Tracy, CA

Tracy, California was one of the most important teachers in my life. I was sent there by the Lutheran Church when I completed my Teaching Minister Training in 1950. I had never heard of the place, really had no option other than to accept the assignment and   get there and go to work.

My job was typical of those days, teach grades 4-8 in the two room school, serve as the school’s principal, be the congregation’s youth director, instruct the Sunday School teachers, sing in the choir, play the organ for parts of the Sunday services (as able), teach an adult class each Sunday and in cases of emergency conduct the Sunday worship services, and in summer conduct a Vacation Bible School. It all sounded normal for the times. So I learned to love kids, work hard, know the community and get my Master’s Degree from the University of Pacific by writing my thesis  (usually beginning that work after 10:00 pm when the rest of the work was done.)

Tracy taught me frugality. My salary was $180.00 a month. The first year I could not afford to own a car. I lived in a bedroom of a most gracious family (Lydia and Arnold Zielske) who cooked my meals and did my laundry

I learned to appreciate being part of a small community. Tracy which today has a population of some 85 thousand had only 10,000 in 1950. My classroom kids did a joint project of studying the city. Because it was so closely knit some students interviewed the mayor or the recreation director, or the oldest merchant in town and even grape growers, catsup factory workers, and grape growers. When I walked down Main Street on Saturday mornings people greeted me by name. I played city-league basketball for D&W Billiards and softball for the local Shell Gasoline Station teams. 

The most important thing about Tracy though was that is where Jane and I established our first home after our marriage in 1951. We loved our $85.00 a month apartment. Jane played the organ for church services, taught art in my classroom and learned to can tomatoes, apricots, and Queen Anne cherries. It was in Tracy that our first son, David, was born. It was Jane who cashed our bi-weekly check, divided the money and placed it in designated envelopes beginning with our tithe marked “The Lord” right down to the 50 cents for postage each month.

We learned the value of friends, common people with uncommonly devoted hearts. The Hamlows, Paulsons, Childs, Erharts wrapped their arms around us, invited us over for meals, shared their beer and stayed in contact until one by one they passed away.

I now drive past Tracy as we bypass it on the freeways to the Bay Area. I now know no one there. But it still pulls at my heartstrings with its siren song of first love, first child, first full-time job, and first glimpses of the rewards of commitment to a calling and to people.

MACAU

Macau in the 50’s and early 60’s. That little note specifying the 50’s is critical. The current Macau bears virtually no resemblance to the old. Today’s Macau is the biggest gambling Mecca in the world. Its volume way exceeds Las Vegas. It has enough neon to shine half way up to Canton. That is nothing like the Macau that I visited probably 100 times 50 years ago, but have not set foot in now for some 20 years.

Macau was a Portuguese Colony. It was only30 miles from Hong Kong where I lived. But it was tricky to get there. We were not allowed to go through China. Borderlines in the South China Sea were carefully monitored and if the ferry I rode to get to Macau would stray it could become an international incident.

There was much to love about Macau. The view from the balcony of the Bella Vista Hotel was fabulous. The African chicken served at the Macau Posada was unrivaled. The hotel room in which I stayed did not have a bathroom or toilet, but the beer at the bar was always cold.

The ancient façade of the St. Paul Cathedral had survived a fire and a typhoon. The battered cross on top of it still stood and became the focus of a wonderful hymn written by the then governor of Hong Kong. The hymn: “In The Cross of Christ I Glory, Towering O’er the Wrecks of Time.”

I went to Macau because there were people there with lots of needs: spiritual, physical, psychological and educational, people in need of hope. The Lutheran Church did (and does) a good job there.

The first Sunday I was there I was told that children had to bring last Sunday’s leaflet with them to be admitted to class this Sunday. There was no space for new students. I am not so naïve as to not know that one of the factors causing this very large attendance was that a limited amount of relief food and clothing was made available at the church.

