list. She was a veteran 6 Curriculum and computers were definitely my strong areas. The Bureau of Special Education was responsible for conducting periodic onsite visits of all school districts to assure that they were in full compliance with all relevant State and Federal mandates. 8 The Planned Course requirement applied to all students irrespective of disabilities and/or exceptionalities. 7 My Life Story -- 129 – G. Edwin Lint of numerous weeks at Creation9, both in the rain and in the sun. However, she had never shown any interest in Southern Gospel music. When she was a pre-teen, she was an ardent fan of Gospel Caravan and made many calls with requests for me to play a song for her. But she had grown out of her love for Gospel music long already [as the Pennsylvania Dutch would say.] Nancy and I were flabbergasted when she announced she was moving to Nashville in the fall of 1994. Heartbroken might be a better term. Nancy remembers it this way: Ed had another “Good-bye” to say when our “baby” Jessi decided to move to Nashville Tennessee. No, she wasn’t a country/western singer – she just felt a pull to Nashville. We helped Jessi and a friend load a truck and traveled down to Tennessee with them and helped them get settled in a cute little apartment. (We found out later God’s purpose in moving Jessi to Nashville, but we saw no reasonable explanation for it at the time.) Jessi was planning to move in October. During September, I was chairing an onsite monitoring week-long visit to the HatboroHorsham School District in eastern Pennsylvania. I can remember doing laps around the motel parking lot after dinner, praying for Jessi every steps of the way. I guess I was praying as much for strength as I was for Jessi. And then, part way through the week, God gave me peace. I would still hate to see her move 720 miles away without a job. I still couldn’t see why she was doing what she was doing. But I had faith to believe that God would watch over her and take care of her, even when I couldn’t, and would lead her along the path He wanted her to travel. 9 A week-long outdoor camp and concert featuring the world’s best contemporary Christian music artists. My Life Story -- 130 – G. Edwin Lint Final countdown. When I got within about 60 working days of my actual retirement date, I put up a large countdown placard outside my cubicle that displayed the days remaining till retirement. Salvaging PennSTAR and learning to use a Windows computer. When I became sure that PennSTAR would be trashed when I retired, I made a formal request of Joseph F. Bard, the Commissioner of Basic Education, that I be permitted to take the PennSTAR curriculum files with me into retirement. He gave me that permission in writing. So, working in the evenings and weekends, and on my own time, I copied those files to floppy disks, in both Macintosh and Windows format. Most of the computers in the Bureau were Macs but there was one Windows 3.1 I could borrow, so I taught myself to use Windows. [I never have mastered DOS.] On retirement day, I would have all the necessary files stored away safely at home. [I think I still have those disks around here somewhere; of course the PennSTAR Master Curriculum is safely squirreled away on my Internet server. Welcome back, Republicans! The November 1994 election brought the Republicans back into power. I was ecstatic! To celebrate, I hung a large American flag outside my cubicle along with a poster documenting the Republican triumph. When people began asking, what do you think all these Democrats are going to say, I’d just smile and reply, “What are they going to do to me? Fire me? The final days. Now my fellow workers began dropping by my office or meeting me in the elevator with the following little My Life Story -- 131 – G. Edwin Lint speech. “You’re so lucky. I wish I was retiring!” My response was always the same: “Don’t wish your life away.” I can honestly say that I had enjoyed my working days and most of the time it was a real joy to go to work in the morning. And most of the time, I was fortunate enough to have an immediate supervisor who just pointed me in the general direction I was to travel and let me work out the details. Or better still, gave me the latitude to be creative and develop programs as I saw a need. The PennSTAR System is a perfect example of this last point. But now, I must admit, I was looking forward to doing my own thing, not what someone else wanted me to do, but what I wanted to do. Of course, there was the obligatory retirement office party, where I got a retirement gift of a heavy duty camera tripod as an all chip in farewell gift.10 I gave myself the most significant retirement gift of all. All during my working years, I had been very frugal with use of vacation and sick days. If I was really sick, I took a sick day. But I never used a sick day unless I was really too sick to work. Same thing with vacation days. I only used them for special occasions, like going to the beach or watching a World Series game if the Yankees were playing [and they often were.] So when it came time to retire, I had accumulated 200 unused sick days and 45 unused vacation days. That amounted to enough cash in my final paycheck to buy a new car. 10 When I knew Jessi was going to leave home, I bought a Sharp VHS camcorder to document that whole affair. Upon retirement, I planned to transfer my 60-some four-minute reels of home movie film onto video tape by putting the camcorder on a tripod and taking video pictures of the projected images. My Life Story -- 132 – G. Edwin Lint My sit-down retirement party was over an extended lunch hour within walking distance of the office. After all, I didn’t drink and I didn’t want anyone else getting drunk and killing themselves or others driving home from my retirement party. The last day of my employment. Jessi had surprised us by coming home for Christmas, and so she joined me for my final lunch over at the Strawberry Square Food Court. Most of the time during my Harrisburg years, I ate my lunch from 12:00 till 12:15 while listening to Rush Limbaugh. Then from 12:15 till 12:50, I put my feet up and took a power nap. So lunch at Strawberry Square with Jessi and Nancy was really special. Before I knew it, it was 4:00 P.M. and time to go home. Time to turn in my keys, my free parking card, and, seeya! I walked out with 37 years of state service under my belt. So, I’m Retired; now what? On December 23, 2011, I will have been retired 17 years. So far, I can honestly say I haven’t worked any less, or any less hard, I’ve just worked when I’ve wanted to work and at what I’ve wanted to do. More on this later. My first retirement goals. From the beginning, I had two primary retirement goals: • Transfer 20-some years of home movies [about 60 4-minute reels of silent color] from regular 8 mm film to VHS videotape. [There are various high tech ways this could be done; I planned to use my retirement tripod to hold the camera while the movies were projected onto the screen.] This was the easiest of my goals to achieve. Within a couple My Life Story -- 133 – G. Edwin Lint months, the transfer was completed and copies to the completed VHS tape were distributed. However, the other two goals Publishing on the Internet, and Making a Little Money would have to wait until the retirement money started rolling in. In addition to the regular monthly retirement checks from the state, there would be a fairly large lump sum payment. Some of that lump sum was already been earmarked for buying back the seven years of state service I had in New Jersey. In addition to my regular retirement funds, I had 200 unused sick days coming at 50% and 45 days of vacation coming at full salary. Regular trips to Kinkos in Harrisburg. Retirement money usually takes about 90 days to start rolling in. As I remember, I got my first check March 9, 1995. Until then, though, I had no computer to use for any project. I had advertised the fact that I had the PennSTAR Master Curriculum files on sale for a nominal fee. And the orders started trickling in. Without a Mac or Windows computer 11, I made regular trips up to Kinkos on US Route 22 in Harrisburg, where they had Windows and Mac computers to rent by the hour. I have sold and given away PennSTAR all over the country, as well as a lot of foreign countries. If I had let the bureaucracy take its course when they wanted to throw PennSTAR on the trash heap back in December 1994, I would nothing to show for all that work over the years. • A major retirement goal was to publish some of my writings on the world-wide web of the Internet where they would be available to anyone in the world that had could read English 11 The only computer I had to use was my trusty Apple IIe from 1984. That was OK for doing labels