Christmas Day is bound to unleash many memories. I enjoy using Google Earth because the nosy satellite captures every place I have been, zooming down to observe the present state of various places called home for a period of time.
My earliest memory is living in Moline, Illinois, once a John Deere city. I walked to Garfield Elementary and to John Deere Junior High. When I went out to the parking lot of the Melo Cream Donut Shop downtown, there was the emblem of John Deere facing me, painted on the back of one Deere building. I even walked to Moline Senior High, which always elicited reasons why the long walk was good for me and a lot shorter than when my parents trekked to their country schools. I even walked to Augustana College, not too far away. "It's good for what ales ya."
The old high school was converted into the community college, mocked as S.S.U. - Sixteenth Street University. We had the old high school albums and went over them at times. The names gave away the Swedish origins - John Johnson, Sven Svenson, John Svenson and Sven Johnson, etc.
The newer Moline High is almost the same, but Augustana College has built many more buildings and lavish sports facilities, completely distancing itself from its origins and values. But I remember the Augustana College named from the Latin name for the Augsburg Confession. They bragged about their new college president being a DEI expert. Maybe they will scratch a dust pile over their mistake, the way a dog covers up his accident.
Christina and I met on the first day of class. I have her ID badge posted on my happy corner picture gallery. Also - a photo of us is kept of early graduation day, early to have a November wedding and trip to Canada.
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St. Peter Lutheran Church in Kitchener, Ontario, where I vicared, is now being carved up as low cost housing. |
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| The once great library at Augustana was replaced by The Tredway. |
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| Yale Divinity School worships ecology. |
Christina had lots of relatives in Southern Ontario, and I got to practice German with them and many members of St. Peter's in Kitchener. Christina started as a librarian at the nearby University of Waterloo, then upgraded by earning an MA in German at that school. As some are beginning to think, "They could walk from one school (Waterloo Lutheran Seminary and apartments) to another - UniWat," famous for computer innovations."
Long ago, Canadians asked for help in establishing Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. It now has almost no seminarians with a much bigger name - Martin Luther University Library.
Why didn't we think of that, instead of a pipe organ, worship, and hymns?The Waterloo Lutheran Seminary chapel has doggie time for the students. Aww.
We graduated from Kitchener-Waterloo quickly enough, which meant college degrees and master's degrees were completed between 1966 and 1972. Christina always enjoyed getting done early. She got a research job at Yale Medical School, where I also worked - as a lowly librarian assistant. I xeroxed, she researched. I tell MDs that I worked at Yale Medical Library, and that wakes them up.
Christina's family lived in South Bend, Indiana, after starting out with two daughters in post WWII camps in Germany. They found a small house - definitely a trend - within walking distance of Notre Dame. The professor Augustana kicked out of their school (non-renewal of his contract) was accepted by Notre Dame - Stanley Hauerwas. Hauerwas has his own website, and he was once brought back to Augustana for a lecture. He is 84.
Hauerwas was instrumental in moving me into the pastoral theology program for a PhD at Notre Dame, which I completed in 1982 . I never longed for cozy academic positions but pursued publishing instead.
