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Two Book Reviews

Cover shot of both books

Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism 

Book cover

(New York: Harper, 2023), 493 pages including index and notes. No photos. 

Tim Alberta is a journalist and the son of a preacher. His father grew his congregation in southeast Michigan to a megachurch status. Having spent his formative years in this church, Alberta had always appreciated coming home and visiting. But during his father’s funeral, in which he spoke, he realized the church was in trouble. Many of the leaders and members disliked his reporting on the American political scene. He was attacked while at the funeral. He wondered what had happened to the people he had known and loved and who had nurtured him.

Those who attacked Alberta after his father’s funeral were the same people who questioned Bill Clinton’s suitability for the Presidency. Yet, they ignore or overlook the obvious and blatant sinfulness of Donald Trump. Alberta wonders what happened to them and the church. Both seem to have abandoned the teachings of Jesus for the political rhetoric of the nation.  Alberta set out to explore American evangelical Christianity. Much of what he found was troubling. 

In this book, Alberta visits numerous churches, along with colleges and conferences, around the country. He starts with Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. When possible, he speaks to the pastors and leaders of movements along with those involved or formerly involved. He attends churches who messages are mostly political, who flaunt COVID guidelines, glorify guns, and speak of owning the libs. He questions what happened to Jesus’ teachings about loving one’s enemies. 

Alberta also visits with those who found themselves pushed out of churches because of their loyalty to Christ alone. These include Russell Moore, who had been one of the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, along with the new pastor at his father’s former church. He discusses the “hidden” evangelical issues around sexual abuse, introducing his readers to Beth Moore and Rachel Denhollander. He even looked at how other countries are drawn toward totalitarian dictators, drawing on the work of Miroslav Volf and Cyril Hovorun. Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that the church is under attack, not just in America, but around the world. 

Alberta doesn’t provide easy answers for how the church can stop being enamored with political idols. Perhaps this is best. The church, as he points out, isn’t in our hands. We belong to Christ’s church, and he controls it, not us. The only hope found in this book was in Alberta’s description of a few churches, such as the one his father had served, which had once been a megachurch. After losing significant members to other churches on the political right, they have found a stronger and more vibrant ministry even with fewer people. 

I would make one minor correction. Alberta speaks of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church being further to the right, theologically and otherwise, to the Presbyterian Church in America (page 438). I disagree. The PCA doesn’t even have an option for women leadership, compared to the EPC which does allow women to be in ordinated positions.  

This is a long book, but I recommend it for understanding how today’s church is caught up in the political sphere. It may be considered a companion to Katherine Stewart’s The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.  May we remember that the church doesn’t exist to serve political causes. We serve Christ, who is the King of King. 

Tim Kaine, Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside 

(Harper Horizon, 2024), 367 pages plus an insert of color photos.

Having recently turned 60 years old, Tim Kaine, a Senator from Virginia, who ran as the Vice-Presidential candidate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, set out to explore his adopted Virginia from the ground. 2019 also marked his 25th year in public service. He had served as the mayor of Richmond, as lieutenant governor and governor of the state, as well as a United States Senator. His goal was to hike the Appalachian Trail in the state, ride a bicycle along the state’s portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway along with the Skyland Drive, and paddle a canoe the length of the James River, which runs across the middle of the state. 

Walking

While the Senate was in recess in 2019, Kaine spent his free time hiking the 559 miles of the Appalachian Trail in the state. Beginning in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, he heads south to the North Carolina border, just south of Damascus, Virginia. A quarter of the “AT” is in Virginia, a state which has more miles than any other.  Having hiked this trail from the other direction, I found myself reliving my own experiences.  Many of the shelters were familiar as were places like Woods Hole Hostel, which I stayed at before it was even open. The owners who had purchased the farm shared with me their dream of having a hostel along the trail. Like him, I also had some less than fond memories such as the thick growth of poison ivy along the trail south of I-77. 

I also realized the differences between his hike in 2019 and my hikes in the mid-1980s. There are far more people hiking the trail these days and more hostels. Furthermore, there is a whole network of people willing to pick up hikers. When I hiked the trail, if you needed to get somewhere, you hitchhiked.

Kaine hikes the trail with a variety of people. There are friends from Richmond, classmates, along with his wife and kids, who join him for sections of the trail. As he walked south, we learn about Kaine’s life and his great love for the outdoors. Kaine is from Kansas City and fell in love with camping as a child in the Midwest. He jokes that while he never edited the Harvard Law Review as a student, he set the record for the most nights outdoors.

While at Harvard, he met his wife, Anne. Interestingly, she spent part of her years growing up in the Governor’s mansion. Her father was the first Republican governor of Virginia since Reconstruction. He was also the governor who stopped Virginia’s fight against school integration, a decision which ended his political career. With family roots in Roanoke, Anne shared her love of the Virginia Mountains with Kaine.  

Throughout the book, the reader catches a glimpse of Kaine’s faith. He often sings hymns, recalls portion of scripture, and has an abiding faith in Jesus Christ.  In addition, the book allows him to share what is happening politically in the nation, as the times he must run back to D.C., to take care of business. 

As I have always said, backpacking is a great equalizer of people.  It doesn’t matter how much money is in the bank when you are hiking. There’s no place to spend it. The reader learns how Kaine, as a senator, had to struggle to find water or to stay dry, issues all hikers endure. 

Bicycling

The second portion of Kaine’s odyssey involves riding the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyland Drive on a bicycle. Here, in 2020, he joins several of his college and law school classmates for the ride. A few years earlier, another of the group had hosted them for a ride across Iowa. The group hires a guide who drives a van with a trailer. And they stay in hotels and lodges along with the way, with their guide setting up their lunch at overlooks on the road. They enjoy good breakfasts (as opposed to the oatmeal along the AT) and nice dinners. This is the quickest section of the three-prong journey and is completed in seven days.

2020 is also the first year with COVID. Kaine spends much time discussing the problems with the disease (he and his wife both suffer from it and later, he finds himself dealing with long-COVID).  In addition, he discusses the problems in the nation with the rioting after the unprovoked killings of African Americans. 

Paddling

In 2021, after the turmoil of the election and the attack on the capitol, Kaine sets out on his last leg, paddling the length of the James, from the edge of the mountains to where it flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Like his AT hike, this is portion of the trail is done in sections. Kaine mostly camps in state parks along the river, or stays in hotels and B&Bs, while paddling a section each day.  His canoe is an Old Town, which his in-laws hand given him and his wife shortly after they married. 

As he travels, the reader learns the history of the river and about Kaine’s work as governor with many river projects that enhanced the waterway. The upper parts including portaging around dams and running rapids. Drawing on Earl Swift’s, Journey on the James, which describes his paddle in the 1990s, we see how the river has both been cleaned over the past quarter century. Cities and towns have transformed the river from an industrial wasteland to a pleasant park and riverwalks. The most difficult rapids are at the fall line in Richmond. This section, Kaine runs in a raft.  After Richmond, the river widens. Kaine continued paddling the Old Town open canoe until the last day, when he transferred to a sit-on-top sea kayak which he and his son paddled to the end of the river at Fort Monroe. 

Along the way, Kaine informs his readers about Native Americans in Virginia, as well as the role African Americans played in the state. The river’s dark history includes bringing many enslaved Africans up its waters to be sold into slavery. Kaine trip ends in the waters of Civil War battles and the site of the United States’ largest naval base. 

Recommendation 

I really enjoyed this book. As a Vice-Presidential candidate, Kaine seemed to me to lack pep. Reading this, I understand he’s probably more of an introvert. Yet, he gets things done. I wish this book had been available earlier, as I am now impressed with him and his grasp of the state which he serves. I would recommend this to Virginians and to those interested in the outdoors or the more personal side of politicians. 

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Another Scouting Memory: Ron Carroll

title slide showing Cape Fear Council Staff 1982

With our plates overloaded with barbeque, coleslaw, baked beans and hushpuppies, Ron and I searched for empty seats at the makeshift tables filling Clarkton’s tobacco warehouse. It was a month or so after the tobacco market, but the sweet smell of Brightleaf tobacco lingered. We nudged our way to a couple empty seats. Ron turned to the man and his wife sitting next to them and asked if these seats were available.

“Ya’ll good Democrats, aren’t you?” the man asked in a strong southern dialect.

“Hell yeah, wouldn’t vote no other way,” Ron shot back.

I about dropped my plate as I knew Ron had never voted for a Democrat in his life.