and correspondence, but for duplicating PennSTAR disks, I would need the more powerful computers at Kinkos. My Life Story -- 134 – G. Edwin Lint and had Internet access. The first title I got onto the Internet was Demon Possession Handbook. Since this was the first such effort I had ever made, I enlisted the help of Nancy, Judy, Pat, Dave, and Emily to help me make sure I got it done right. One evening in late December 1995, I held an Internet party. Everyone pitched in with reading copy for appropriate content, benchtesting hyperlinks, and proof-reading copy. The first time is always the hardest. Each successive publication was easier. You can see my current free download catalog by clicking this link. The download links are hot; go ahead and try one or two. If you need help with any downloading, just click the help button. If I could make a little money to augment my retirement income, that would be good, too. In fact, I did try several legal ways to make a little money. That’s what I did. Make a little money. • I finally came to the conclusion that the Lord had given me the skills to publish on the Internet for purposes other than making money. From that point on, my downloads were made at no cost to readers. DiskBooks Electronic Publishing . The Internet publishing retirement goal eventually took the form of the DiskBooks Electronic Publishing. DiskBooks Electronic Publishing features unique inspirational and educational titles available here and nowhere else in the world. This electronic service carries DiskBooks in the following categories: Christian fiction, inspiration, and education. DiskBooks titles are My Life Story -- 135 – G. Edwin Lint available in a variety of download formats for Windows and Macintosh computers, including PDF, EXE, .LIT, .SIT, and RTF All DiskBooks may be downloaded to your desktop at no cost. They are also available on disks in various formats for Windows and Macintosh computers. Click to go to the free master download site Perhaps you’re wondering why this entire hullabaloo about publishing on the Internet. Let me share a few details about electronic publishing: I publish on the Web for the following reasons: 1. Publication can be fairly instant. I can write something this minute and within the hour, it can: be saved to my hard drive as a word processor document, converted to html format by Dreamweaver, converted to pdf format by Adobe Acrobat uploaded to my server via software known as FTP Voyager, be available for the whole computer world to read and download. 2. I, and only I (and Nancy), decide what I am going to publish and not publish. I don't have to read rejection letters from publishers who for whatever reasons don't want to publish my work. I rent server space from www.bizland.com 3. I have the potential of worldwide distribution. According to the last monthly report from my server, my files were accessed by readers in 50 countries. My Life Story -- 136 – G. Edwin Lint Here is a chapter of Church Worker Handbook, I have written on the basics of how to publish on the Web. Not so long ago, my server company reported that my publications had reached the following countries: Australia, Brazil , Canada , Chile , China, People's Republic , Dominican Republic , Egypt, Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Indonesia , Italy , Japan, Korea, Republic , Malaysia , Mexico , Netherlands , New Zealand , Norway , Philippines , Poland , Portugal , Russia , Saudi Arabia , Singapore , South Africa , Spain , Sweden , Switzerland , Taiwan , Tanzania , Trinidad and Tobago , United Kingdom , United States , Virgin Islands (USA) My first Macintosh computer system. Once the retirement money came rolling in, I ordered a complete Macintosh system with software and an Apple LaserWriter printer. Now, no more trips up to Kinko. We ordered Nancy a computer, also. Of course, she got a Windows computer. At this time in our lives, our family was pretty much dichotomized regarding computers and their operation systems. Judy, Jim and I used the Macintosh. Dave, Jessi, and Nancy used Windows. [I’ve also written a Chapter about shopping for a new computer; that may help you understand the difference between Macintosh and Windows, in case you are wondering.] Quintuple By-pass Surgery. Around early February, 1996, I was starting to experience chest pains after periods of exertion. My primary care physician referred me to Associated Cardiologists; they felt I should have a heart catheterization. In cardiac catheterization, a long, thin, flexible tube called a catheter is threaded from a slit in the inside of the thigh through an artery or vein to the patient’s heart. Doctors collect My Life Story -- 137 – G. Edwin Lint information about the heart’s function, such as pressure and blood flow in different chambers of the heart, by means of a device attached to the catheter. [So says the encyclopedia.] This catheterization told the cardiologists that I had blockages in five areas of my heart that needed to bypassed. My surgeon was Dr. Carolyn Shaffer. I told Nancy that if someone was going to tie all those knots in the sutures that would have to be done, I’d just as soon have a female rather than a male surgeon. The surgery took place at Polyclinic Hospital in April 1996. By the time I was ready for discharge, the doctors told me that I had Congestive Heart Failure following the surgery. However, I was not given any medication to address this tendency when my lungs would fill up with fluid. [Hence the term Congestive Heart Failure [CHF]. A week after I was discharged from my surgery, I was back in the hospital with fluid on my lungs. My symptoms were shortness of breath and wheezing. It was so bad I had to sleep sitting up. This time, a doctor cut a slit in my back and put in a catheter to drain out the fluid. Close to two liters were drained out and they sent me home again. Before long, I was back in the emergency room with the same symptoms. This time, a cardiologist said I would have to be put on diuretics for the rest of my life, so my lungs wouldn’t fill up with fluid. In fact, he said I should have never been sent home from the hospital in the first place without a diuretic. He prescribed Lasix12, and it has kept me out of the hospital ever since. 12 I have heard that LASIX is an acronym for ”Lasts Six Hours.” I can believe it! My Life Story -- 138 – G. Edwin Lint A few months later, a doctor told me that the life expectancy for a Congestive Heart Failure patient was five years. Now it is nine years and still counting. In fact, a month ago, my cardiologist over at Hershey Medical Center read the results of the most recent Echo Cardiogram13 and said my heart was actually doing better and not worse. To God be the glory! For a while there, back in 1997, there was some thinking that I might be a candidate for a heart transplant. As a result of that thinking, I was referred to Dr. John Boehmer [BAY-mur] at Hershey Medical Center. Dr. Boehmer in charge of heart transplants at HMC but he felt that a transplant was not indicated. He chose to treat me via medication rather than more surgery. At that time, Dr. Boehmer was involved with a research study that would compare treating three groups of CHF patients [1] via an electronic high-end pacemaker, implantable cardiovascular defibrillators [ICD]. [2] special medication, or [3] placebo. The study was funded by the National Institute of Health [NIH]. I was enrolled in the study and it fell my lot to get the ICD. It was implanted under the skin of my left shoulder in January, 1998. The ICD monitors the heart electronically. If it goes too slowly, it can speed it up, if it goes too fast, it can slow it down, and if it stops, it can shock it to jump start it and get it going again. By July, 2003, my ICD was showing signs of needing fresh batteries. Dr. Boehmer felt I would benefit by a upgrade to a three-wire device rather than the two-wire model I had at the 13 An Echo Cardiogram can let the doctor watch my heart work inside my chest, just the way an OBY/GYN can see a baby moving in the mother’s womb. My Life Story -- 139 – G. Edwin Lint time. So now, I have Medtronic InSync Marquis IC Defibrillator implanted in my left shoulder. Stay tuned for later developments. Dillon James Lint November 1996. At first, Nancy and I kidded Dave and Judy and told them we were too young to be grandparents and that they should hold off in having children until we got old. But when Dave and Emily were ready to have a child, there were some miscarriages and Emily just couldn’t carry a child to full term. So, they began to explore opportunities for adoption. That effort led to a number blind allies, also. Now Nancy and I were praying for either a normal birth or a baby they could adopt. God answered everyone’s prayers