My Old Elementary School

Although I am a Gen-Xer, most people would find it hard to believe that I went to an actual 3-room schoolhouse in West Virginia at my age.   However, I actually did, and it was a rich part of my personal legacy.  I wanted to spend some time talking about that now, as it has been a major impact on my own life and I wanted to share it with others.

In 1980, I finished up my fourth-grade school year on a very good note, and at that time Mom and I were staying with my grandmother in Augusta, WV.  However, Mom was anxious to get her own place, and a couple of years earlier a co-worker had introduced her to a wealthy lady by the name of Nellie Cox in the nearby community of Kirby, and after contacting her, Mom was able to rent a 2-bedroom single-wide mobile home in Kirby itself.  It was quite a transition for us, but it was also the beginning of a 5-year part of my own life in which I would forge much of the identity I have today.

My first introduction to Grassy Lick came in September 1980, when I began school there.  The school itself was only a 5-minute walk from our house, and it was nothing to get there of a morning.  However, it also became a huge challenge, because I was about to have my first male teacher, Guy Dispanet Jr.   Mr. Dispanet was a BIG man with a flattop crewcut who resembled that mean Marine drill seargeant that some vets remember from their boot camp days.  And, he was about as strict as he looked - recess was not playing for our class, but rather about physical education.  A typical recess with this man entailed an initial lap or two around the large field in back of the school, and then everyone in the class was required to play ball - softball in the early fall and spring, football and basketball in the late fall, and during the winter months it was indoor gymnastic-like activities.  Oh, how I hated that then too!  Also, the huge transition of us moving to Kirby, and our own abject poverty at the time, made my fifth-grade school year one of the roughest I have had to date, and as a result I had to repeat the fifth grade the following year.  It was then that things began to get better, as Dispanet, despite his strictness, really knew how to bring out the best in students he believed in, and he took that sort of interest in me.

This was my 1981-1982 class picture - I am third from the right on the top row, and Mr. Dispanet, our teacher, is on the top far-left.  The other lady was Miss Loretta Snyder, the teacher-aide. 

(photo courtesy of Mary Haines Orndorf, a former classmate who is second from left on the top row)

The three years I spent under Dispanet's tutelage really made me discover a lot about my own potential, and he really did have a heart for the students he taught despite the strictness.  However, he was also very quick to discipline if necessary, as was evident by a long pointed stick he kept up on an atlas podium he stood at when teaching - if you were within reach of him and were slacking off, he would crack you with that stick too!  In time however, if you really worked in class and proved yourself, you would also gain Dispanet's respect, and if you got that, it was a high honor (at least to us as pre-teen fifth and sixth graders!).

Let me tell you a little that I have learned about the history of Grassy Lick School.  The building we were in at the time was the third version of it, having been constructed in 1951.  Two earlier schools, one going back to the early 1900's, existed as well.  The building we knew had three classrooms, along with a connecting hallway in front, a kitchen, and restrooms, and it was staffed at the time by six people - three teachers (Mrs. Hott, who also served as principal, taught the first and second grades, Mrs. Iser taught third and fourth grades, and Mr. Dispanet taught fifth and six), a cook (Treva Haines), a janitor (Junior Timbrook), and a teacher's aide (Mrs. Snyder).  There were no gym teachers (Mr. Dispanet compensated for a lot of that!) and an itinerant music teacher visited once a week (Mr. Likens was the original in 1980, later followed by Mrs. Mezzatesta later).  Two small buses served the school - one traveled up Grassy Lick Road toward Romney and was driven by Edgel Souder, and the other went back toward Augusta and was driven by Junior Pyles.  Many of us kids in town though just walked to school, as we lived so close.  Looking back on it, the experience was actually quite enriching honestly, and I loved it. 

The older Grassy Lick School, located I believe further up Grassy Lick Road - this one was around since the 1920's at least.

(Photo courtesy of Cindy Racey Twigg, another former classmate and a professional photographer)

An older black-and-white picture of the current Grassy Lick School I went to, taken sometime after its construction in the early 1950's

Grassy Lick School (now Grassy Lick Kirby Community Center) as it appears today.

(Photo courtesy of Tara Jane Racey Riggleman)

As I mentioned, my years at Grassy Lick got off to a rough start, but they ended up being a very good time in my life as I transitioned from childhood to adolescence.  I have fond memories now of the school, and thanks to social media such as Facebook I am now also in touch with many of my old classmates, and we share stories of those days.  Grassy Lick alumni are relatively few in number (an average class back then was at max 25 students, with maybe 50 at any given time in the whole school), but that limited number of us makes us all closer in our experience.  Unfortunately though, much change has come, and I want to conclude by talking a little about the change.