It was homecoming day for Jimmy Green, North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor. Green had just been acquitted for corruption. I was a young district scout executive and since many of Green’s supporters were also scout volunteers, they’d arranged from him to give a sizable gift to our camp construction campaign. I was at the homecoming to present Green with a plaque in front of his friends and neighbors on this day of celebration. Ron was my boss, the council executive. I had told him about the program, and he asked if he could tag along. Waiting for the program to begin, we ate our barbeque and drank glasses of iced tea. Ron, with his Mississippi accent, fit right in.

Cape Fear Council Staff, 1982
Ron is in the back row, second to the left. Back row John, Ron, Ray, Andy (camp ranger), Parker, me. Front row: ?, Teresa, Lisa?, Pam, Lillian.



Ron was a salesman, and a good one. He’d recruited me to work for the Boy Scouts, taking a significant pay cut when I left the bakery. He was also a good teacher and mentor and to this day I am indebted to him. Under Ron’s tutelage, I learned to run successful fundraising campaigns which not only raised money, but empowered people to feel a part of the organization. Although on this day in Clarkton, we honored someone who’d given a five figure gift to the scouting program, Ron continually emphasized to his staff to go after every gift, regardless of size. 

Emphasizing the importance of grass root gifts, Ron told and retold the story of Big Jim Folsom, a populist governor from Alabama in the mid-20th Century. Whenever Folsom spoke, he passed the hat and encouraged people to put in what they could. “Even if you don’t have any folding money, he quipped, “drop in a little change. Every gift is important, and we will use your gifts to fight for you.” Folsom’s advisors questioned this policy, reminding him he had plenty of fat-cats backing him and didn’t need to nickel and dime the poor folk. But Folsom knew better. “People make their commitment with money,” he told them, “If they give me a quarter, I don’t have to worry when the next candidate comes around seeking their support; they’ve already sealed their commitment to me.

Starting in February 1981, I worked with Ron for three years with the Cape Fear Council. I moved to the Piedmont Council in February 1984, but we kept in touch. A few months after I left, Rom moved south to become the Scout Executive for the council in Orlando, Florida. It was a big promotion. I remember talking to Ron as I was considering leaving the Scouting organization to attend Seminary. It was in the spring of 1986. As he’d done in Wilmington, Ron had been working to kicking off a major building fund campaign. They were building it around the Space Shuttle Challenger. Ron had the staff to design letterhead and logos and just a week or two before they were to kick off the campaign, the Challenger Space Shuttle blew up on take-off. They postponed the campaign. 

Over the next twenty years, Ron and I mainly stayed in contact through Christmas cards. His cards often included an ointment from the council where he was serving. A few of these still remain on my Christmas trees.

After Orlando, Rom became the Scout Executive for the Council in Washington, DC. There, he got to rub shoulders with politicians of all stripes, Democrats and Republicans. He was even considered for the Chief Scouting Executive position for the whole nation. But Ron’s health began to fail. Always a workaholic, he began to realize he couldn’t concentrate on the work he’d bring home to read in the evening. He started to forget things. A physical indicated a growth in his brain. Ron consulted some of the best medical minds through the National Institute of Health, but the cancer couldn’t be contained. In late 2004, at the age of 62, Ron took a medical retirement and he and Pam moved back to Wilmington, NC. 

The last time I saw Ron, it was a few days after Christmas in 2004. I had flown down to Wilmington to see my parents and Ron. We saw each other a couple of times over the few days I was home. On the day I arrived, I met with Ron and his wife Pam for ice cream at Salt Works near Bradley Creek. Ron could no longer drive. We met again for dinner. Then, before I headed home to Michigan, I allowed Pam the day to do some errands, while I sat with Ron at their home. 

That morning, I asked Ron about Big Jim Folsom. We talked for a few minutes about the former governor. Ron, who had later in his career worked with many in Clinton’s administration, told me that Bill Clinton could have learned from Folsom’s straightforward approach. According to Ron, Big Jim had once been caught going into a hotel room with a beautiful young woman who wasn’t his wife. He admitted to his constituents that he’d made a mistake, but went on to say that his opponents were out to get him and that girl had been the bait they’d used and anytime they use bait that appealing, they’re going to catch Big Jim.

“Ron,” I said, “Willie wasn’t set up.”

Ron laughed and told me another story. A rumor circulated that Folsom was known to have cocktails with the Kennedy clan. “That’s a damn lie,” Folsom retorted. “Everyone knows I don’t drink cocktails, I drink my whiskey straight, just like you folks.”

Although Ron had learned the skills of motivating people from a populist governor who was also a racist, Ron worked hard to overcome the prejudices instilled in those who grew up in the South. That last day I’d spent with Ron, I reminded him of an incident that occurred one day, not long after I’d started working with the Boy Scouts. 

Ron and I made a call on a Baptist pastor in Evergreen, a small community in Columbus County which did not have a scout troop at this time. Several parents and kids in the community, most of whom were black, had requested that a unit be started. We just needed to find a chartering organization. 

We had pleasant chat with this pastor. But he insisted that although he’d love to see a scout program, his deacons wouldn’t allow black boys to run around in their church. I began arguing, pointing out that this wasn’t a Christian attitude. But Ron cut me off. He politely and told the pastor if things changed, to contact us. We quickly left. 

As we drove away, Ron muttered, “that lying son-of-a-bitch.” “Don’t you believe he really wanted the troop,” I asked. Ron said he felt the pastor and the deacons were of the same mind. Then I asked why he didn’t want to confront the man. He said we weren’t going to change the preacher’s mind; it was best to leave with him thinking better of us than we did of him.

Ron chuckled, as I recalled the incident that had happened nearly a quarter century earlier. Ron wasn’t doing very well, having had numerous surgeries and bouts of chemotherapy to fight an aggressive brain cancer. The drugs bloated his face. He often forgot what he was saying. At about 11 that morning, Ron insisted we have ice cream. An hour later, he decided we needed a sandwich and a beer. 

Ron was the only boss I had in my life who would treat his staff to drinks at lunch! And even here, a quarter century later, and just a few months before his own death, Ron treated me to a beer. Over lunch, he spoke about how he hoped to have a chance to write his memoirs. Sadly, that chance never came. 

I first wrote this post about 15 years ago. I have added to it and edited it for this post.

Other Scouting Stories:

Harold Bellamy

Delano

Camp Bangladesh

Cape Fear Council Staff 1982
A copy of another photo of the council staff, I think this was taken in front of City Hall on 3rd Street in Wilmington
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Baking memories and a book review

title slide

Aaron Bobrow-Strain, White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Brought Loaf (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012), 252 pages include an index and extensive notes. 

A story from my bakery days

from the internet, a photo of a pound and a half loaf of Holsum white bread

In a supervisor meeting sometime in 1979 or 1980, Jerry Hendrix, the General Manager of Fox Holsum Bakery, berated us for not being able to produce uniformed loaf bread. “I don’t care if it’s crap,” he said. “It needs to be consistent. If it’s consistent, I can sell it.”

It was a tough time for bakeries. To start with, our government sold an excessive amount of wheat to Russia, who were dealing with poor harvests. The price of flour had doubled, cutting deeply into our profit margins. Furthermore, the price of sugar had gone up as had the cost and availability of natural gas. We were being squeezed from all directions. And now, our number one product, a pound and a half loaf of white bread was becoming unmanageable. Most of us felt that the problem came from the yeast. A few months earlier, we have left behind Fleishmann’s Yeast” for a new company’s product, “Dixie Yeast.”  At first, things ran fine. The yeast still worked fine on our variety bread and on the roll line, which used traditional mixing equipment with chilled jackets. 

 The white bread line was different. This bread was mixed in a do-maker. This machine that mixed the ingredients at a very high rate of speed and a high temperature. The fermentation was first done in large vats that consisted of water, sugar, yeast, and other dough conditioners. Flour, along with shortening and sugar (corn syrup) were added straight into the mixer, along with the brew from the vats. The bread was cut into a piece of dough and dropped into a pan. Such rough treatment of the dough required not only chemical treatment, but also demanded ingredients to be constant. We produced 4200 loaves an hour of this bread. But each vat of bread rose differently. Sometimes the bread was too large, making it hard to slice and bag. Other times, the loaf was too small, and looked sick. 

The General Manager and the company’s owners didn’t want to hear our excuses about the yeast. Sometime around this point, we learned the owners of the bakery had, with other industrial bakers, invested in the yeast company. A host of specialists were brought in. They tried new kinds of chemical dough conditioners, but nothing works. The decision was made to go back to Fleishmann’s yeast. Things returned to normal. After a lot of checking, we learned that the yeast was being mixed in fiberglass tanks instead of stainless steel. The fiberglass tanks were harder to clean (but they were cheaper). Eventually they had to change out their production tanks. A few months later, we went back to Dixie yeast, and it worked fine.