in the form of a new-born baby boy they could adopt. What a thrill to go the hospital with Dave and Emily to “take delivery” of this bundle of precious joy. Dillon had the biggest blue eyes I had ever seen. Our joy was manifolded when we went with Dave and Emily and the Bihls to be witnesses at the courthouse as a judge ruled that Dillon was really ours, permanently. Dave and Emily have been very open about the fact that Dillon was adopted. Just the other day, I heard him tell his sister and cousin that “I am adopted”. I said, “Yes, Dillon. You were adopted, but we prayed a long time for God to help us find you, and he answered our prayers with a very special little boy.” My Life Story -- 140 – G. Edwin Lint Pop and Nana. When Dillon came along, Nancy and I had the distinct honor of deciding how we wanted to be addressed as grandparents. I chose Pop because Judy and Dave often call me Pop anyway. Nancy chose Nana because it is kind of a derivative of her name. Pop and Nana sound so much less old than Grandpa and Grandma or Pap and Gram. I can still remember the first time a Dillon called me Pop. I was baby sitting for him and he was taking an afternoon nap. Usually, when he was ready to get up from his nap, he would just start crying and I would go and get him. But on this particular occasion, he called out Pop! and that was such a thrill! [By coincidence, Bob and Bertha Adams were visiting at that very time and got to share that special moment. Victoria Madlein Carney, March 5, 1997. Even before Dillon arrived, Judy had told us she was expecting. Our first baby was going to have her first baby. Needless to say, we were overjoyed. Victoria of course became Tori for short; Madlein was Mom’s first name. As Dillon and Tori began to talk, they called each Dee-Dee and Tow-Tow. The first time Nancy and I babysat for Tori, she was just a couple days old. Judy and Pat needed to run a couple errands but didn’t have any formula with them. Before Judy could get back, Tori woke up and wanted something to eat. We had nothing for a newborn so I pacified Tori by letting her suck on my knuckle until Judy got home. It seemed to take Tori forever to start talking. Unlike her mother who was born talking, Tori was so slow in talking that Judy called her Helen [for Helen Keller]. However, when Tori started talking, she made up for lost time. She must have found that phonograph needle that was used to vaccinate Judy. My Life Story -- 141 – G. Edwin Lint Gospel Caravan on hiatus. In May 1997, Messiah College decided they no longer wanted community volunteers to work at WVMM, the college radio station. This meant no more Gospel Caravan and no more CLA Sunday broadcasts, either. Looked like my radio days were over! Implantable Cardio Defibrillator [ICD]. In early 1998, Dr. Boehmer told us he thought I would be a good candidate for a research study involving the comparative value of an ICD as opposed to medication in preventing sudden death in heart patients. The ICD would be designed to slow down the speed of the heart if it ran too fast, speed it up if it ran too slow, and start it if it stopped. The ICD was the size of a deck of cards and would be powered by five-year Lithium batteries. It was to be implanted in my left shoulder and wired to the heart. The implant was made at Hershey Medical Center in January 1998. Jessi;s Bride’s side: Pat, Tori, and Judy Carney; Nancy Lint, Steve and Jessi, Ed Lint, Marilyn Wert, Jerilee Carney; back row; Dave and Dillon, and Emily Lint, Vic Bingham, Jim Lint By the middle of 2003, tests showed that the batteries in my ICD would soon need to be replaced. So, the decision was made that my ICD would be upgraded to the threewire Medtronic InSynch Marquis IC capable of biventricular defibrillation. Jessi gets married to Steven M. Cherrico, February 1998. Jessi was very choosy about who she would date while My Life Story -- 142 – G. Edwin Lint was growing up. She was friends with a lot of people but it turns out, she was just waiting for Steve to come up on her radar screen. The bride’s wedding party after wedding at Christ Church Nashville: Front, l-r: Pat Carney holding Tori, Nancy Lint, Steve and Jessi Cherrico, Ed, Marilyn Wert, second row: Judy Carney, Dave Lint holding Dillon, Emily Wert, Vicki and Jim Lint, Jerilee Carney. Of course the wedding would be in Christ Church Nashville [where else?] Nancy and I drove down but Judy and Dave flew down with their families. Marilyn and Jerilee also attended the wedding. Our folks were delayed in flying out of Nashville and whom should we meet while changing planes but Bill Umbel, our old friend from the Mifflinburg days. Bill always called six-year old Jessi “Miss Personality”. Jim marries Victoria Bingham, August 1, 1998. On August 1, 1998, we got a phone call in the car on the way to Watsontown for a birthday party for Marceille, saying Jim and Vicki Bingham, his long-time girlfriend, had finally tied the knot in a very private ceremony in a park in Philadelphia! A reception was held the following December when Vicki’s parents (who lived in Arizona) were able to attend. Amy Grace, January 7, 1999 [The miracle baby]. Emily became pregnant and carried to full term this time. So, with the My Life Story -- 143 – G. Edwin Lint help of Caesarian section, we had our third grandchild. I call her little Nancy. Based on all the snapshots I’ve seen of Nancy as a toddler, Amy sure looks a lot like Nancy used to look. I think Nancy’s dad, Max Hile, thought so too because he felt the sun rose and sets because of Amy. This past Friday evening, Judy, and Dave had business to attend to so Nancy and I had the three grandchildren [Dillon, Tori, and Amy] and two of our in-laws [Emily and Pat] for a roast beef dinner. We loved it! The beef was good, too. Family Sunday Dinners. Nancy and I made a point of planning a family Sunday dinner for those who are not otherwise engaged. The core group consists of Judy, Tori, and Pat; Dave, Dillon, Amy, and Emily. One week, Nancy cooks at our house, the next Sunday we eat out at a local family restaurant. For example, yesterday was an eat in Sunday and Nancy cooked here. Next Sunday will eat out and we’ll go to a restaurant. Of course, our core group will be augmented by Jim, Vicki, Jessi and Steve, if they are in town. That practice continued for several years. Upgrading Our House. Since we moved here in March, 1981, we have made a number of changes and improvements, including the following: All exterior window frames have been “wrapped” in aluminum, making painting unnecessary. Carpeting [wall to wall] has been replaced in living room dining room, hallway, stairs, and one bedroom. Ceiling fans have been installed in the living room, kitchen, all three bedrooms, and my office on the ground floor. My Life Story -- 144 – G. Edwin Lint Ceramic tile flooring has been added in the kitchen and the upstairs bathroom. The heating and air conditioning units have been replaced with more economic versions. Computerized thermostat has been installed that is capable of automatically turning heat/AC up and down at certain times of the day and night and on certain days of the week. Gas logs have been installed in the family room fireplace. Deck has been replaced with a Eon [synthetic lumber] version, including spindles all around railing to make it safe for the grandchildren. Decorative shutters have been replaced on the front of the house. Concrete driveway has been repaved with asphalt; two-car parking pad has been added. Hard surface flooring has replaced carpeting in the master bath. Kitchen has been modified by creating an open archway into the dining room and by adding a wall of cabinets along the wall facing the living room; a large panty cabinet has been added in the dining room. Landing down from the deck steps has been added, making it possible for Nancy [and anyone else] to go from deck level to ground level with ease. Office and radio studio [for me] has been added by building a wall down the middle of the ground-floor family room. Painting has been done in living room, dining room, kitchen, and bedrooms. Picture window has replaced the sliding door out onto the deck. My Life Story -- 145 – G. Edwin Lint Retaining wall has been replaced along the drive. Roof has been replaced. Tub liner has been added in the main bath. Utility shed with loft14 has been added for seasonal storage of riding mower, snow blower, etc. 1998 Family Portrait Front, l-r: Pat and Tori Carney, Judy Carney, Dave and Dillon Lint; second row: Jim Lint and Vicki, Ed and Nancy Lint, Steve Cherrico, Emily Lint, Jessi Cherrico. November 1998. 