Economic ups and downs are a stark reality in small-town West Virginia, and in the late 1990's many counties started to feel the pinch, forcing them to re-evaluate their educational structures.  Many schools ended up closing and consolidating with other nearby communities, and Grassy Lick School fell casuality to that around the year 2000 or so.  Also, in 1993 we lost Mr. Dispanet, as a debilitating illness claimed his life, and that too was a tremendous loss.  I was fortunate to be able to talk to him by phone a few months before his passing, and it was a nice trip down memory lane as we talked about his memories of many of us in the class, and about the school in general.  He confided in me that teaching in that school was not one of his first choices of career, but that he would not trade the rich memories he gained for anything.  In the past few years, much of Kirby has closed up too - Cox's Store for one - and the school was turned into a local community center where a number of local activities are held throughout the years.  This reclamation of the old school is actually a good preservation move, as it keeps alive the legacy of what was one of the last small schools of its kind up until the dawn of the 21st century.  And, it was my pleasure to share this memory with you as you read this, and hopefully it will help many of you appreciate your own elementary school days better too. 

Dr. Haleblian, Pastor and Friend

(Right) Dr. Krikor G. Haleblian (1943-2007) and his wife

For well over 30 years, one of the major things I have been involved in is working with both Armenian and Assyrian Christians.   Back in my early college years, as a young preacher, I felt a stronger calling to do something more hands-on with these, "my people," and that led in 1995 to a trip to California where I was able to preach in two of their churches, one being an Assyrian Pentecostal Church in the city of Turlock, and the other was St. Nareg Armenian Church in Montebello, pastored by a dear friend of mine I also consider a mentor.  Dr. Krikor Haleblian was indeed a spiritual giant, but was also a capable scholar, which is why I want to talk about him now.

My first contact with Dr. Haleblian came in the late 1980's, at which time he was pioneering an Armenian Studies program at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena.  At that time, I was a young, very enthusiastic Pentecostal kid who was just starting out in Bible college, and the denomination I was part of then, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, was located in California, with their college being fairly close to where Dr. Haleblian's church was located.  At that time, I was attending a small Baptist college in the panhandle of Florida, but was increasingly feeling the desire to go out west where I could accomplish a two-fold purpose - first, to be more at the center of Foursquare activity, and secondly, to minister more closely to the people I felt I was called to.  Dr. Haleblian was more than happy to offer assistance, so in 1991 we began to talk, and it was decided I would be possibly working with his church once I arrived on the West Coast.  And, now that is what I want to briefly talk about.

My own youthful zeal at the time, coupled with pastor from the pastor of the church I was part of in Dothan, AL, to be educated at a specifically Foursquare college, prompted me to begin making preparations to go to Los Angeles starting in the Spring 1992 term.   However, my zeal was greater than my wisdom, and a series of situations made me go out there ill-prepared and my stay was very short (only in January) before circumstances placed me back on a Greyhound bus heading back east.  However, despite the bad timing of the trip, I did have one great moment, and that was meeting Dr. Haleblian in person.  We had corresponded regularly for several months prior, and I have to this day copies of some journal articles he wanted to gauge my opinion on at the time.  It was a great blessing to meet him, although I would not formally preach in his church until about 3 years later when we had a shorter and better-planned trip out there.  

That being said, let me tell you a little about Dr. Haleblian.  He was born in Syria on September 15, 1943, and after coming to the US at an early age, he completed his theological education and later founded the St. Nareg Church, which then was affilliated with the Armenian Evangelical Union of America as well as initially with the Church of the Nazarene and later with an independent Pentecostal fellowship.  It was in the late 1980's that Dr. Haleblian became a professor at Fuller, and he instituted a program of Armenian Theological Studies there which as of this time may or may not have continued.  He was a busy man, with teaching, pastoring, as well as being a prolific writer.  For a number of years he published a really good small journal called The St. Nareg Quarterly, and while in school in Graceville I had received a few of those on occasion.  At a later date, in 1996, he published a series of those articles dealing with Armenian Missiology and Theology into a very good reference work entitled The Armenian Church in Context.  This book, which essentially was a pioneering attempt at what is now commonly referred to as "Contexualization," was to be a text for people ministering to Armenians which would educate them in how to utilize what was already a Christian-based culture (the Armenians have been a Christian people for over 2000 years now) as an evangelistic tool for reaching the Armenian community in the US in particular.  Although in recent years "Contextualization" has become way too radical for my tastes (as well as incorporating much material that is unscriptural), I believe Dr. Haleblian did have a fantastic model that was perfect for contextualizing Armenian missionary work - use what is there to reach those who are familiar with it.  Although the point of this article is not to argue for missionary practices or theology, I have to say that I am in agreement with much of Dr. Haleblian's premise, as it also intersects well with my own ideas.  So, even today, his book (which he gave me as a gift, autographed and all!) is still a valuable resource in my own library.