My review of White Bread

White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Brought Loaf book cover.

I tell the above story to illustrates a lot of what Aaron Bobrow-Strain writes about in his social history of white bread. Bleached, chemically enhanced bread has always been suspect. But by the 1950s, Americans ate an average of eight slices a day of the stuff. By the late 70s, when I worked in an industrial bakery, the decline of such bread was on the horizon. In another production meeting, at a time of high inflation, we heard warnings that if a loaf of bread rose to cost more than a dollar, it would doom our industry. People, we were told, would never pay so much for bread. I often think of this when I spend four dollars on a loaf today. 

While bread might seem to be an odd research topic for a social history, but Bobrow-Strain provides an interesting insight into the rise of the loaf, and its decline. He also provides insight into other issues going on in America (and to lesser extent Europe and the rest of the world) during the rise of industrial baking. In 1890, 90% of the bread consumed in the United States was baked in a home kitchen. By 1930, during the depression, this completely reversed. 90% of the bread was baked in industrial factories. 

The rise of factory produced bread is a compelling story that often reflects American prejudices and biases. Prior to the rise of industrial baking, most of the commercially available bread were baked in basement shops in cities like New York City. Here, in these bakeries, immigrants lived and worked in less than sanitary conditions. The first industrial bakeries jumped on American nativism feelings to promote their product as wholesome and clean. In addition, as technology changed, they were able to purchase ingredients much cheaper than the small local bakeries or even housewives. With the increase of transportation options, industrial bakers were in the position to seize the bread markets. 

White bread ruled the day, but there were some who questioned this including blaming the fall of France to Germany in 1940 on white bread. French bread is white (but not necessarily industrially produced), while the Germans preferred a darker bread. Later, in the Cold War, American’s felt their “white bread” was superior to Russian dark loaves. 

Advertising encouraged consumers to equate the softness of the new industrial bread with freshness, overlooking the use of chemicals to condition the dough.  Interestingly, at the dawn of America’s entry into World War II, a significant number of American men did not meet the physical demands for military service. Processing of the flour to produce the whitest loaves robbed the wheat of essential vitamins. But such enrichments could be added back chemically. The first national food order during the war required such enrichments. By the end of the war, no one wanted anything less that “enriched” bread. 

Throughout the fifties’, people considered enriched bread a superfood. It even caught on in places like Japan.  When I visited Japan in 1979, it was shocking to see on the shelves white bread void of crust!  By the 60’s, the hippie counter cultural laid groundwork for a rediscovery of bread baked at home or in small shops. Newspapers ran recipes about home baking and cookbooks sprang up included the Tassajara Bread Book. I discovered this book while working at the bakery and used (and still use) the recipes in the book to make heartier loaves of bread.  

Bakers began to respond by adding more bran and even adding cellulous (wood pulp) to increase the fiber within bread. One of our variety breads was “VIM” in which we added a couple 50 pounds of bags of cellulous to each mixer. I recall it making the dough sticky and almost as hard to machine as rye bread.  Another trick was to add sourdough flavoring to the mix to make the bread taste a little more like sourdough bread, which required a two-step mixing process and allowing the “starter” to proof, which took up space and equipment. 

Bobrow-Strain ends his story with how white bread, once seen as food for the wealthy and royalty, became equated with “white-trash” and even soul food. Unlike the 70s, today’s bread aisles in supermarkets carry a variety of bread. We now eat bread with more grains or whole wheat that the industrial white bread which I made during my baking years. 

Toward the end of the book, Bobrow-Stain takes us inside Grupo Bimbo, the largest baking company in the world today. Oddly enough, it is a Mexican company who has taken over many of American top bakery labels. I still remember the first time I saw “Bimbo Bread,” which was in Honduras in 2004. Why would anyone use such a label for product, I wondered. Of course, I thought of the word in its negative American slang connotation. In Latin America, Bimbo is the name of a bear mascot.  

Conclusion

 While I enjoyed this book, I know it appealed to me because of my background in a wholesale bakery.  But there is much to learn here, so I recommend it to others. Bobrow-Strain even moves outside of bread to discuss our attempts to “eat healthier” and how Americans (since Sylvester Graham in the early 19th Century) have followed food gurus who promised great things but often failed to deliver. The book is worthwhile for this, alone, in a day in which we seem more susceptible to all kinds of claims that may have little scientific backing. The author also has a love of baking and eating good loaves of bread, so he’s writing about something for which he cares. 

More of my Bakery Stories:

Coming of Age in a Bakery: Linda and the Summer of ’76

A College Boy in the Bakery

Harvey and Ernest

Frank and Roosevelt

The Perils of Working on the Christian Sabbath

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Scouting Memories: Harold

title slide

Last week, I introduced you to Delano. Today, I’m introducing you to Harold, an unlikely Scoutmaster from Tabor City during my time working for the Boy Scouts in Columbus and Bladen County, North Carolina in the early 1980s.

It was probably a cruel joke. Harold volunteered to spend a week with his scout troop at Camp Bowers. He asked me for book recommendations. I lent him a couple of books, one of which was James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. I knew he’d read it. It shocked him to learn of a book by Baldwin he hadn’t read. After all, he taught social studies. Furthermore, like Baldwin, he was an African American, both products of the Black Pentecostal church. And I was a white boy and the Boy Scout’s hired hand. 

Cover photo of the copy of Giovanni's Room that I lent Harold

Giovanni’s Room isn’t your typical Baldwin book. Unlike Baldwin’s better-known writings, Giovanni’s Room has nothing to do with the African American experience. Set in Paris, the story features a unique triangle relationship between an American couple and an Italian (Giovanni). But it’s not the American girl, who’s interested in Giovanni; it’s David, the boy. I read the book in college. I found the book eye-opening and unnerving. Baldwin draws on his readers emotions by making them feel affection for all the characters. And he doesn’t touch on race. In addition to bisexuality, the story also involves capital punishment. After a fight with his former employer at a bar, Giovanni kills the man. The book ends with Giovanni’s execution for the murder.

When I lent him the book, I had a suspicion Harold was unaware of Baldwin’s sexuality. I should add that in addition to teaching Junior High, Harold was also a preacher in an Apostolic Pentecostal Church. But he dug right into the book. 

Harold didn’t exactly fit the Norman Rockwell’s view of a scoutmaster. He ended up with the job by default. A coach at the high school had been recruited to be the scoutmaster. He asked Harold to be his assistant. That next school year, the coach accepted a high school position in South Carolina. When no one else stepped forward, Harold who wanted his troop to do well, took over as Scoutmaster. I don’t think Harold had ever camped before becoming an assistant scoutmaster. I’m not even sure he’d built a campfire and I’m pretty sure he never used a compass. Harold was much more comfortable sitting inside with his head in a book than outside swatting mosquitoes and gnats. 

Even though Harold wasn’t created out of the scoutmaster’s mold, Harold was a great leader. Under his leadership, several of the boys in his troop earned their Eagle. These were the first Eagles earned in Tabor City in more than a decade. In fact, there had not been a troop in Tabor City for a decade before Harold and the coach got together. Harold served as Scoutmaster for four or five years. 

Tabor City had been a rough place. While the Chamber of Commerce crowned the town the “Sweet Potato Capital of the World;” informally it was known as Razor City. The city had a brutal past. In the 1950s, the Klan ruled. An intervention by the FBI destroyed the Klan. However, an uneasy truce existed. As an African American, Harold helped break down barriers which existed into the early 80s. He earned respected from the community, as shown by families allowing their white sons to join his troop. Several of the business leaders of the community thanked me for working with Harold and wanted him to succeed. 

Harold and I became friends, partly drawn together by our interest in history, social studies, literature and practical jokes. Later, as I felt drawn to seminary and to the ministry, we had some serious theological conversations. While I knew Harold to be a preacher at a Pentecostal Church in Tabor City, I just learned (see below) he ordained as a Bishop.

Harold finally forgave me for shattering his idyllic view of Baldwin. When my personal life became chaotic, Harold supported me. He even tried to set me up with another teacher at his school. I no longer remember her name, but husband had died in a work accident. We went out to lunch and her former mother-in-law was there. When we finished, we discovered that she’d paid for our meals! Harold, I think to care for both of us, attempted to bring us together. Later, after I left the area and moved across state, Harold and I occasionally met for lunch or dinner when I drove across state to see my parents in Wilmington. We wrote back and forth a few times after I left North Carolina for seminary in Pittsburgh, but with me having no reason to travel through Columbus County, and Harold no reason to head up north, we lost contact. 