14 We got a shed with a loft so we would have a place to store Jimmy’s paintings. My Life Story -- 146 – G. Edwin Lint 2000 through 2009 The Y2K [Year 2 thousand] Scare. As the century began to wind down, computer people realized there was a good chance that the world’s computers would crash when the calendar turned over from 1999 to 2000. During the developing years of the digital age, programmers were more interested in saving storage space than in what would happen at the turn of the century. Therefore, in those early years, all dates were expressed as six digits: MMDDYY. Suddenly there was a mad dash to prepare the world’s computers for dealing with an eightdigit date, rather than six digits. A computer that could deal with the eight-digit date was known as Y2K compliant. Although I am not a computer programmer, I had worked with computers since the early 70s and I knew full well how thoroughly they had permeated every aspect of our lives. So, I began to prepare for a shortage of water, food, and fuel. And I recommended to everyone I cared about that they might be well advised to do likewise. As the clock began to count down the last hours of the waning century, the world held it’s collective breath, hoping and praying there would be no local, national, or global catastrophe. Nancy’s employer, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, saw the possibility of some kind of catastrophe and Nancy had to work New Year’s Day, 2000. Guess what? The world’s computers took the century changeover with nary a blip on a radar screen. Much ado about nothing, thank the Lord! What happened or didn’t happen at the turn of the century? Was My Life Story -- 147 – G. Edwin Lint it a false alarm? Did God intervene with a miracle? Did man’s scientific prowess rise to the occasion and avert a tragedy? Or was it all of the above? You tell me. My personal opinion is that all the hard work and expense involved in Y2K compliance paid off big time. Broadcasting on Internet Radio. In the Spring of 2000 I read in Time Magazine about something called Internet Radio. And I also read that www.live365.com was providing this service free to anyone who wanted to broadcast on the Internet. I launched my first Internet radio station on April 14, 2000. Internet radio is based on the concept of streaming audio. A radio server sends out a stream of audio signals in the form of MP3 files over the lines. Those who want to listen to a specific stream of audio set their web browsers to the URL of the radio station they want to hear. The browser then directs the stream of audio to an MP3 player inside your computer, such as Player365. The computer then plays the incoming stream of audio signals through its soundboard and speaker system. Since Internet radio signals travel over phone lines from the radio station [server] to your computer, the quality of the signal is somewhat dependent on the quality of the phone service at any point in time. Dial-up service is usually provided at voice quality. This means the service is good enough to provide a dial tone and permit verbal conversation. This may or may not be good enough to provide radio service without gaps and skips. In the beginning, we had a dial up connection to the Internet. The listening was rather ify, with frequent dropouts and skips. However, when we got a cable connection to the Internet, the quality of the listening increased greatly. My Life Story -- 148 – G. Edwin Lint Judy moves back home – temporarily! You read about kids getting married and moving out, and then suddenly reappearing with one or more kids in tow and looking for a home – again. Judy did that, kind of. During 2001, she and Pat bought a lot over in suburban New Cumberland, and made plans to build a house. Then they had good news and bad news. The good news was that they sold their old house in Lemoyne right away. The bad news was they had no place to live while their new house was being built. More good news – for us; the Carneys15 moved in with us. Here are the living arrangements we had August through December 2001. Judy and Pat took the bedroom at the end of the hall, above the garage. Cable TV was provided. Tori had the bedroom across from the master bedroom for her sleeping and play area. Cable TV was also provided for her. The Carneys used the main bathroom. I used the down stairs powder room for shaving, oral hygiene, and other sundry bathroom activities. I used the shower in the master bath; Nancy used the master bath for all her needs. Pat always likes to pay his own way but we refused to take rent. Instead, I drew up a written barter agreement: he would do work around our house that needed to be done in lieu of rent. He elected to skip the annual trip to Myrtle Beach that year. Instead, he stayed home and worked on opening up a large archway from 15 Judy, Pat, Tori, and Olivia, Tori’s cat. My Life Story -- 149 – G. Edwin Lint the kitchen into the dining room. Judy and Tori made the beach trip as usual. Maggie, Nancy’s cat, seemed to get the worst of the deal. Olivia, Tori’s young cat, took great delight in pouncing on Maggie from a hiding place and harassing her in other ways. Maggie acted like she didn’t like that at all. However, when the Carney’s moved out, Maggie seemed to really miss Olivia. For days afterward, she went around the house, caterwauling mournfully. Not only did Maggie miss Olivia when the Carneys moved out, I missed having a live-in handyman. Learning to use a digital camera. I got my first digital camera16 around my birthday, March 10, 2000. I was fairly experienced in the basics of photography: my parents gave me a Kodak 35 mm camera for a high school graduation present, and while working at the Vineland State School, I used an SLR 35 mm zoom camera quite a bit. So, I was well versed in such things as f stops, depth of field, ASA speeds, etc. Since I’m pretty much a buy American kind of guy, I wanted my first digital camera to be made by Kodak. However, Kodak hadn’t gotten the bugs out of their digital camera line, and I couldn’t get my new camera to work properly. I sent it back, got a refund, and bought an Olympus D-490. I’ve been using it ever since. With a digital camera, you can preview your pictures right away on an LCD screen on the back of the camera. What’s even better, a digital picture may be sent around the world as an attachment or an insert to an e-mail message. Great fun! 16 A digital camera stores a computer file of a picture on a storage device inside the camera [often called a smart card.] These picture files are then downloaded to your computer where they may be printed, sent via e-mail, or inserted into a web page. For more information, click this link. My Life Story -- 150 – G. Edwin Lint My 70th Birthday, March 10, 2004. Seems like a lot of people are having decade birthdays in the year 2004, including the following: Dad Hile, Steve, Dominic Herbst [Jacki’s husband], and a couple nieces. My family decided my big seven-oh would be cause for a megacelebration, complete with invitations, a memory album, and a “this is your life” video. The whole family pitched in with Steve providing a technology assist from his office down in Christ Church Nashville. Of course I took digital pictures and created a 70th birthday website. However, all the pictures of minor children, including [Dillon, Tori, and Amy] have been removed. However, the website should still be intact in case you wish to check it out. Click this link to see it. The celebrants included: Bob Adams, Abigail Carney, Jerilee Carney, Judy Carney, Patrick Carney, Tori Carney, Jessi Cherrico, Dennis Harlacher, Loretta Dennis Harlacher, Marceille Harrison, Geraldine Hile, Max L. Hile, Amy Lint, Dave Lint, Dillon Lint, Emily Lint, Jim Lint, Nancy Lint, Victoria Lint, Ken Longnecker, Lisa Longnecker, Connie Ranck, Wayne Ranck, Brenda Smith, Hubert Smith, Judy Styers, Nelson Styers, Marilyn Wert. [Judy and Jerilee are first cousins and both married men named Carney, but Pat and Boyd are not related.] My Life Story -- 151 – G. Edwin Lint My kids and me: Dave, Judy, Jessi, Jim: March 10,2004. Nancy and me on March 10, 2004 The family talking with Bob Adams at the party. L-R: Nancy, Dad Hile, Ed, Mother Hile, Bob Adams. Pastor Steve and The Rock Community. Steve had been working with the Christ Church pastoral staff on a study program that would lead to his becoming an ordained minister. In May 2004, he reached the point in his studies where Christ My Life Story -- 152 – G. Edwin Lint Church Nashville was ready to ordain him. This was right around his 30th birthday. Nancy, Judy, Tori, and I made the trip to Nashville for a surprise birthday picnic and his ordination. Steve had been working on staff at Christ Church as a full time Pastor for junior high kids. However, he felt God leading him into a new kind of ministry so he resigned his pastorate at Christ Church and began a new community outreach to be known as The Rock Community