Since St. Nareg never had its own building, it met in the chapel of this Methodist Church in the town of Montebello for a number of years.  As far as I can ascertain, they may still meet there today.

Any rate, going back to that first meeting with Dr. Haleblian back in January 1992, he made sure I was able to attend church that following Sunday at St. Nareg, and that was my first Armenian service of any kind I had ever attended.  Armenian Evangelicals will probably be somewhat alien to their American counterparts in that they have successfully incorporated much of the liturgy and tradition of the Armenian Apostolic Church that many of them had roots in, and it is a beautiful liturgical tradition.  The best way to describe the Armenian tradition is melancholy beauty - there is a joy of the sort one would expect of Eucharistic worship, but at the same time there is a sadness that reflects the pain of a persecuted people (the Armenians have been viciously persecuted for their faith over the centuries, in particular a nasty period of time just during and after World War I called the Armenian Genocide in which the Ottoman Turks slaughtered several million Armenian Christians just for simply being Armenian - after Hitler's evil Holocaust against the Jews in World War II, the Armenian Genocide is one of the most brutal and large-scale slaughters of a people group in modern times, and it is still commemorated on April 21st every year by most Armenian churches.  The Turks, unfortunately, still try to deny it happened) crying out in worship to their Lord to be there for them, and in that sadness is also a peace that God is with them.  The Armenian Liturgy (called the badarak) is to me one of the most precious liturgies of the Christian Church, and to this day it still brings tears to my eyes when I witness it being celebrated.  Dr. Haleblian, in his foresight, knew that the badarak and the sharagans (traditional Armenian hymnody) resonated deeply with his people, and given their thoroughly Christian root, he joyfully integrated them into the worship of his particular Evangelical congregation.  The beautiful thing is that it works, and still does - Dr. Haleblian's example is one reason for my own pilgrimage later into the Convergence movement, which I was briefly part of until I became formally Catholic myself later.  He presented a true model of Convergence based on the rich tradition of a people who carried this worship at the heart of their identity.  And, I got to see that first-hand in 1992, and it was a neat experience too.  Three years later, in 1995, I would revisit St. Nareg not as a spectator, but as a preacher.

It was after service also that Dr. Haleblian invited me for lunch over at his house, and I had my first taste of a delicious Armenian staple called lahmadzoon, which is similar to a pizza but consists of oregano, chopped lamb, and a tomato paste on a pita bread called lavash.  The meatless variety of this, called zaatar, is what I came to prefer later, but it was great to actually try real Armenian food for the first time, and it would by no means be the last.  He also gave me a little something to hold me over while I was at the Foursquare school in San Dimas out there, and it was much-welcomed, as my resources at the time were stretched thin.  However, as mentioned, it would be three years later before I would get to visit out there again, and this time I would be going to minister rather than observe.

The trip to California was a big disaster, and I basically found that out the hard way when I limped back to Dothan in a Greyhound bus and went through a rough readjustment.  In the next couple of years though, I would transfer to Southeastern University in Lakeland, and after getting married prior to that and also getting a culinary school certificate in AL before we left there, we would in time leave the Foursquare denomination for good as God was starting to move me into another direction at that point.  What began to happen was an old desire to minister to Armenians and Assyrians again, so in early 1995 I began to plan a trip for December of that year to go out there just to speak in churches, and Dr. Haleblian was more than happy to host us for a Sunday.  So, a week before Christmas, we headed out, and upon arriving in Baldwin Park that Saturday night, we prepared the next day to speak at St. Nareg, and that turned out to be a neat experience - Dr. Haleblian and his people were very gracious to us, and it was also the first time I got to speak with the aid of an interpreter (Dr. Haleblian himself).  It was also one of the first times I got to speak in clerics, as I had my collar and everything. And, I still recall the text, as I preached right out of the Book of Common Prayer.  It was a tremendous experience, and the whole California trip ended up being a tremendous success. 