We wanted property to build a Lutheran Center and eventually received a title from the Government for a wonderful plot of land. However, when we finally got a decent translation of the deed which we had signed, we learned that in fact, the holder of the deed was listed as ‘Chinese merchant Titus Lee”, the same person who was our evangelist there. It was explained that no government official (fearing censure from the Catholic Bishop) would ever sign a deed, which showed a Lutheran Church as a property owner so the “merchant” phrase was used. We were assured that later the property could be transferred property to the church. That never happened. (See addendum below.)

Many refugees from Mao were desperate and wanted to get to Hong Kong. I recall one gentleman who lived with his family in a most primitive hut with no water, light, or furniture. He pleaded with me to help him get a visa. The he told me, “I am desperate.” With that he pulled out a packet, which I immediately recognized as street heroin. “If I don’t get my family to Hong Kong soon we will all be existing on this”, he told me. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that I noticed that on some of my subsequent trips I as always followed. As soon as I boarded my rented pedicab at the ferry station I noticed that I was being followed. This happened throughout two subsequent visits. Then it stopped. I don’t know that there was a connection but I do know that all of this coincided with the murder of a gentleman on our church steps as he was leaving Christian instruction one night.

Some of the immigrants, through sheer force of Chinese determination and effort managed to survive in Macau and find jobs besides making fireworks in their homes. But most wanted to get to Hong Kong. One of the families that I was able to assist in getting there were a great blessing to many. One of he sons became head of Lutheran Social Services of Hong Kong, a massive center of assistance to thousands. His sister is now a famous Hong Kong surgeon.

Macau is now, of course, famous for its gambling and extravagant hotels. But I am grateful for the people whom I was able to meet, who found their chances for a much better life than at the crap tables.

[Addendum]: Years after I left Hong I received a call from a Lutheran Church official in America. He informed me that the Macau church building, school and the land on which they had been situated had been sold. It appeared that the person who had been named as owner of the building as indicated above, had sold the property, taken the money and disappeared in America. Fortunately, church officials did eventually go to Macau, deal with he new buyer and were able to secure for the church a repayment to the church in what I believe was a total of US$1 million.)

San Antonio, Texas

I love San Antonio and always jump at any excuse to go there. I love its diversity. While the population is predominately Hispanic the city bursts with the energies of a variety of people. The military bases like Lackland, Ft. Sam Houston and Randolph Air Force Base constantly bring in persons not only from across the USA but from our allies abroad, While there are massive areas of low-income and not a few very poor people, the city has its share of the wealthy, many living in beautiful estates. Together they reflect the military, the health industry, the higher education world, all within an ever-prevailing aura of the Old West with plenty of cowboy boots and large Stetson hats abounding.

One of the words that always pops up when I reflect upon my time in San Antonio is sweat. Yes, that stuff that flowed out of my body during the summers of my college years. I worked in construction at the very lowest level. In weather, which was consistently over 100 degrees, I was the one (back before sophisticated  Bob Cats) digging foundation trenches with pick and shovel. My hands were seared with the iron of the foundation steel. My back blistered as I laid the roofing panels. The good news: I was in the best shape of anyone who reported for fall football practice in September after surviving an unforgettable orgy of fresh tamales and Lone Star beer when we finally had the topping out celebration of the building at which I was working.

I also did my share of philosophical and mental sweating. After a couple   years of teachers college I took off a year to teach in a 2 room Lutheran school. I had 42 in grades one to four. I hope by this time they have forgiven my inadequacies and plain old mistakes. Believe me I tried! The mental stress was at its highest 20 years later when the ambulance met us at the airport upon our arrival from Hong Kong. My wife Jane was in a virtual coma and it was at San Antonio’s Baptist Hospital that she was properly diagnosed and treated for a brain aneurysm. Family and friends provided unbelievable support to me and our children.

Of course, San Antonio is a city of romance. The historic Alamo hastens the blood flow of any true Texan. The San Antonio River and the River Walk stir up romantic feelings in even the most jaded. And for me San Antonio is the place where my now wife of some 62 years was first introduced to my mom, dad and family.