of Nashville. Enter Justus Maxwell Cherrico: February 22, 2005. For some time, Jessi and Steve had been hoping to start a family. However, medical problems prevented this from happening. On November 4, 2004, Jessi had a complete hysterectomy.. Out of the despair of that dark hour came a ray of hope. Jessi learned of an expectant mother who was planning to surrender her baby for adoption at birth. Long story short: Jessi was in the delivery room as Justus came into the world, she got to cut the cord, and he was placed in her arms.. The three Cherricos then occupied the same room in the maternity ward. On February 22nd, we knew the baby’s birthday was eminent so we got on the road to Nashville. We had just stopped for a supper break at a KFC in Lexington, VA when we got a call on our cell phone: Justus had arrived! Although we were anxious to see our new grandson, we stopped overnight at a motel and then finished our trip the next morning. My Life Story -- 153 – G. Edwin Lint We visited the new family in the hospital room and then stayed for an entire week in a condo unit next door that some church folks had loaned us. Although this was our fourth grandchild, it was the first one we wouldn’t be able to see within 15 minutes any time we want to. Therefore, we wanted to store up all the Justus we could before driving north to Pennsylvania. Later that week, in a simple but beautiful surrender ceremony in the hospital chapel, the birth mother placed Justus into Steve and Jessi’s loving arms. A pastor from Christ Church Nashville officiated. Life: what a beautiful choice! The Virtual Professor. Over my professional education career, I have taught a variety of persons in a variety of settings, including: 7th and 8th grade students in a self-contained classroom, persons with mental disabilities, pre-service and inservice training for paraprofessional and professional employees, and undergraduate college students. In the winter of 2005, I signed a contract to teach an-online course for Axia College of Western International University. I would instruct up to 40 students for nine weeks in May, June, and July. The teacher-student interaction would be via Outlook Express News Groups set up especially for my class by the university. There would be a classroom news group, a chat room news group, and private news groups for each student and me. My students ranged from an 18-year-old who worked in a Starbucks to a grandmother who was Director of Christian Education for her church. The hours weren’t too bad; I had to be My Life Story -- 154 – G. Edwin Lint on call [reachable via phone and email] from 4:00 to 8:00 PM Sunday through Thursday. However, the busy work took a lot of time. The university still hadn’t learned to harness the full power of the computer to relieve the instructor of many repetitive tasks. As a result, I found myself neglecting my radio and publishing ministry to do mandated busy work. Therefore, I did not sign a contract for another course. Maybe I’ll try it again after the process is more automated for busy work, stuff ideally suited for a mindless computer. Pastor Judy. Judy and Pat had remained as members of the New Cumberland Church of the Nazarene and did not follow us to CLA. Later she was appointed as Pastor for Children and Director of the Children’s School of New Cumberland. While working in these capacities, she had been taking required courses toward her ordination. On April 14, 2005, Judy was ordained and the Cherrico Family made the trip north with their two-month old baby. Judy saw Justus for the first time the very night she was ordained. [In this picture, she is seeing him for the first time during the reception that followed the ordination service. Justus Dedicated to the Lord. As has been our family’s custom from Day One, Justus was to be dedicated to the Lord and the date was June 19. Of course, the entire family trooped south to Nashville for this momentous event. After the service, we My Life Story -- 155 – G. Edwin Lint all gathered in the church breezeway for a family portrait, the first one since November 1998. Left to right, first row: Amy, Dillon, Nancy, Ed, Tori, Justus, Jessi, Steve. Second row: Vicki, Jim, Emily, Dave, Judy, Pat. [As you can see, getting dedicated is very exhaustive work!] Dillon (also adopted) and Amy are the children of Dave and Emily; Tori is the daughter of Judy and Patrick Carney. Following this photo op, we all got into a caravan of cars and drove to a very nice restaurant for a dedication lunch. The Cherrico Family picked up the check. Thank you very much!. Back Trouble Revisited. You may remember my back troubles as a younger man. In August of 2005, my lower back pain returned and became progressively worse through the fall. By November, I had endured a month of physical therapy, had a month of chiropractic adjustments, and was still walking with a cane. I was unable to stand for any length of time and had pain down my right thigh and into my right knee. I had two X-rays and a CAT scan; an MRI was prescribed but my ICD wouldn’t allow it. In late November, I went to our family doctor and he decided I was not going to get better by ignoring the problem so he referred me to a Pain Management Specialist over in Harrisburg. On Thanksgiving Eve, he gave me an epidural steroid shot in my spine. Relief was gradual over a month. By Christmas Day 2005, I was able to stand long enough to peel potatoes, brush my teeth, and shave. At this writing [December 14, 2011]], my life is pretty much back to normal regarding back pain. Was deliverance due to all the treatments or the power of prayer? I’m giving God the My Life Story -- 156 – G. Edwin Lint lion’s share of the credit. Pictured above are Vic, Jim, Amy, Emily, Dillon, Dave, Judy, Pat Justus, Jessi, Steve, Nancy, Ed, Tori. A High Tech Christmas. Christmas 2005 was very high tech for me. My gifts included a StreetPilot and an XM radio for the home and car. The StreetPilot uses the Global Positioning Satellites [GPS] to provide turn by turn audio and visual directions to a screen right in the car. What better gift for someone who has geographic dyslexia! Now, all I have to do is key in the address of my destination and I am told what to do to get there. To go home, I just click Go Home and it takes me home again! I had wanted to get the XM radio option when we bought our new Buick in April but I was vetoed. However, Santa overrode that veto. XM radio uses satellites to transmit radio signals that provide the same stations from coast to coast. There are about 200 channels to choose from including the following: Fox news, CSPAN, 40s music, 50s music, classic radio, conservative talk radio, and on and on. There is a small monthly subscription charge but I think it will be worth it. This was not exactly a high tech Christmas for Justus but it was his first Christmas and he enjoyed it immensely. I know we enjoyed sharing it with him. One of his gifts was a pusher wagon especially designed for beginning walkers. Dillon and Tori used something similar when they were starting to walk. Justus took to it right away, just as they did. The Golden Anniversary Year. Since we were married in 1956, 2006 would be our golden anniversary year. My first thought was to have a celebration for the immediate family plus Frank, Jesse, and Jesse’s finance. I reserved a private room at the My Life Story -- 157 – G. Edwin Lint Chestnut Hill Restaurant in Myrtle Beach, SC, where we would have a nice dinner and renew our vows. However, in May 2006, Nancy’s mother had a kidney removed due to cancer. There would be no long trips for her in August and she was expressing a desire to see the vow renewal. Judy, Jessi, Emily, and Vicki seemed to show an interest in having a celebration in the Harrisburg area so the kids reserved the Veranda Room at the Radisson Penn Harris Hotel in Camp Hill. I created a web page to commemorate our 50th anniversary celebration: http://www.diskbooks.org/50ednancy.html anniversary celebration.] [Visit our There are plenty of pictures at the link above and a download link for a slide show that covers our lives up to the anniversary. http://www.diskbooks.org/slides.pdf slide show] [Download the Goodbye, Gram. Both Mother and Dad were able to attend our 50th anniversary celebration. We were so happy we rescheduled the date and location to July 2, 2006 at Camp Hill. As we got into the months of July and My Life Story -- 158 – G. Edwin Lint August, Mother slowly went down hill. Nancy and I began making a practice of going up to Watsontown to visit her every Tuesday. Marceille had moved into 106 Brookside following Mother’s operation and our Tuesday visits gave her a respite, as well as gave Mother a chance to enjoy Nancy’s tasty cooking. Our last visit with Mother was