This is me (on the right) preaching at St. Nareg Church in December of 1995 - Dr. Haleblian is translating on the left. 

After that California trip unfortunately, my enthusiasm for ministry began to wane, as my preparation for graduating that following spring, as well as a number of great personal challenges, began to take center stage.  As I completed college in April 1996 and began to figure out my own path, many obstacles began to take my eyes off of my original zeal and I began to grow somewhat complacent over the next several years.  Despite that, I kept in touch with Dr. Haleblian for many years up until his untimely passing in June of 2007, and at around the time he went onto his eternal reward, I was beginning to get my bearings spiritually again and although I would never have the zeal I once had regarding the Assyrians and Armenians, they are still people I hold near and dear to me and it turns out they were the ones who would eventually reach me, as I began to think more like them in my own Christianity.  Also, as I began a mission of re-discovering myself and what has made me tick over the years, I came to also revive a deep appreciation and love of these people that I once had, although now in a much different capacity.  That is what really led me to talk a little about my dear friend Dr. Haleblian at this point too.

Dr. Haleblian has long gone onto his eternal reward, but he was a tremendous man of God, brilliant in mind and humble in spirit, who wanted to serve his people in a way he believed God was leading him to do so.  Unlike so many today who want to eschew the past and try to re-write the teachings of the Church, Dr. Haleblian wisely chose to utilize them, build upon them, and by doing so he created a church (with God's leading of course) that was thoroughly Evangelical but also distinctly Armenian to its soul.  The idea of tradition is not to do away with it, but to use it as a foundation upon which to build - that is a very important lesson I believe Dr. Haleblian gave me personally.  To quote a good example of his philosophy on this, we turn to his book, where he says this: "Simply stated, the true Armenian Church is one that is faithful to the traditional Armenian culture while at the same time proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ clearly and effectively." (Haleblian, Krikor. The Armenian Church in Context. {Los Angeles, 1996} p. 95).  What he means by this is staying true to one's traditions while at the same time bringing them alive to the generation hearing them.  Many of our churches need this today, not just Armenians - there is too much of an iconoclasm against traditionally-held orthodoxy and orthopraxis, and it has been damaging to American Christianity in particular; the only time many churches adapt liturgical forms today is for some fad or social statement, and not for what they were truly intended (the "Emerging church" movement, which ironically has a bastion at the same institution Dr. Haleblian taught at, Fuller Seminary, is guilty in this regard) - it is "cool" for instance to many people to see candles and icons adorning Assemblies of God and Nazarene churches now, but often those liturgical forms are not used in the proper context, but are rather part of the fad and fashion of the times, which itself is a bad reason for church growth motivation.  Dr. Haleblian would not have advocated this, and it kind of goes against what he is saying.  However, the purpose of this is not to get into a theological discourse about the willful misuse of liturgical aids in Evangelical churches, but rather to commemorate Dr. Haleblian's legacy, but you get my point.  

That being said, I don't know the future now of St. Nareg since Dr. Haleblian's repose, but hopefully it will continue to carry on the rich legacy he gave them.   And, may he rest eternal, and may each of you reading this have God's blessing as well. 

Myrt

Myrtle Masters (1892-1990)

In my teenage years, we had a bit of transition of sorts as we moved from Kirby, WV, in August of 1985.  The following year was somewhat chaotic, as I felt uprooted and somewhat confused concerning my situation.  However, about 10 months later, we encountered an individual who would endear herself to both Mom and me, and it ended up being three of the best years of my life that ensued as a result.  Myrtle Masters was truly a one-of-a-kind lady, and I want to talk a little bit about her.

My memory is not quite as precise on the details of Myrtle's life, but as I can recollect here are the basics.  On April 26, 1892, "Myrt" was born in Wetzel County, WV, to Rufus and Mary Ellen (Round) Creamer.  Somehow she ended up in Preston County, where she married Walter E. Masters (1895-1968), with whom she had six children.  For the majority of her adult life, "Myrt" lived in and around the vicinity between the towns of Rowlesburg and Terra Alta, and sometime much later her eldest son Earl (or "Bud," as everyone called him) bought an old farmhouse on Salt Lick Road, which he renovated and made a home for her.  It was at this house that we came to live for several years of our lives, and now to tell you how that happened. 