A few years ago, as I was again occasionally driving through Columbus County (from Savannah to Wilmington), I tried to find him. I learned he retired from teaching after serving as a principal in Chadbourn.  In preparation for posting this, I learned of his death. Reading the comments posted on his obituary, I learned that after teaching in Tabor City, he taught at West Columbus High School and, as I had learned earlier, served as principal at Chadbourn Elementary. The secretary at the school could give me no more information about him. I also learned he become a Bishop. He suffered from a long-term illness and died in a Whiteville Nursing Home. He was 71 years old. 


Yet the key to my salvation, which cannot save my body, is hidden in my flesh.
-David imagining Giovanni’s execution in James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room)

Harold (left) and Delano with two scouts who were rewarded their Eagle award.
Harold (left) and Delano with two recent Eagle Scouts, 1983
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Scouting Memories: Delano

Title slide with photo of Delano

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the time I was a summer camp scoutmaster. In that post, I mentioned my time working for the scouts. Here is a story of one of the many unique characters I met during the time I worked for the Boy Scouts of America (and organization I left to go to seminary and pursue the ministry). 

Delano in a Boy Scout uniform, early 1980s
Delano, early 1980s

“What are those government fools thinking, offering classes to teach us how to distill alcohol? They ain’t a farmer in these parts that haven’t made liquor at one time or another,” Delano fumed. 

This was in the early 80s and after years of prosecuting farmers for turning corn into liquids, a lively discussion on how to do this legally arose. Not for internal consumption, but for internal combustion. If the farmers made their own fuel, they could reduce their dependence on gasoline and diesel fuel. The local community college offered a course on alternative fuels, but Delano didn’t think much of the idea. This was an example of the government meddling where it shouldn’t be meddling. 

Delano’s views weren’t a surprise; everyone in Columbus County complained about the government meddling. Of course, they didn’t see it as meddling when they were first at the hog trough. Otherwise, they classified most government initiatives as meddling. 

However, Delano’s admission on the moonshining activities of area farmers surprised me. Did he include himself in the bunch? After all, he was a Mormon. Mormons weren’t supposed to be drinking. But then, neither were Baptist and those in that area who weren’t Mormon were members of one the several off-brand Baptist Churches. A part of me always wanted to know what went on in the “Primitive, Fire-baptized, Fundamentalist Baptist Church” that I passed on my way to church on Sunday. They always had four or five cars there, but I never got up the nerve to stop and find out.

Even though he marched to his own drum, I loved Delano. There was never a dull moment when he was around. He was always smiling and joking. And he had a repertoire of stories to entertain us. Some involved living between Pireway and the Green Swamp, near the Waccamaw River.

Other stories involved his year in Korea during the war. He was a disabled veteran of that war. He found the country the most hostile place imaginable. Partly, I’m sure, this was because he sent so much time behind enemy lines. He and a group of soldiers found themselves lost and had to make their way through enemy territory, back to the UN lines. Struggling to make it back safely, they crossed minefields and dealt with frostbite and starvation.  His spent his entire time in Korea in the field except his last night before coming home. That night, the heat was unbearable; he wished he was back outside. Korea left him disabled. Although he could walk and get around, he wasn’t particularly fast and limited with the types of work he could do. 

Delano enjoyed helping others. One winter, the scouts helped provide firewood for needy families. We gathered at a recent clear cut area. The remaining wood was destined to be burned and had been pushed into wind rows. The paper company allowed us permission to glean from this site. Delano showed up with his chainsaw and splitting maul. While he had limited mobility, he could split wood. His son placed a piece of wood upright, then he split the log. His boy collected the wood and threw it into the back of waiting pickups. We delivered a dozen or so truckloads of wood to needy families that Saturday.  

Like his neighbors in the Green Swamp, Delano supplemented his livelihood from the bounty of the earth. He entertained us with stories about the tricks of the trade his neighbors employed to put food on the table. He never indicted himself, but one had to wonder. 

One favorite was dialing for fish. The fisherman used an old crack phone to create an electrical pulse in the water. This stunned the fish. The shocked fish floated to the surface and were scooped up in a net.  

To hear him tell the story, nobody in his neighborhood purchased canned dog food to feed canines. Dogs got scraps from the table. Canned dog food served as chum for fish. Holes were punched in a can which was then tossed into the water at a spot where you wanted to fish in a day or two. The dog food attracted fish so that when you came back for business, you didn’t have to spend much time finding them. You just had to hope the fish, fat on dog food, were ready to bite into a juicy worm. 

I first met Delano at a chicken bog for scout leaders held in Fair Bluff. Having been told he was a Mormon, I made sure we had alternatives to the coffee and tea which everyone else would be drinking. I picked up a couple bottles of apple juice and offered him one. He refused and poured himself a cup of coffee. At this same event, I became troubled when I learned a chicken bog contained not only fowl, but also sausage. Knowing we had several Jewish leaders, I apologized. What little training I’d had from the Scouts by this point in my career had stressed sensitive to such issues. But sausage wasn’t a problem, these guys assured me, if their wives weren’t around. The same applied to Delano. 

Even his scout troop enjoyed drinks that went against the Mormon Word of Wisdom. Making my rounds at the first camporee, I noticed his troop were all drinking Cokes and Mountain Dews with their breakfast. At camporees, where all the troops in the county gathered, Delano made a point to invite me to eat Saturday dinner with his boys. Sometimes the fare would be normal, venison or fried fish. Other times the menu was exotic. In the three years I worked in this district, the Pireway troop served bear, squirrel, turtle, raccoon, and even a greasy opossum.

Delano and I got along well. Both of us believed that when camping, an afternoon nap was a necessity. He had a small but devoted group of scouts who looked up to him and knew that he looked out for their best interest. There’s not much more you could expect from a scoutmaster. 

Sadly, as I was leaving the Waccamaw District in early 1984, the church reassigned Delano, giving him responsibilities inside the church and appointing someone else as the scoutmaster. His son, had earned his Eagle. I have no idea who took over the troop, but they would have a hard time fitting into Delano’s shoes.

Eagle presentation, 1983
Delano next to his son at his son’s Eagle presentation. Next to him is another Eagle from the Tabor City troop and his scoutmaster (Harold).

###

Jeff Garrison, 1981
You won’t see many pictures of me like this. 1981, I’m working with the BSA, and have hair but no beard.

I rewrote this post from something I wrote nearly 20 years ago. After the piece was first published online, a relative of Delano contacted me to thank me for the article and to let me of Delano’s death. 

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Catching Up on Reading

With the construction of an addition on my home wrapping up, I haven’t had much time to read. But I’m looking forward to reading a lot of books on the back deck or (if raining) the front porch. Two of these books came back with me from Calvin’s Festival of Faith and Writing this year. Both memoirs are written by poets. Their use of language is enchanting. The other two are books previously read and I listened to them while walking or driving.

Tracy K. Smith, To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul 

(Borzoi Book/Alfred Knopf, 2023), 265 pages with a few family photographs. 

Drawing on her family history, Tracy Smith encourages her readers to foster community and to help create a better America. As an African American, she is a descendant of slaves. Her own father was an accomplished and high-ranking Non-Commissioned Officer in the American Air Force. He even worked on space projects afterwards. Yet even he suffered because of his skin pigment.  So did her uncles and grandfathers who served in a segregated military during both World Wars. Her mother encouraged her as she sought to help her family thrive even despite challenges. 

Smith tells of her family’s history as if she’s discovering it for the first time. In this fashion, it seems to jump around, but this is not a distraction. It is as if she is sharing her story of discovery with her reader.  She also shares her own journey, especially the hard moments of losing one and the other parent and of a divorce. She also shares a visit to a Southern Plantation. There, she has an imaginary conversation with a former slave. She also shares a dream of her carried across the ocean as an enslaved woman on the middle passage. While she finds herself “freed,” she realizes it’s not the same as being a part of the “free.”

Tracy Smith has served as the Poet Laureate of the United States and has received the Pulitzer Prize. She brings her training as a poet into her essays, making the book a delight to read. Her story, being African American, as one of the “freed” in a land of the “free” is worthwhile reading from those of us who come from a different background. 

Smith was a keynote speaker at Calvin University’s Festival of Faith and Writing this year. She blew us away with the poetry used in her presentation. I hope to read some of it, but her books of poetry at Calvin sold out quickly.