San Antonio evokes s feelings of sadness and absence. It was in San Antonio that I saw my mother slowly lose her formerly unquenchable energy. And it was at a bedside in San Antonio that Jane and I joined my father in a harmonious rendering of “Abide With Me” shortly before he left us to be forever with our Lord.

I wish I could conclude this little reflection by just sitting at a comfortable table on the River Walk savoring a margarita and some chips but that will have to await my very earliest convenience

New York

NEW YORK! I love New York. Actually I love all five boroughs of that wonderful city, but my favorite is The City, Manhattan, The Big Apple. From the first time I visited in the late 1940’s through the 8 years I lived just up the railway in Eastchester (while I served as Head of The Lutheran Schools Association Of New York) I jump at every opportunity to get my New York fix!

I love the people; and, of course, one is enmeshed in them the minute one steps onto almost any Manhattan Street, but it seems to be at its most frenzied pace around Times Square. What a thrill it is to be caught up in the swell of people from all corners of the earth, speaking every conceivable dialect all wearing all styles of dress, all sharing one common characteristic: they are in a hurry! Each person with their own agenda and a fierce determination to meet that agenda.

It was always a special treat when I got to Times Square with my long-time friend Howie Capell and he chose to drive his car. We would pull into Times Square. He’d spot a cop. get out of the car and wave to the cop with a” Hi “. Immediately the officer would be at our side, direct us to the nearest parking space (most likely marked No Parking) and wave us into the spot. If none of those was available the cop would personally walk alongside our car to the nearest public garage. He would signal the attendant and order, “Take care of my friend.” The valet would park our car at the entrance and there was never a fee. (These cops all know of how well Howie represented their fallen colleagues in the lawsuits following 9/11.)

Another way to experience Times Square and Manhattan Streets, The Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center etc. etc was with my nearly 90 year old Mother who was determined to “do NY.” She was in her wheel chair. Every time we got to a curb or an elevator or a rest room which she needed to use, someone was at her side asking how they could help and then doing it squared! My Mother declared, ”New York is the friendliest city in the world and I am from Texas where we know about hospitality.”

 I, of course, love to eat. In NY the picks were literally beyond imagination: Chinese food in Chinatown, Little Italy, street vendors with their pretzels, hot dogs, etc. very expensive famous eateries, delicatessens and bars ranging from the one with a view at the top of the Marriott to the neighborhood pubs around Union Square.

ENTERTAINMENT ON AND OFF THE STREET 24-7

Theaters, Carnegie Hall, The Met at Lincoln Center, The Blue Note for Jazz. Every conceivable Museum beckons. Madison Square Gardens awaits but you have to slip across the border into the Bronx to get to Yankee Stadium

Naturally I find the churches to be important to me, I never miss a chance to drop into St. Patrick’s on Fifth Avenue for a few moments of silence.  St. Peter’s Lutheran sits inside the Citicorp Building and the reredos behind its altar is a massive window framing the city it is called to serve. If one is around on Christmas Eve the thing to do is go to St. Luke’s Lutheran in the theater district. Just before midnight singers come from many of the shows, concerts, clubs in the areas (professionals all) and gather to sing in incredible harmonies the ancient Christmas carols.

I try to end my New York visit with the most meaningful worship of all. I go the site of the new World Trade Center. I stand silently for a long time at the Memorial Fountain. I let me fingers trace the names of the 9/11 victims; I image especially those who were numbered among the 60 who left behind a child or grandchild enrolled in a Lutheran School. I remember and I pray that the Lord of all cities would stop especially all killing done I n God’s name and send flocks of special angels to the big cities of the world, beginning with The Big Apple.

Selma, Alabama

My first visit to Selma AL was in 1962-three years before that city gained everlasting fame as the site of the Bloody Sunday racial confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, one of the sparks that ignited the entire civil rights movement in America. I was there to visit Concordia College-an institution of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The Board for Lutheran Higher Education knew that I was putting together a school system in Hong Kong and they wondered what lessons that experience might bring to the development of black schools in the South of the USA.