As mentioned, we had finally moved out of the town of Kirby in August of 1985 after more or less hitting bottom at the time.  I had just finished up middle school the previous year, and was on the cusp of starting my first year of high school as a freshman, but the summer of 1985 was rough on us - we had no income to speak of, and had it not been for some homemade drop biscuits and some nightly raids on the neighbor's gardens (as well as the good charity of a local Methodist Church and their foodbank in Romney), we would have probably starved.  The bottom line was, it was just time to move.  So, in August we moved in with my grandmother and step-grandfather Lonnie, who had recently moved themselves into a new house near the community of Baker, and it was quite a transition for us.  Then, in November of that year, the Great Flood struck, devastating much of West Virginia.  Not too long after the Flood, my step-grandfather had fallen out with the landlord - a crotchety old man - of the house he and my grandmother leased in Baker and we ended up all having to move.  Interesting enough, my stepgrandfather Lonnie's elder brother Lee had recently passed away, and his sister Betty let Lonnie know that Lee's old house, which was across the street from where she lived in Rowlesburg, WV, was available to rent and in November around Thanksgiving we moved in.  Although it was good to be out of Hampshire County at that time and closer to my own roots, it was not an easy transition.  As a matter of fact, it was honestly a living hell during that time for me, and I was probably the most miserable I had been in a long time.  

While living in Rowlesburg with my grandparents, Mom had heard from someone that an elderly man who lived across the Cheat River in the subdivision of Mannheim needed care.  The man was an 88-year-old fellow in declining health by the name of Webster Bolyard, and Mom accepted the job in April of 1986 and we were able to live in the house.  However, as his health was rapidly declining, "Webby" as we called him didn't live but two months after we came, and he passed away that June.  However, thankfully, one of his daughters, Dorothy, had an opportunity for Mom - turns out her elderly mother-in-law, who at the time was 94, needed a live-in caretaker, and she thought Mom and I would be perfect.  This lady lived up Salt Lick Road, away from Rowlesburg and closer to Terra Alta, and where she lived was out in the country area.  Dorothy's husband was the aforementioned Bud Masters, and his mother was Myrt.  So, in June of that year, we made the move, and that would begin a 3-year part of my life that would entail some of my best memories, but it did get off to a rough start.

When Mom first moved to Myrt's, I was miserable - the past year had been chaotic anyway, as it had entailed 4 moves (from Kirby to Baker, Baker to Rowlesburg, from my grandmother's place in Rowlesburg to Webby Bolyard's in Mannheim, and now to Salt Lick), two schools (I started my freshman year of high school at East Hardy in Baker, and finished it out at Rowlesburg High School), a major flood, and a lot of mental processing of all the above.  As a result of the Flood too, most of my freshman year of high school was spent in Kingwood on the Buckwheat Festival Grounds, where Rowlesburg School had to set up shop after the high school building was totally destroyed by the Flood.  In short, it was miserable!  And now, here I was stuck out in the boonies in a remote farmhouse, with only one day a week to get out and go to Terra Alta to the grocery store.  If it wasn't for three things - my new-found Christianity, as I was baptized earlier that year, as well as my record collection and a nice diversion that summer at church camp in Cowan, WV - I would have cracked hard.  Thanks be to God though for his mercy, but on the positive it would get much better as I began to settle in and find my niche.  

Since Myrt is the centerpiece of this story, let's talk some more about her.  For a nonagenarian, Myrt was actually a sharp lady and loved life.  It was actually quite easy to get her amused, and she would often giggle so much that her bladder would give way and she would dribble a little (it's a little embarrassing, probably to her as well, but as one gets older these things do happen to even the best).  As I got to spend more time with her, she became like a second grandmother to me - I had just lost my Granny, who had passed away, and it was as if God was blessing me with someone to fill that void.  And, she (as well as most of her family) sort of adopted me too - I was "her boy" and Mom was her "old woman."  I remember sitting with her reading books to her, as well as often just talking.  Another trait Myrt had then was her snuff - she used this stuff called "Square Snuff" (we used to call it granny-snuff, as many old ladies used it, including my own paternal grandmother) which looked like a small can of cocoa.  She also would tell a lot of her own stories too - a lot about her late husband Walter, as well as some other amusing anecdotes about her kids, etc.  On occasion too, she did some amusing things we'll talk about next.