Danielle Chapman, Holler: A Poet Among the Patriots

 (Atlanta: Unbound Edition Press, 2023), 185 pages

This is a hard yet delightful memoir. Chapman begins her story as a young child on a beach in Okinawa. Her father, stationed on the island as a Marine, drown and her mother nearly drowned. Into her life stepped her paternal grandfather, a former Commandant of the Marine Corp. He brought his daughter-in-law and daughter (Chapman) back to his home outside of Washington DC and took care of them . Being included in this family meant summer trips to an old family cabin in Tennessee. The cabin, where nothing had changed since the Civil War, had been built as a saloon during the early years of our nation. There, she learned of her family’s mythology, including those who had fought in the American Civil War, and the descendants of the slaves the family owned. 

Because of her grandfather’s prominence in the military and government, she grew up around heroes and those with power. While she questioned some of their attitudes, especially about race. How could a man be so brave and endure so much and yet hold such attitudes, she wondered. She even questioned her own grandfather. However, he remained loyal to her and after her death, she learned some of the things he had down while leading the Marine Corp to help African American marines fit better into the Corp.  He also fostered building relationships with those descendants of his Civil War ancestors, which continues after his death with annual reunions.  

Chapman shows us through her own family how we all have faults and yet, despite our failures, can overcome and thrive. Primarily known as a poet, Chapman’s command of the language makes this memoir a joy to read.  

I heard Chapman lecture twice at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University in April. 

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wildness 

(1968, Tandor Audio, 2011) 11 hours and 31 minutes. Read by Michael Kramer

This is my third time through this book. It’s been nearly 30 years since I read it the second time, shortly after moving to Utah. I learned about Abbey and his writing while living in Nevada in the late 1980s and have read all but one of his books. That one is hard to find. This time I listened to the book while walking and driving. I’d somewhat forgotten just how radical the anarchist Abbey can be. Sarcasm pours through his words and he attacks his employer (the National Park Service), technology, religion, and humankind. He can love cowboys but hate cow herding. But Abbey is also a man passionate about nature and the world. He makes careful observations of nature and brings alive a place in which many people consider hostile. He’s well read. In this non-fiction work, he often refers to the writings of others. 

Abbey writes the book as if he spent the summers alone at Arches National Monument.  Arches is now a National Park but didn’t receive that status until long after Abbey’s departure. Abbey spent five years working at Arches, but he tells the story as if it was only one season. While he wrote the story as if he’s a solo ranger, since my first readings of the book, I have learned that wasn’t the case. Part of the time Abbey worked at Arches he had a wife and even a daughter, according to another writer, Paul Scott Russell.[1]

While much of the work focuses on his time at Arches, when not working as a ranger, he helps neighboring cattlemen as they round up cows. He also joins with other federal employees from other agencies, (including his own brother), looking for a lost tourist near Dead Horse Point. The found the man dead. He searches for a renegade horse up a dry canyon. With a friend, he spends a week floating through Glen Canyon. This was before a dam flooded the canyons to create Lake Powell.  Along the way, Abbey helps his reader to understand the unique landscape lost to the flooding of the canyon. 

While there is a rough edge to Abbey, I think his voice still needs to be heard. He reminds us to take a second look at the world we inhabit and to find beauty in areas many overlook. 

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac 

(1949,  HighBridge published the audible version in 2020, 4 hours and 16 minutes), narrative by Cassandra Campbell. 

I first read this book in the late 1970s, as a college student. It is a classic conservation text. Leopold, works through the year, month by month, delighting his readers with his descriptions of his farm in central Wisconsin. Each month brings new discoveries. The author not only grounds himself in the spot where he would retreat every weekend (he taught at the University of Wisconsin), but also recalls others who have lived on this land. 

One of his monthly essays involved cutting an oak which had died the previous year by a lightning strike. Using a long saw with two cutters on each end, Leopold recalls what the tree witnessed during each decade as they cut into a new set of growth rings. 

Even in the 30s and 40s, when Leopold collected these stories (they were published after his death), he understood how we were losing our connection to the land. Considered the father of conservationism, Leopold’s vision is for his readers to understand their connection to the land and to all living things. While many may question his love of hunting, for Leopold it’s done out of a higher love for the land.  In his writings, he recalls getting up early and the positioning of the stars. He muses on the migration of animals and the use of well-kept tools. Leopold observes and records. . 

I think everyone should read this book. After forty-some years, I was glad to pick it up again. While I listened to the book, I often referred to the pages of my hard copy, cherishing Leopold’s vision.  The audio version also included a wonderful essay at the beginning by Barbara Kingsolver.

A quote: “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, but He is no longer the only one to do so. When some remote ancestor of ours invented the shovel, he became a giver; he could plant a tree. And when the axe was invented, he became a taker;  he could chop it down.” 

This audio book I listened to consists just of Leopold’s Sand County Almanac. The version on my shelf includes additional essays. 

[1] Russell, author of A Private History of Awe, said this at Calvin’s Festival of Faith and Writing years ago. He said Annie Dillard (A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) wasn’t alone when she wrote her solo stories. 

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My experiences with Amateur Radio

title slide with photos of QSL cards

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

This past winter, I took an introduction to Amateur Radio class. In March, I took the exam for my Technician license. It had been almost 50 years since I had held such a license. In May, I passed the General license and am now studying for the Extra Class.

I’ve been dipping my toes into the world of radio, using a small 5-watt handheld on 2 meters and 70 cm bands. These bands have a limited distance as the higher frequencies (VHF and UHF) don’t do the skipping off the ionosphere the lower bands do. However, thanks to repeaters last night I had a conversation with a guy in West Virginia, probably 75 miles from me as the crow flies. I have been assembling equipment and soon, once again, hope to listen for someone calling CQ from around the world on the high frequency bands. Here’s a reworked piece in which I share my early teenage experiences with amateur radio in the early 1970s. 

My new license call sign is KQ4PVG, although I may apply for a vanity call sign and see if I can get a part of my old call sign (at least the YGY part) back.

I’m not sure all the reasons I got so interested in Ham Radio. Perhaps it was because I was small and there was little chance of me playing sports once I got to junior high. To compensate, I decided to excel at something else. Don Conaway, a man from our church, who only had daughters (and perhaps to compensate for that), offered to teach my brother and me about radios. 

We started meeting in the evening, once a week, at his house. We’d begin sitting around his dining room table. First, we’d practice Morse Code for fifteen minutes. That was easy because I’d taught myself Morse code (and semaphore), due to spending too many days grounded in my room. After a code session, he’d pull out some paper and for another fifteen or twenty minutes, we’d have a math and drafting class, learning Ohm’s law, how to slice the PIE formula (determining power), the meanings of various electronic symbols, and the schematics of radio components. 

After the classroom session, Mr. Conaway would take us out to his “shack,” a small white wooden building behind the house and next to a persimmon tree. I remember the latter for he tried to entice us to try a green persimmon, but we were no dummies. Later that fall, after a frost, we enjoyed a few of the ripe fruit.  

The place was crammed with electrical parts and all kinds of radios and test equipment. Here, we learned the purpose of resistors and capacitors of which we’d drawn in our schematics and how to solder. In time, we built a power supply designed to take 110 AC current and, after running it through a transformer and a bridge built out of vacuum tubes which converted the power to the desired voltage and to DC current. Then we started building a transmitter, using a 6146 tube. When finished, this transmitter was able to produce 60 watts of power. It was a simple machine, utilizing crystals to control the frequency. This meant that if you wanted change frequencies, you had to pull out one crystal and replace it with another. He gave us three crystals, two in the 80-meter band and another in the 40-meter band. 

That fall, around the time the persimmons were ripe, we took the exam. A few weeks later, I learned I’d passed and received my “ticket” (or license). It arrived in early December; about the time we’d finished building the transmitter. My ticket couldn’t have come at a better time as I wasn’t doing particularly stellar in school. It provided a bit of pride as I passed the exam before my brother, who had to retake the test.

My call sign was WN4YGY. The first three digits indicated nation (W for USA, esst of the Mississippi), class (N for novice) and 4 for the Southeastern part of the county. The last three digits (YGY) were unique to an individual. Mr. Conaway immediately came up with a phonetic rending of the last three digits of my call, “Young Girls Yell.” In more ways than one, I fondly look back on those days. 