the Wednesday before our family left for our week of vacation at Myrtle Beach, SC. Nancy fixed a great dinner and Mother made a valiant effort to clean her plate. However, she had to struggle to swallow. Her spirits were good, though. Our 2006 Myrtle Beach vacation was very special. Judy, Dave, Jim, and Jessi pooled their resources and gave us a week at the beach as our anniversary present. It was bittersweet for Nancy, though. She kept getting calls on her cell phone about Mother’s declining condition. Finally the call came that Mother had passed away. We considered driving right home but decided to wait until Wednesday morning to leave. One positive thing about the passing happening during our vacation. Nancy’s children were all around her to support her. Jessi, Steve, and Justus traveled North with us in their car. We drove up to Watsontown Thursday morning so Nancy could be with her Dad and sisters. Very sad for all concerned. The funeral was held Friday, August 25, 2006 in the Lewisburg CMA Church. Judy, and Steve helped with the service. Needless to say, Dad was devastated yet he may not have fully comprehended what had befallen us all. Dad Followed Mother in November, 2006. Dad had Alzheimer’s before Mother died. After her funeral, his decline became more pronounced. Nancy maintained our practice of making weekly visits to Watsontown to visit with him and help My Life Story -- 159 – G. Edwin Lint support Marceille in her care of him. A rotation was set up with Marilyn and Jacki and us for weekend overnight visits in addition to the weekly Tuesday visits. The local hospice became involved with supporting the family in providing Dad’s care. A hospital bed was moved into the living room, along with oxygen and a respirator. A hospice nurse made regular visits. On Friday, November 10, 2006, Nancy and I were on our way to Watsontown for the weekend when the OnStar phone rang. It was Marceille, calling to say that Dad had a stroke and was doing very poorly. We called Judy, Dave, Jim and Jessi with this information. Since Jessi was about 12 hours away in Nashville, she was debating whether she and her family should leave right away and drive to Watsontown. When we arrived at 106 Brookside, Dad was in his hospital bed and breathing very laboriously His rasping breath sounds could be heard through the entire house. LeAnn Burden and Lestia Grill [Marceille’s daughters] are LPNs and were providing moment by moment care. Nancy and I were planning to stay the weekend with Dad and Marceille. Marilyn and Jacki joined us as the night wore on. Jessi, Steve, and Justus arrived from Nashville about 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning. They prayed and read the Bible with Dad; Jessi believes he was aware of their presence but he never regained full consciousness after the stroke Friday evening. November 11th is Lestia’s birthday so Nancy baked a birthday cake for her. Life goes on. By 10:00 p.m., the LPN girls could tell that the end was near. He went to Heaven before 11:00 p.m. Gary Cronrath, the mortician and friend of the family came and rolled Dad’s body out the front door and down the walk to the hearse, My Life Story -- 160 – G. Edwin Lint through a falling rain. Nancy asked that his face be covered before they took him out into the rain. Judy, Steve, Jim, and Dave had major roles in the funeral, which was held in the Lewisburg Alliance Church. Dave led the congregational singing, Steve provided a homily based on one of Pap’s favorite verses in Isaiah, and one-take Judy made an excellent “Remembering Pap” presentation. Judy also handled the grave-side service. All our kids did an excellent job. Nancy and I were very proud. Actually, Jim had a secondary role in the funeral: his This Is Your Life: Max L. Hile DVD played in the church lobby during the visitation time before the service. Gary Cronrath was very impressed with the way Judy handled her roles; he has seen a good many funerals! Putting 106 Brookside on the Market. Preparing the house for sale was a massive and time-consuming job. Nancy [and often I] went to Watsontown at least once a week. We bought Dad’s car, a 1995 Olds V8 Aurora, and gave it to Jessi to use as their everyday car. Many things in the house had been given to Mother and Dad as gifts. These went back to the givers. Other things were claimed by one of the sisters and their offspring. At the end of March 2007, I rented a 24 foot Penske truck with a hydraulic lift gate. Jim drove the truck to Watsontown to pick up the things our family [Nancy, Judy, Dave, and Jim, and Jessi] would be taking. Jim then rented a U-Haul truck to take the things he would be getting to Philly. We gave him the piano that used to be in Dad and Mother’s house. We used the truck with the lift gate to load the piano onto the larger Penske truck and transfer it, in turn, to the U-Haul for the trip to Philly. My Life Story -- 161 – G. Edwin Lint Unfortunately, the housing market was pitiful in 2007. The next step may be a public auction. Anything may be better than paying out of pocket for taxes and other expenses. Welcome Nathan Jack. Jessi and Steve hoped to increase their family and were alert for another child they could adopt. On December 12, 2007, Nathan Jack joined our extended family. They were able to take him home from the hospital, much like the adoptions of Dillon and Justus. Jessi gave him the middle name of Jack because that was the middle name of C. S. Lewis, one of her favorite authors. We didn’t even get to see him until New Year’s Day, 2008. Needless to say, Nate was given a hearty welcome into our family on New Year’s Day, 2008. Now Dillon has two adopted cousins. These guys are forming their own exclusive club! In June, 2008, Nate was dedicated to the Lord in our church, Christian Life Assembly of Camp Hill. Jessi wanted as many of our immediate family to be able to attend the dedication service. Having the service in Camp Hill made that more practical than driving down to Nashville. After the dedication service, which occurred in the 8:45 A. M. service, we all gathered for a dedication brunch courtesy of Nate with help from Nana and Pop. The family went to the RockBass Grill in Wormleysburg, where we were able to create our own menu from the standard Sunday brunch/lunch menus. The guests chose from Nate’s menus with items only and no prices. My Life Story -- 162 – G. Edwin Lint 2010 through 20xx Harrisburg Hospital, Holy Spirit Hospital, Peritoneal Dialysis at Home 2010 was a dismal year for me. First, I got pneumonia and went to the Harrisburg Hospital. Then, I got pneumonia again; this time I went to Holy Spirit Hospital. Around Fourth of July, I had abdominal distress and was admitted to Holy Spirit Hospital again. After a battery of tests, it was determined my kidneys were failing; I would need to go on dialysis, probably for life. Apparently my kidney symptoms caused me to exhibit some strange behaviors. Although I have no memory of this, I refused to stay in bed and ripped my IV out of my arm. The nurses had to restrain my hands and feet to keep me under control. The only part of this behavior I remember is my begging family members [especially Jim] to untie my hands and feet so I could go home. Manor Care rehab center. I was fitted with a dialysis access in the right shoulder. While I was still in Holy Spirit, I started getting hemodialysis. Then I was transferred to the Manor Care rehab center in Camp Hill. At first, I hated Manor Care. I went into deep depression, refusing to eat. But as the dialysis began to do its work, I began to feel better. The motorcycle accident I had back in 1983 left me with an impaired ankle which caused me to limp on occasion. While in the hospital, my ankle was so painful I had to get around in a wheel chair. My Life Story -- 163 – G. Edwin Lint The therapists at Manor Care helped me to learn to walk again and soon, I was walking with the aid of a cane. The only thing that really pulled me out of my depression was Manor Care’s policy of day furloughs. One week I went home for Sunday dinner. Another week, I went to an end-of-DVBS picnic at CLA. That was really fun. By then I was able to walk with a cane. Another time, the whole family came to visit me for Jessi’s birthday party. The family brought the refreshments and Manor Care provided a very nice party room. 2010 Caddy SRX. About this time, Nancy traded in our 1999 Buick Park Avenue Ultra on a new Caddy SRX. The first time I saw the new car, was in front of Manor Care. While at Manor Care, I was scheduled to be on the DaVita Camp Hill dialysis machine for 4.5 hours per session, three sessions per week. One day while I was in the dialysis chair, Joanne Knapp, RN, gave me a booklet about peritoneal dialysis [PD]. With this type of treatment, I