Concordia Selma had been established already in 1922. While it was called “college” my memory is that it served only students in grades 8-12 with a few in the first two years of college.

I spent the day visiting classes, meeting withy students and eating lunch and diner together in the dormitory dining room. At the end of the day I was in overwhelm. I was deeply disturbed and saddened at the very low academic level of the students-in spite of the extraordinary commitments of their teachers. Then I was very upset by the amount and quality of the food. I knew that the students in “my” schools in Hong Kong had much higher academic achievement-and even though they were poor refugees their daily meals were so much better than my new friends at this school

 As mentioned above this was not due to a lack of commitment of the teachers-nor even of the desire to learn of the students. It is just that the elementary school education was of such inferior quality that good high school/college work was exceedingly difficult.

I walked through the town. Even then I noted that well over half of the population was poor black. Now the percentage of the Selma population, which is black, has reached 80%

The President of the College was Walter Ellwanger a most remarkable man. He was deeply committed to racial equality; his family had helped found the Lutheran Human Relations Association, the first formal group in the Lutheran church advocating for our black brother and sisters. Dr. Ellwanger and his wife spent almost 20 years at this school and he did it all: taught, managed the dorms, raised the money, maintained discipline and even directed the choir. I will never forget that choir practice. Even though this was an all-black school the songs all seemed to be English translations from old German tunes and chorales. The choir was good, but somehow or other their mood just wasn’t right. And then at 9:30 pm Dr. Ellwanger announced, “And now, as always, we will close with the Negro National Anthem.” And with that the choir plunged into “Lift Every Voice and Sung.” The music got louder, the harmony deeper, the spirit moving, and the emotion transforming. I hear it and feel it to this day

I also remember my experience after that late choir practice. I went to the home of the President, a distinguished old southern mini-mansion. I was assigned an upstairs bedroom. There I finished readying the novel, which had been engrossing me: “To Kill A Mocking Bird”

The next day I met with the legendary Rosa Young who must have been in her eighties. Here was a woman with an unmatched devotion to black children in the south. She knew that the public schools were not available to many of them. The quality of their black schools was a shame. She started a whole group of 18 or more church-related black schools in Lutheran congregations and there, using all black teachers, she provided basic literacy for kids for whom this was otherwise unavailable.

(Side note: I visited one such school outside Mobile. I noticed that some children did not even have their own desk-and were sitting on the floor using a church pew for the writing surface. Fifty years later a distinguished educator Dr Vernon Gandt   delivered a talk at a national convention of educators. After his lecture we spoke. I learned that he was one of those students who used that church pew as his desk- and went on from there to a distinguished career after earning his doctorate.

Today Concordia in Selma is a fully accredited university of excellent reputation and even awarding doctorates in education.

Now and in the last decades many of the products of that Concordia in Selma have provided lay and professional leadership for the church and they are one of the reasons that that branch of the Lutheran church has more black among its membership and leadership that any other Lutheran group. Persistence, education and overcoming adversity continue to reap rich rewards!

Beirut, Lebanon

My memories of my time in Beirut, Lebanon are all positive and strong with an undertow of emotions calling me to return. The year was 1968 and I was on my way to chair a conference on Lutheran Education around the world. The Conference was to be held in Hong Kong and on my way there I visited educational institutions in Europe and Asia, with Beirut being a highlight.

One of the things that made it so memorable was my guide. He was an Arab who was native, had converted to Christianity and was very insightful into the history and the special dynamic of that centuries-old domain called Lebanon.

He gave me a wonderful tour of the city of Beirut: the harbor overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean is breath taking. The drive through the countryside down to the historic Tyre and Sidon plunges one into Biblical history. The well preserved as well as the abandoned fortresses of the Crusades pointed to a darker time of humanity’s inability to live peacefully among people of different faiths. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to visit the majestic Cedars of Lebanon.