One of these longleaf pines held up one end of my dipole antenna

Soon afterwards, Mr. Conaway came over to our house and with our help, we installed an 80-meter ½ dipole antenna. As ½ of 80 meters is 40 meters (or around 130 feet), the wire stretched from a longleaf pine tree in our front yard to one in the back yard. The halfway point was just outside my bedroom window, and a piece of coax ran from the center of the antenna through the window and on to the transmitter and receiver. I started out with equipment borrowed from Mr. Conaway, but later would add our homebuilt transmitter along with a receiver I purchased. 

My first contact was to Wayne, another young ham in Leland, NC who was my age. Leland was only across the river from us, but it was a contact. Even though Wayne went to a different school, we became friends. After we both received our driver’s licenses, we hung out together. As he was on North Brunswick’s High chess team. As my much larger school didn’t have such a team, I occasionally sparred with those on his team.  We also did a fair amount of canoeing and hunting together during our high school years. 

That winter, as the sun set, the 80-meter band came alive. The upper regions of the ionosphere strengthens in the cold darkness of winter. This allows the long wavelengths the capability of making great bounces, allowing my signal to be heard across North America and into Europe. Every day I’d rush home from school and be ready to be online as the sun set. It was exciting to hear that first “CQ” of the evening, a call from operator looking for someone with whom to chat. I’d tap out his call letters, followed by “de” (from) and my call sign. Soon, we’d be exchanging information about our location and age and the weather.

Although my brother (he’s now a mechanical engineer) eventually passed his test and received his ticket, the radio bug never really bit him. Maybe this was because I was always online, and we shared equipment. Since we also shared a room, it annoyed him when I crawled out of bed at 3 or 4 AM and pull on a headset and fire up the radio. No one else in the house could hear, but the lamp was a nuisance to him. Using CW (morse code) I enjoyed chatting to folks on the West Coast as well as in South America and Europe. Each new state or country was like a conquest. Over time the wall behind my radios were covered with QSL cards sent from other operators with whom I’d communicated..

The most exciting period during my time on-air was when an emergency net was called to relay messages from Central America. It was around Christmas 1972, the same Christmas which my friend Mark had been killed in a motorcycle accident. An earthquake had hit Nicaragua and for hours I monitored traffic for messages were coming to North Carolina. Although I never had traffic sent my way, I felt as if I was a part of something big, especially when I saw the devastation on the morning news. This was the same earthquake that my hero, Roberto Clemente, the slugger for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was killed in a plane crash while on a humanitarian mission. Death seemed to be all around me that year, but it was also enlightening to watch history unfold.

In time, I lost interest in the hobby. By the time I graduated from high school, I was no longer spending time with the radio. At one point, I purchased a used low power transceiver. I got it up and running using 2 watts from a six-volt battery. Using a portable long-wire antenna, I could take this unit camping with me. But I lost interest and boxed it all away. The radios I used seemed so modern at the time. But they, were really behind times as everything was shifting to transistors and diodes and eventually to pre-wired circuit boards. Sometime in college, I gave all my equipment to the man who had helped me earn my licenses. By then I was into other hobbies. 

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Thoughts on the Ten Commandments

Title slide with photo of my elementary school

In early June 1969, I graduated from the sixth grade. We even had a graduation banquet. The principal of Roland Grice Junior High, Mr. Mason, spoke. He told us there were two laws in the Bible that if we obeyed, we could slide through our next few years of schooling without an intimate meeting with his “Board of Education.” He had constructed this “board” from solid oak. Corporal punishment was still in vogue back in those days. 

Then Mr. Mason asked if any of us knew which laws he was referring. Some girl’s hand, one who sat up front, shot up. Mr. Mason called on her. 

“Do unto other’s as you’d have them do to you,” she answered. 

Very good,” the principal said. “Anyone know the other law?”

At first no one answered, so he offered a clue. “It’s in the 10 Commandments.” 

At this point, Jerry’s hand shot up. Mr. Mason called on him and he said, “Thou shall not commit adultery.” 

The whole room erupted in laughter. Even though most of us only had a vague idea about what breaking the commandment meant, we were pretty sure it was the one commandment we’d probably not break during our seventh year of schooling. 

Now, the state of Louisiana requires schools to display the 10 Commandments in classrooms. Some think this violates the separation of church and state. Maybe so, but it might also be an opportunity. Let me offer a suggestion for how teachers might engage their students using the commandments to learn about current events and human depravity. 

An educational tool:

Each day, have the students to read a newspaper. Encouraging them to look for examples of how politicians and public officials break each of the commandments. This could be made into games using bingo-like cards. The class strives to find examples of broken commandment as the students individually compete to complete a straight row on their cards.

Think of the possibilities. It’d be easy to fill in the blank for the seventh commandment with the number of politicians sleeping around.  But the eighth commandment would also be easy. Plenty of public servants have their hand in the government’s till. The ninth would also be a gimme for I know of no politician who doesn’t stretch the truth. And how about the politician who covets his neighbor’s house (or office) and breaks the tenth? Or the one who desires a graven image of someone or something they worship and breaks the second. The possibilities are endless.

Let’s encourage the students to let their imagination run wild.  They’ll learn a lot! And in no time, politicians will clamber to the schoolhouses to pull down the commandments.  But before then, the students will learn that the oratory ability has nothing to do with the truth, that we all fall short and should be humble, and that without God’s grace, we’re doomed.

The value of the Big Ten

Now don’t get me wrong. The 10 Commandments have great value. They provide us with a boundary in which we might enjoy the life God offers. I’ve done a lot of thinking about the commandments throughout my ministry. Below is an article of mine that appeared (in slightly different forms) in a newspaper and magazine back in 2003.  But more important than the Big Ten, are the ultimate two commandments: love God and love your neighbor. And let’s not forget the Christian principle of humility. Bragging about keeping the commandments either breaks the ninth or trivializes them as we think higher of ourselves than we should. The Commandments should be humbling to us all. 

And, if you are wondering, the answer to Mr. Mason’s question was the fifth commandment, “honor your father and mother.” It should also be easy to find examples of politicians breaking this commandment.

The Ten Commandments (2003) 

A variation of article appeared in The Presbyterian Outlook, September 29, 2003, along with an opinion column in The Daily Spectrum, a newspaper published in St. George, Utah. 

They’re marching in Alabama again. This time the destination is Montgomery and those who march support Judge Roy Moore’s fight to keep a granite monument of the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn. They removed the statue on August 27. It appears Moore and his supporters have lost, but they promise to keep fighting. Sooner or later, the United States Supreme Court will have to step up and rule, but so far, they’ve refused to handle this hot potato. 

I’d sleep better if the Supreme Court decided such symbols acknowledge a foundation of Western law and are thereby an appropriate symbol that doesn’t violate the separation of church and state. Or maybe not. Of course, there are a variety of interpretations to what the founders of the Republic meant by such separation. As one who swore off the study of jurisprudence for theology, like the Supreme Court, I’ll pass on that potato.

Instead, let’s consider what the commandments are all about. The Big Ten provide a boundary by which we live as God intends, outlining that which enhances and destroys relationships. Theologians distinguish between two tables of the law, the first deal with how we relate to God and the second addressing our relationship with others. Put together, the two tables set the context for a society that honors God and other members of the human family. 

In ancient times, Jewish rabbis supposedly placed a drop of honey on the tongues of those studying the law to remind them that God’s law is sweet, not bitter. Theologically, the law is understood as life-giving.

A few generations, Presbyterians and most all Christians spent more time studying the Ten Commandments. Preparatory lectures, focusing on the commandments, were held a few days before Communion so members could prepare themselves for the sacrament. The catechisms of our denominations as well as those of other denominations go into detail of the fuller meaning of each commandment. If you read the Heidelberg Catechism, you’ll discover “Thou shall not steal” includes no deceptive advertisings. And in the new Catholic catechism, acts leading to the enslavement of another human violates the commandment. In other words, we should be careful about misrepresenting a used car or purchasing Goods produced in a sweatshop. 

“Thou shall not kill” also means more than not murdering someone. Martin Luther equated failure to feed the hungry, when you had the ability, with murder. Likewise, “bearing false witness” is more than just telling lies. The Westminster Catechism extended the commandment to exclude backbiting and vainglorious boastings, sins prevalent throughout society. 

I could go on with examples of how we ignore each of the Ten Commandments, but I won’t. Every generation has a problem with lawlessness. Instead, we should understand that even if we have monuments by all courthouses or on every street corner, we wouldn’t necessarily become better citizens. It’s odd that about the time many churches de-emphasized the study of the catechism, granite and bronze memorials started popping up around the country. 