could take a portable machine home with me and have more freedom and a more normal diet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/peritoneal_dialysis Peritoneal dialysis PD is a treatment for patients with severe chronic kidney disease. The process uses the patient's peritoneum in the abdomen as a membrane across which fluids and dissolved substances (electrolytes, urea, glucose, albumin and other small molecules) are exchanged from the blood. Fluid is introduced through a permanent tube in the abdomen and flushed out either every night while the patient sleeps (automatic peritoneal dialysis) or via regular exchanges throughout the day (continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis). My Life Story -- 164 – G. Edwin Lint PD is used as an alternative to hemodialysis though it is far less common. It has comparable risks and expenses, with the primary advantage being the ability to undertake treatment without visiting a medical facility. The primary complication with PD is a risk of infection due to the presence of a permanent tube in the abdomen. A necessary part of the PD process is to have a peritoneal catheter placed in the abdominal wall so fluid can be placed in the peritoneal cavity and drained out after treatment. As a result of that booklet, I began studying all I could find about the PD home treatment. Nancy and I agreed that I would use the PD home treatment. The next step was to have PD catheter inserted in my abdomen; see jpeg to right, showing the catheter that attaches to the PD Cycler with a section of tubing. The PD process follows this routine: This Cycler with two bags of dialysis fluid sits beside the bed. My Life Story -- 165 – G. Edwin Lint the When treatment starts, fluid is pumped into my peritoneal cavity via my peritoneal dialysis catheter and held there for about 75 minutes. During this “dwell” time, impurities pass into the dialysis fluid through the permeable membrane of the peritoneum. The fluid is then pumped out of the cavity [again via the PD catheter and sent down the drain. [Patients without easy access to plumbing use a drain bag.] During the night, this process is repeated five times and everything is automatic. Fortunately, the bed is close enough to the commode and shower stall that standard tubing lengths permit me to make nighttime visits to the commode. A company named Baxter makes the Cycler machine, the bags of fluid, and all the tubing needed to perform the nightly PD. Baxter delivers all supplies and the driver brings the product into the house and stacks it where it needs to be. A month’s supply of fluid consists of 30 cartons of two bags per carton Here’s a link to a YouTube Video of the Baxter AutoCycler, which I use. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LriX7okbAqU Nancy’s Fall. As Nancy was coming in from getting the morning paper October 28, 2011, she tripped coming up on the stoop and fell forward, hitting her forehead on the brick door opening. At this hour, I was just finishing up my nightly My Life Story -- 166 – G. Edwin Lint peritoneal dialysis and was still on the Cycler. She walked in the bedroom with two large hematomas, one above each eye. We decided she needed medical attention and started out to take her to a storefront emergency room we had used before. However, the Buick was very low on gas and Nancy didn’t want to climb up into the Caddy SRX. While we were getting gas, Nancy decided she would rather go to Holy Spirit Hospital than the local emergency room. She called Dave because I had not had my cataract surgery yet and my vision was too impaired for this much driving. In the Holy Spirit emergency room, they gave her a CAT scan to determine the severity of her injuries. By mid-afternoon, the doctor proclaimed she was ready to recuperate at home and Dave drove us home. The doctor told her that the blood in the hematomas would drain down through her eye sockets and into her face. She fell on Friday and this picture was taken Sunday evening. The blood has given her two purple eyes and it will eventually go down until her entire face is discolored. She didn’t go to church for several weeks. Timber! The Saturday night after Nancy’s fall, we had a significant amount of snow. Sunday morning, we could hear the snow-laden branches of a large pine tree rubbing on the roof. Several years ago, I had planted a live Christmas tree at the northwest corner of the house. Now, it had grown up so tall, the My Life Story -- 167 – G. Edwin Lint branches were above the roof. When significant snow fell, I was afraid the branches would damage the roof. We had Asplundh come out and give us an estimate on taking it down. Joe Hertz looked at the tree at the corner and also looked at a tree in the front yard. This tree had started as a little Charlie Brown-type tree, but had grown to be higher than the house. Dave gave it to us when he was working at the Cumberland Nursery. Now, it looked like it was going to have to come down. In this picture, the Asplundh cherry picker is lowering the lumber jack down the tree from top to bottom as he saws off limbs as he goes. We told Joe, we wanted the stump to be about waist high. At Christmas time, we put our old artificial tree out on that stump and then put colored lights on the tree. So, we have a momento of the old tree, as you see in the picture. After Christmas, I may put a flag pole in the tree holder bolted to the top of the stump and use it year round. Cataract surgery. My right eye was operated on November 2, 2011. The next day, I was astounded by the improvement in my overall vision. Before the surgery, I had to wear my glasses to drive and had to wear “computer glasses” [all the higher power bifocal] to use the computer. After surgery, I could drive and use the computer with no glasses. My Life Story -- 168 – G. Edwin Lint My left eye was done December 7, 2011. Dr. Kilmore wants me to wear glasses as a protective covering while the cataracts are healing. So, I checked the Kilmore Optical store and found glasses with no magnification and just the least bit of yellow tint. I started wearing glasses when I was four years old, it seems so strange and “liberating” to drive without glasses, or just the no magnification glasses. By now, Nancy was had both her eyes treated by cataracts. Family Portrait. Nancy and I have written numerous end-ofthe-year holiday letters but we have written our last one. When we knew that Jim and Jessi and their families would be in town for Christmas 2011, Judy arranged for us all to meet on Dec. 26th over in Harrisburg to have a family portrait made. We had planned to send out the new picture as a 2012 Happy New Year greeting instead of Christmas cards. In lieu of future end-of-the-year letters, we are providing folks with a download link for this tome. In the future, folks can learn all the news by checking the download link. My Life Story -- 169 – G. Edwin Lint Here is the portrait: We are arranged as follows, front to back and left to right: Row 1: Nate Cherrico,; Row 2: Dillon Lint, Nancy Lint, Justus Cherrico, Ed Lint, Amy Lint; Row 3: Dave Lint, Emily Lint, Vic Bingham, Tori Carney, Steve Cherrico, Jess Cherricoi; Row 4: Judy Carney, Jim Lint, Pat Carney My Life Story -- 170 – G. Edwin Lint After the picture, we all gathered around a computer monitor and chose the various shots we wanted to use. In addition to the hard copy pictures, we got one disk with all the pictures on it. Then it was out to Cracker Barrel for lunch! Welcome Corina Madlein Cherrico: Jessi and Steve adopted two sons, Justus and Nate, but Jessi wanted to add a girl to her family tree. The Lord led them to an infant girl who was available for adoption. So, on July 21 2012, the extended family was invited to an infant dedication ceremony at Christian Life Assembly in Camp Hill. I created a mini web page to commemorate this important event. Click to view. www.diskbooks.org/Corina.html Then, this month, Jessi and Steve announced the official adoption with a judge. Now little Coco is officially ours, a member of the Ed Lint extended family. Kidney regression. Above, I explained in detail the process of home dialysis known as peritoneal dialysis. The PD process worked well CoCo with her adoption through July, 2012. However, during September, judge my body started to retain fluid. By the last Friday of September, Dr. Elnore had me admitted to the Holy Spirit Hospital. I was put in a room that contained a Baxter Cycler like the one I had been using at home. Here’s an ironic twist. While I was being admitted to Holy Spirit Hospital, Baxter made the next month’s delivery of solution. My Life Story -- 171 – G. Edwin Lint When I came home from the hospital, I hardly had room to turn around. Fortunately Steve was staying overnight. Since