My host explained some of the unique features of life in Lebanon. Then, as now, representation in the governments is on a rationed basis. Seats and offices are divided up in the same proportion as the faiths represented-, presently Christianity, Islam and Judaism. When I was there Christianity actually was entitled to a small majority of positions. Now Islam is dominant, just about equally divided between Sunni and Shiites.

After returning from Tyre and Sidon we spent several hours on the beautiful campus of The American University. Originally established by Christian missionaries it continues to be a seat of higher learning for people of all faiths. The tree-lined campus is home to many professors from America and some of them graciously hosted me for stimulating conversations.

The highlight of the visit came when it was time to eat. We sat in a gorgeous restaurant at the very edge of the sea. We were eating the meal long ordained as the official repast of the country: mezze. There must be a minimum of 30 dishes. They just kept arriving. There were items that looked like tapas from Spain and anti-pasta from Italy, multicolored dishes of vegetables, fruit, meat, tealeaves, sea creatures and plants. Delicious, every one of them and all washed down by arak, the anise flavored liquor of the region.

Tragically, the history of Beirut and Lebanon has seen painful and dark days since I was last there. War with Israel. The worst disaster for US Marines since WW II as 285 were killed in an attack by a suicide bomber (which resulted in President Reagan ordering all US troops out of Lebanon in 1983). Recently the militant Islamic group Hezbollah has established a strong presence. And now Lebanon is caught up in the Syrian revolution and coping with sectarian violence and an avalanche of refugees.

My heart goes out to the people of Beirut. Even as I reflect upon their current struggles I have wonderful memories of a warm people who love their country and are models of hospitality that I would do well to emulate.

Ann Arbor, Michigan

[This is a continuation of a series on cities which I have visited or in which I have lived.]

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The late 1960’s and early 70’s was a great time to live in Ann Arbor Michigan. It was a typical university city full of the then current unrest. Students were in protest. Young men went without shaving and young women without bras. I went with my teen-aged son David to my first (and only rock concert) where marijuana  smoke filled the air.

I was Superintendent of the 117 Lutheran elementary and high schools in the state. Our office became “occupied” by a group of black activists who insisted they would not leave until they were paid several million dollars in “reparations’ for past injustices. We dialogued with them, served them coffee, assured them no money was forthcoming but that we would stay with them as long as they stayed. My memory is that well before 10:00 pm they had decided to “call it a day”. They left and they never returned.

But for all of us it was time to reassess our ministry to and with our black brothers and sisters. Dr. Pete Pero who was serving in Detroit and his black allies taught me a lot.  There were 17 Lutheran schools within the city limits of Detroit, some of them with all-black enrollments. Those teachers, students and parents were patient with me, accepted me and broadened my horizons.

My memories of the principals across the State are very positive. While the schools of Detroit may have had very diverse student bodies the schools in places like Bach or Frankenmuth were still all-white and often all Lutheran. Interestingly one of the things I remember of those days 40 years ago is that the State highway department did an incredible job of keeping all highways open during snow storms and I do not recall ever having to cancel a school visit because of weather!

It was a great time to be politically active, especially in the interest of school choice. I helped form the Michigan Association of Non-Public Schools, sat on a special Education Committee of the State Senate, was invited to meet with President Nixon, and served as Vice-president of the now defunct Citizens for Educational Freedom. One of the great joys of all this was that I had two associates,  Don Kell and Roland Boehnke and the three of us together with our aide, Elinor Donohue,  were always challenging and supporting each other into new ways of thinking and acting.

We lived in Ann Arbor for only four years but that was enough time to learn to know its excellent restaurants and friendly bars where Lutheran principals(all except one were male!) could gather, drink a few beer together and sing songs to our hearts content. The University of Michigan football stadium was the site of some great football fetes and the frozen feet of a whole den of boy scouts whom I took there. The memory of that university may have played a role years later when our daughter  Elizabeth returned there to earn her Ph. D

Ann Arbor - a good place of fond memories and intellectual growth.