In the 1950s, thousands of monuments were dedicated in the aftermath of Cecil B. DeMille’s’ blockbuster flick, “The Ten Commandments.” Today, we’ve lost the fuller understanding of the law while trivializing it into something chiseled on a rock. With the law publicly displayed, we prat ourselves on the back and brag about our piety while forgetting what the law is all about. Perhaps we should thank the ACLU. Maybe the publicity generated by these lawsuits will force us to understand that the commandments are not an image to be viewed. Instead, the law is to be studied. As both Moses and the prophets insist, written on our hearts (Deuteronomy 6:6, Isaiah 51:7, and Jeremiah 31:33). 

Before marching off to Montgomery, take time to study the commandments. In the larger scheme of things, having a granite slab out in front of the courthouse won’t make a bit of difference. What will matter is who we apply the commandments. If we write them on our hearts as the Hebrew Scriptures encourage, rest assured they’ll be safe from an ACLU lawsuit. 

Update on my 2003 opinion column:

The 10 Commandments for Mr. Moore, a former judge and politician, appears not to have weathered well. It was only for looks, as he had a problem with the seventh, which led to his downfall.

Old photo of Bradley Creek School Building
Bradley Creek Elementary School from where I graduated from the 6th Grade.
This school building burned down in 1982, long after I had moved on, which is a good thing for if it burned while I was a student, I may have been a prime suspect since we sang a little ditty about burning the school down.
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Camp Bangladesh

title photo with view of Bear Lake
Ralph and Olga at "The Joint" in Randsburg, CA
Ralph and the bartender Olga at “The Joint” in Randsburg, CA in 2005. Ralph grew up and went to war (WW2) with her son.

I came across this piece that I wrote in August 1999, five years before my first blog. It brought back good memories. That summer, I played the role of scoutmaster for Troop 360, chartered by Community Presbyterian Church of Cedar City, Utah. Joining me as assistant that summer was my friend, Ralph Behrens. Ralph and his wife Pat were good friends of mine in Utah, and I often stayed with them when I would return to visit Cedar City. Sadly, both have died. 

We took a dozen boys that summer to camp along Bear Lake in Northern Utah. The camp week ran from Monday morning through Saturday, so we loaded up after church on Sunday. I drove a 15-passenger rental van with the scouts and Ralph followed with his pickup truck, the back of it filled with gear. We made the 330-mile drive to Logan, Utah, arriving at dusk, where we stayed overnight at the Presbyterian Church. Early Monday morning, after a stop for breakfast, we drove Highway 89 up Logan Canyon and across the mountains, before dropping down to Bear Lake. This was an incredibly beautiful drive and the lake before us as we dropped out of the mountains was so inviting. My story will pick up on our arrival at camp. 

I looked for the camp and it appears that it is no longer in operation. Probably because the Mormons pulled out of the Boy Scout program, there seems to be a consolation of councils in the West and fewer camps. This camp had a lot of strikes against it as it consisted of small spit of land between the lake and the highway. However, I am sure the land was very valuable as it had so much lakeshore footage. I have edited my story slightly. I’m also sure I have a few more pictures of the camp, but am not sure which of many tubs of photos they’re in. The one of my son preparing to scuba dive was in a collection of albums and the only one from camp that summer. 

Camp Bangladesh
August 1999


Camp Bud Schiele
Dining hall and waterfront at Bud Schiele

A lot has happened in the fifteen years since I was last in a scout camp. Back then I was the Camp Director at Camp Bud Schiele in Western North Carolina. With grounds manicured like a country club and lots of trees, it wasn’t a bad place to spend the summer. However, after eight weeks in an all-boys camp with very few females, I knew the summer was winding down when the camp cooks, who were older than my mother, started to look attractive. In order to see what improvements made to the scouting program, I signed this summer for a week at camp with our local troop. I knew a lot had changed. However, I wasn’t prepared for what I experienced, especially girl counselors.

Ralph's truck on the "Hole in the Wall" Road in Central, Utah
Ralph’s truck on another trip

Ralph and I and a dozen boys arrived safely at Camp Bangladesh on a Monday morning. It was supposed to be an aquatic camp, but it felt like an overpopulated refugee settlement on the eastern shore of Bear Lake in Northern Utah. Greeting us at the gate was Gilligan, looking fresh and neat from his recent cruise on the S.S. Minnow. He wore Navy khaki, we assumed, because he didn’t meet the six-foot height requirement for the Coast Guard (and would have been unable to walk ashore if his boat had sunk). Gilligan directed us to our campsite and told me to report to the pavilion and check in. On the way, I stopped at the head (euphemism for latrine), where I quickly surmised that the U.N. and International Red Cross Refugee Commissions hadn’t yet inspected this site.

At the pavilion, the powers that be lightened my wallet as Robyn gave the troop a tour of the camp. Robyn substituted for our camp friend Randy who was, we later surmised, in the bushes with a female staff member. We never saw Robyn again; some think he got lost in the sage brush. Unable to see over it, he may have traveled in circles till he passed out. As for Randy, he and the Misses showed up hand-in-hand halfway through the week. We learned then that Randy was quite a philosopher and explained all the world problems as “someone must be smoking something.” We all assumed he was the “someone.”

At the opening scoutmaster’s meeting on the first day, I qualified for the BSA’s “Safety Afloat” certification by listening to a lecture. Little did I realize the camp practiced another form of safety afloat. They kept most of their boats in dry dock. They reserved the fully functioning boats for staff use. Our troop re-christened the small sloop named the “Ark” into the “Love Boat.” They had suspicion as to what the staff did on the boat that they kept safely moored offshore and off-limits to campers.

I will forever remember the galley experience at Camp Bangladesh. They served dinner in two shifts (called watches). If you’re unlucky enough to be on the second watch, as we were, it was like eating in an emergency canteen following a Kansas tornado. Another unique experience was dining in this open-air pavilion during a thunderstorm. Paper plates and cups flew with the wind, ridding the camp of rubbish by sending it all to Idaho. I’m sure it was from such an experience that the shifts became known as a watch, for we watched our food fly away.

The day following, the camp staff must have had a knife sharpening contest. The cook took first place. That night we were treated to beef trimmings, trimmings so fine we didn’t even notice them. Even the camp’s sole vegetarian seemed satisfied. In all seriousness, the night with the gluey noodles made up for the undercooking of the previous night’s rice, things have a way of balancing out in the end. Quality aside, the real problem was with quantity and our neighboring unit leaders resorted to rattlesnake hunting to supplement their boy’s diet. Ralph and I, being more practical, took our boys for milk shakes at the ice cream stand on the south end of the lake.

Of course, what goes in must come out, which brings me back to the subject of the rotten white buildings dotting the landscape and were a contributing factor for the outbreak of constipation that struck our campers. The smell of these buildings was so bad that I stopped using flashlights and followed the stench from one to another on the path back to our site. People had reported several large skunks along the highway east of the camp . They all facing east, obviously running across the highway afraid another skunk laid claimed the territory when they meet their demise under the tires of moving vehicles. 

Our troop’s strawberry blonde commissioner was Ms. Pope. We could never remember her name, so Ralph and I started calling her Hillary, in honor of the First Lady. In addition to serving as our commissioner, she was also the commandant of the dining hall and ruled with an iron fist. Hillary was an electronic engineering technician student at Weber State (MIT on the Salt Lake). We found her knowledgeable about most everything except for the difference between a foot and a yard. If she gets that confused between volts and watts, we’re afraid she may be in for a real shock.

In addition to her commissioner duties and studying electricity, Hillary is looking for a good Mormon husband who will allow her to stay home and tend to a scout troop. If Robyn hadn’t gotten himself lost in the sagebrush, they’d made a cute couple. Of course, I’m sure Hillary would have wanted Robyn to grow up a bit, but until then they’d be shoe-in winners in a Dennis the Menace and Margaret look-a-like contest. However, I secretly doubt Hillary desires a husband. She really harbors ambition to be the first female Chief Scout Executive. I just hope she doesn’t get her sights on the Presidency of the U.S. of A, or our country will never be the same.

There were three classes of staff at Camp Bangladesh. The elite, like Hillary, wore Navy uniforms and look like they just walked out of a surplus store or off the set for a remake of McHale’s Navy. The second tier wear dark green sea scout shirts and various colored pants. Our favorite in this class was Hot Legs—the blonde lifeguard with a nice tanned body fitted into a red one piece swimsuit. When on duty, she looked more like a movie star posing than a lifeguard as she stretched herself out sunning on the pier. I never saw Hot Legs without large sunglasses. She wore them even when the sun wasn’t shinning. Our boys, seeing her without the glasses one day, reported that she had a serious case of raccoon eyes and better keep them on.