neither Baxter nor Davita had any use for the unneeded cartons of solution, Steve carried the boxes out to the deck, punctured and drained the bags and collapsed the cartons. Thanks, Steve. The first night, the technician programmed the Cycler to repeat the fill, dwell, and drain process 32 times. The result was similar to what I had been getting at home. When Dr. Elnore reviewed the results, he ordered me to be fitted with a shoulder catheter, ready for the traditional hemodialysis. By the time I was ready to leave the hospital, I had several fourhour dialysis sessions and I had lost my extra fluid. I was discharged on Sunday and started on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule at the Camp Hill Davita on Monday. While I was still in Holy Spirit Hospital, I started checking out a dialysis center in Mechanicsburg: U.S. Renal Care. This center was closer than Davita in Camp Hill and the traffic was lighter. The speed limits from home to U.S. Renal Care ranged between 25 to 40 mph. The distance from home to U.S. Renal Care is 3.2 miles and the travel time is about twenty minutes. The reclining chairs in Mechanicsburg have heat and vibration. The TVs are ceiling mounted and easier to use than those at Davita and Holy Spirit. When you are doing a four-hour stint on dialysis, you need something to help pass time. My Life Story -- 172 – G. Edwin Lint Anti-Obama blogs. I couldn’t believe that Obama was elected in 2008 and resolved to do my best to prevent another election in 2012. Therefore, I started an anti-Obama blog in March, 2011 and continued a steady barrage of Drawbridge postings through election day. Here’s a link to all recent posts: http://diskbooks.org/dbindex.html You know that Obama was elected in 2012 in spite of the best efforts of my blog, Romney’s campaign machine, and the RNC. Maybe the next step is impeachment! Kidney problems revisited. As you remember peritoneal dialysis process was abandoned and the shoulder catheter was reinstalled so I could go back on hemo dialysis. The shoulder catheter was a temporary measure because it is subject to infection. The long-term solution was to install an area in one of my arms known as a graft where the dialysis process could have access to my blood for circulation during treatment. On December 21, 2012, a vascular surgeon placed a Teflon tube in my right arm from the wrist to the elbow. This tube is just under the skin, making my blood supply available for dialysis. I had my first treatment with this new [for me] process Tuesday, Jan. 29. Here is an outline of the process on my part and the part of the nurse: At the center, a nurse inserts two needles with a short tube on them into my arm. The analgesic cream makes the pain minimal. My Life Story -- 173 – G. Edwin Lint The short tubes are then connected to longer tubes which connect to the dialysis machine beside my chair. I can’t move my right arm for the 3.5 hour treatment so my wrist is taped to the chair. During treatment, I am aware of slight pain in the needle areas. At the end of treatment, the nurse removes the needles while maintaining pressure to the needle holes. She then puts a surgical glove on my left hand and I have to place pressure on the bandages for about 15 minutes, until clotting has stopped the blood flow. Then the nurse completes the bandaging and I am ready to drive home. The next morning, I remove the bandages. Graft clotting This process worked as described for about 8 treatments. Then, without warning, it stopped working because a blood clot had developed in the graft between the end of the 8th treatment and the beginning of the next treatment. When I returned to the vascular surgeons, they said I would need a visit to the hospital to see what could be done about the clot. The earliest appointment I could get was March 4, 2013. More graft clotting The surgery to repair the graft was rated a success. However, the repaired graft lasted two treated and it clotted again. My next surgery is May 8, 2013. This time, the surgeon will try a spot on my upper arm. The May 8th surgery lasted for a few treatments and then it clotted, also. This time, I went straight to the Holy Spirit Interventional Radiology but that repair clotted again in My Life Story -- 174 – G. Edwin Lint February 2014. This time, Holy Spirit was booked so I had to go to the Carlisle Regional Surgery Center. My urologist, Dr. Sbsaiti, has written in my chart that I will go for maintenance work on my graft every three months, even if it shows no signs of clotting. Big 8-0: Birthdays in our family are rarely one-day celebrations. My 80th birthday fell on Monday, March 10. Jessi felt her family could best make the trip north from Nashville during the boys' spring break, March 20th through the 25th. On Monday, the 10th, the Dave Lints, and the Carneys, joined Nancy and me for a steak dinner at Outback. On Thursday, the 20th, Jessi, Steve, Justus, Nate, and CoCo arrived. Dave and Dillon were on hand to help unload since Steve was still recuperating from a hernia repair. On Saturday, the 22nd, at 6 PM, the family went to Hoss's for an official birthday dinner. Attending were Nancy, Judy, Pat, Tori, Dave, Emily, Dillon, Amy, Jessi, Steve, Justus, Nate, CoCo, and Jacki Herbst. After dinner at Hoss's, we all went over to Dave and Emily's for cake, gifts, cards, and a special surprise. The surprise was in the form of a DVD created by 14 year old Amy with lots of pictures and a sound track. Thanks again, Amy! My Life Story -- 175 – G. Edwin Lint Here is the birthday group, on Dave's deck: front to back, left to right, they are Amy, Nate, Tori holding CoCo, Dillon, Justus, Jessi, Steve, Pat, Judy, Ed, Nancy, Jacki, Emily, Dave. My Life Story -- 176 – G. Edwin Lint Label, the Endtimes Arch Angel: My first novel, Gone, Novel about the Rapture, was written in 1987. In 2014, I started a supernatural fiction novel that kept growing and growing. Now, It covers the full range of endtime events: Rapture, Wedding Supper of the Lamb, Tribulation, Wedding of the Lamb, Battle of Armageddon, Second Coming, Millennium, Battle of Magog, Great White Throne Judgment, New Jerusalem. Jim helped with the cover design; I can’t draw! Jessi and Nancy helped with proofreading, prayer, and valuable advice. This novel is available for free PDF download at this DiskBooks Electronic Publishing link: http://www.diskbooks.org/inventory.html The free PDF version runs 179 pages. The novel is also available in Kindle format at 345 pages, for $5.99. Short of breath again Sometime in August 2014, I began to notice shortness of breath again, similar to what I had in May 1996 when I had my first heart cath and eventually the quintuple bypass open heart surgery. My Life Story -- 177 – G. Edwin Lint I went back to the PinnacleHealth Cardio Vascular Institute and their cardiologists. The first doctor, Dr. Campo felt I needed an echocardiogram and pharm stress test. Another Heart Cath The next cardiologist I saw, Dr. Myers, felt I needed another heart cath to make sure the work done in 1996 was still holding up. He scheduled me for a heart cath at the new West Shore Hospital Tuesday, Sept. 30. This hospital just opened this past May. I was scheduled for a visit to Dr. Campo that Monday but when she saw me, she said my blood pressure was too low for a heart cath and she told me to go to the West Shore Hospital emergency room. West Shore Hospital To made a long story short, my visit to West Shore Hospital resulted in my Lasix being cut from 160 milligrams a day to 40 mg. I did get another heart cath but it seemed inconclusive. For the record, the quintuple by pass performed by Dr. Caroline Shaffer in the old Polyclinic Hospital in 1996 stood the test of time. While Dr. Hubbard was performing the latest heart cath, he referred to the drawings of Dr. Shaffer’s work back in 1996! Bedside Dialysis By now, it was Wednesday and time for my midweek dialysis. So I had a new experience: lying in a hospital bed while a real life dialysis machine was at my elbow. The machine came with an My Life Story -- 178 – G. Edwin Lint extremely efficient nurse during the five hour treatment, Kim Boyer, RN. Here I am, watching gospel music DVDs as usual while I am on the dialysis machine. While I was still on the machine, a flotilla of MDs came into my room and told me I was discharged. Hallelujah! By the way, while I was getting dressed and packed up, Nancy called me and told me she was lost on the way to the hospital. She did not feel comfortable while working the in-dash GPS My Life Story -- 179 – G. Edwin Lint system so I had to talk her through it while she parked beside the road. Thank the Lord for his protection while Nancy was driving alone while I was in the hospital. Send email My Life Story -- 180 – G. Edwin Lint