The bottom rung of the staff hierarchy was the kitchen crew. Without regular uniforms, their selection was based on their lack of speed and foresight. Or maybe they were pressed into service, like the British did to our seamen before the War of 1812. If that’s the case, they’ve decided as a group that indifference is a subtle way of protest. Or, maybe they really didn’t think we wanted nor needed anything to drink with our uncooked rice until the meal was nearly over. 

Speaking of drinks, choosing the beverages of one’s choice was another interesting experience. Any other camp would have put labels on the coolers, but that would be too much work for the staff of Bangladesh. We learned that the way to tell what a cooler contained was to look underneath at the color of the puddle on the floor. Since we were the only non-Mormon troop in camp, the dining hall didn’t serve coffee. Suspecting such, I brought my own stove and percolator and fixed coffee every morning. I quickly became popular and found myself having to go into town to buy more coffee midweek as all the neighboring Mormon leaders decided to forgo their prophet’s word of wisdom and have a several cups of Joe a morning with Ralph and me. 

Scuba divers on the dock waiting to dive
my son learning to scuba dive



Our patch for the week informed us we’ve been on an aquatic land cruise—I supposed it’s a land cruise because most that’s where most of the boats remained. But there were some good things about the experience. First, I wasn’t in charge and could blame everything on the camp director, Captain McHale himself. Instead, I passed the hours sitting in my camp chair or laying in my hammock, reading books.

Our boys averaged three merit badges and only one fight a piece and they all eventually got to sail on the one of the few fully functioning sailboats available for campers. I even spent a wonderful afternoon on a Hobie (that was reserved for scout leaders). For an extra fee, I allowed my own son to experience the underwater world as he took a scuba diving class.  Now that I’m home, I’m hoping to break my Valium addiction by the end of the year.
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Afterwards:

Even though I put a light spin on this, from my experience of working within the Scouting program in the Southeastern part of the states, it shocked me the camp passed the Boy Scouts of America’s rigorous peer inspection program. The waterfront controls were lacking, and I spent less time in my hammock and more time playing lifeguard than I hoped.  

After this experience, I‘m not sure why, but we signed up for another year. In 2000, Ralph and I took the troop to a camp in the Ponderosa pines south of Williams, Arizonia. It was one of the best run camps I’ve seen. Sadly, there was no large lake, just a pond for canoeing and a swimming pool. But the food was great. After that camp, it shocked me to learn most of the boys preferred the camp on Bear Lake. But they cherished the freedom, and the lake was a great. 

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A Four-Day Hike in the Sawtooth’s

Title Slide with view of Hell Roaring Lake, Idaho
Lower falls at Cramer Lakes

A car approaches from the north. I turn around and stick out my thumb. “Was this a good idea?” I ponder. I haven’t hitchhiked since the summer before, when I completed the Appalachian Trail. And now I could use a ride back to my car at a trailhead. Otherwise, I’ll have an eight to ten mile walk beside hot asphalt under an intense sun. But they’re few cars in this lonely country. The car rushes by, its wind providing a moment’s relief from the heat. With no clouds and no wind, it’s hot, even at this elevation. Heat rises from the asphalt, its waves blurring the scenery. I turn back and resume walking along the shoulder of Highway 75, south of Stanley, Idaho.

I hear another vehicle crest the hill behind me. It sounds like a truck. I turn around and stick out thumb. It’s an old jeep; this will be my ride, I’m sure. Jeeps always pick up hitchhikers.

I recall an autumn day on the beach, six years earlier. I’d been on a conference on Wrightsville Beach. A hurricane was offshore, and we had to leave the island. When I got in my car, I realized that I my gas gauze was on “E.” Shortly after cross the waterway bridge, the car sputtered and quit.

Out of gas, I crawled out of the car and hoofed it in the rain a mile or so to the closest gas station. They lent me a can and I purchased some gas and when I started back when one of those bands of blinding rain hit. About that time a jeep came by, without a top. He shouted for me to jump in, and I did. His windshield wipers worked overtime, but it didn’t make much difference for there was as much water inside the glass as out. I began to wonder if riding his open top jeep was a good idea. But it beat walking. The rain was so hard; I could hardly see my car parked on the other side of the road. I put the gas in and headed home. Thankfully, the hurricane turned and went out to sea.

This jeep in Idaho didn’t stop. “Son of a…” I started, and then thought better. I couldn’t believe he ignored me. I turned and continued walking south. A few other vehicles rushed by, but none of them stopped. Each time, I’d resume walking. Then I spotted a minivan. I didn’t expect them to stop but still stuck out my thumb. The driver flew by, then hit her brakes, pulled over to the side and began to back up. I ran up and noticed that there were kids in the back waving at me. This wasn’t who I’d expected to offer a ride, but I was thankful for not having to walk all the way to my car.

“I don’t normally pick up hitchhikers,” the driver confessed, “but the kids recognized you as the hiker on the ferry when we came back across Redfish Lake. Looking into the back seats, I smile. The oldest is probably eight or nine. We’d played some silly games on the ferry ride across the lake and they were curious about what was in my pack. I thanked her for the ride and told her my car was at Hell Roaring Creek trailhead, just off the highway about eight or so miles south. She then asked about the trip.

Hell Roaring Lake with the “Finger of Fate” to the right of center



“I started out four days ago, spending the first night at Hell Roaring Lake,” I began, “camping under the ominous ‘finger of fate’ peak. It’s a lone bent rock pinnacle could have served as a model for Michelangelo’s “Finger of God.” The lake was surrounded by dead tree trunks from winter avalanches. Many of those trunks were waterlogged, but the ones not provided plenty of firewood. Although open fires had been banned for the summer (Yellowstone and Hells Canyon were being consumed with flames while I was hiking) I counted four campfires along the lake. I was invited over to one’s family campfire. I joined them and was shocked to learn that one of men was a Forest Service employee.”

Trail high in the Sawtooths



“The next day I continued hiking deeper into the Sawtooth Wilderness area, climbing over a steep pass. There were so many lakes, I can’t recall them all,” I confessed. “Imogene, Virginia, and Hidden were some of them, each surrounded by rocky peaks sparsely covered with gnarly trees. After leaving Hell Roaring Lake, I was alone with only the pikas keeping me company at night. I ran into a group of smoke jumpers, hoofing it out after having extinguished a small lightning fire deep into wilderness. We talked for a few minutes, as I picked up my pace to keep up with them, but then they left the main trail and headed to their pickup point.” 

“It’s all beautiful,” I said, “but my favorite had been the Cramer Lakes, each with a waterfall outlet that spilled into the next lake.”

“We were there,” she said. “We took the ferry across Redfish Lake and hiked up to Lower Cramer for a picnic and a hike up to the falls.” 

I’d been looking back at her kids as I talked. Suddenly she yell, “Oh my God.” I turned around and looked out the windshield. There was that jeep, lying on its back in the edge of a field. The dazed driver stood. 

“I’ll check it out,” I said. “Park down the road a way.” 

Jumping out as she slowed down, I ran over toward the jeep yelling, “Are you okay?” Another car pulled up. The driver, shaken and with tears in his eyes, begged for a fire extinguisher. No one had one. Drops of gas dripped onto the ground and the fire was began to burn under the jeep and in the grass. Without a fire extinguisher or other equipment, there wasn’t anything we could do. I told them I’d get a ranger and ran back to the awaiting minivan. I knew a ranger’s station was across from the trailhead from where I’d left my car. We flew down the highway, turning off and leaving a trail of dust on the dirt road up to the ranger station. I reported the accident and the fire. The ranger called it in and got into his truck. 

High in the Sawtooths

Then the lady in the mini-van drove me over to my car. Rushing, I thanked her for the ride, I dropped my pack in the trunk and headed back to the accident site. There, I helped the ranger, and several other men dig a line around the fire. Luckily, as dry as it was, there was no wind, and the fire didn’t get out of hand. With everything under control, a fire truck arrived and hosed down the jeep and extinguished the grass burning inside the line we’d established. All that was left of the jeep, that I was so sure could have been my savior, was a charred pile of metal.  I got back in my car and headed back to camp. 

I think it was C. S. Lewis who said, “we’ll spend half of eternity thanking God for prayers not answered.” And I was thankful this jeep had not stopped to offer me a ride. 

Another story of a solo backpacking trip during my Idaho summer of 1988