While we lived at Myrt's, Mom and I had the two upstairs bedrooms - Mom's was on the north side, and mine on the south.  Myrt slept downstairs in a room south of the front entrance, just under my room.  Occasionally at night, I would have to take a visit downstairs to the bathroom, and on occasion Myrt would sometimes get the urge to get a little snack - usually a piece of bread or a cookie or something - in the middle of the night.  This one particular night I recall making a trip down to the bathroom, and I heard something rustling around down there.  Now, to get to the bathroom in this house, you had to go through the living room, then turn right into the kitchen, and go straight back.  Bud had added the bathroom on not long after he purchased the house, as the original place had been built some years before indoor plumbing and no bathroom had existed.  Any rate, at the entrance to the kitchen, on the left there was a gas stove in the corner, and behind that stove was a magazine box.  The noise I was hearing was coming from the vicinity of that magazine box too.  So, being ever-cautious, I grabbed a broom, and then groped in the dark for a light - I was thinking a rat or something had gotten into the house, and I was going to take care of business.  When I turned on the light, there was Myrt, behind the stove almost marching into the paper box!  She had gotten up for a midnight snack and had somehow made a wrong turn, and got herself backed into the corner.  Luckily I did turn on the light first though, because I almost clobbered her thinking she was a rat!

Myrt, as mentioned, also had some amusing stories, such as the time she shooed a groundhog (she thought it was a rat) out of the house with a broom, or the time she first saw a Black man on a train headed for Baltimore when she was a little girl and it about scared her to death.  For her age too, she did really nicely healthwise, although it was almost amusing when she saw another elderly person  (usually one younger than she was!) and would pitifully say, "Aww, the poor distressed thing!"   She could also be a little precocious, and I have to admit I egged that on sometimes - such as the time we all went up to Terra Alta for an ice cream at the Dairy Queen, and Myrt was making fun of some big old woman with dirty feet who had come in - she got easily amused at funny feet, and she'd often exclaim "Look at that woman's feets!" Opal, her daughter who was also our main source of transportation for a couple of years, would often roll her eyes (usually quietly amused herself) and say, "Damn, I can't take these kids anywhere!"  Also, there was the nearby Amish Farmer's Market in Oakland, MD.  On occasion, we'd go over there, and Myrt loved going there for one reason and one reason alone - the candy!  That place did (and still does) have one of the largest selections of just abuot any kind of candy that can be imagine, and usually upon taking Myrt shopping, she would be sampling a lot of it too.  Myrt did have a sweet tooth too I recall, although she never over-indulged nor was she at risk for diabetes.  As a matter of fact, other than some potassium and other vitamins, as well as maybe one or two prescription meds, Myrt was doing really well healthwise.  That is, until around 1989.

Around 1988 or so, a strange growth had begun to appear on Myrt's neck, but at first no one thought much of it.   However it began to grow and had a nasty look about it, and it was in early 1989 that it was officially diagnosed as a cancer.  Although I was off at my first year of college in Florida in the fall of 1989, I did still come home on Christmas and during the summer months, and in June 1990 I came home for the summer and noted Myrt was not herself.  She was going to the doctor more frequently, and was getting much weaker.  Due to the size of that tumor on her neck, she also took to wearing cloths around her throat to keep people from seeing it, as it was quite large.  By mid-June, she had to be admitted to the hospital in Oakland, and after she was admitted there her health rapidly declined to the point she could not talk - it was so difficult to see her like that, knowing the sharp,vibrant soul she was.  Any rate, on June 21, 1990, Myrt went on to her eternal reward, less than 2 months after her 98th birthday.  I remember the day of her funeral well too - at the same time, my former pastor, Frank Brubaker, was on vacation and I was filling in both at Hopemont Hospital (where he was resident chaplain) and at the church for him while he was gone.  After I did the service that Sunday morning, we went straight to Myrt's funeral up at the old Pine Grove Church on Salt Lick - although the local Methodist pastor did the service, her long-time minister and friend Rev. Dunson was there too.  The day was rainy, and I recall it being both somber but at the same time very reflecting, as people remembered Myrt's life.  Also, for me, it was as if an era of my own life had come to an end too with her passing, and it was a good part of my life I hated to see end.  

Although Myrt was gone, for many years I still stayed close to the family - Opal and I always talked, and Myrt's oldest daughter Wiliavene (or "Aunt Jim" as we affectionately called her) was like my own aunt too.  For many years as a matter of fact, I got birthday cards, boxes of cookies, and other letters and such from all of them too.  However, all of Myrt's kids were in their 60's and 70's back then too, and in recent years they have all gone onto their eternal rewards as well - I miss them all as much as I did Myrt, as overall they were a great family of people.  But, I still have many fond memories of them all, as they became my family as well.  Rest eternal Myrt, and behave yourself up there until we see you again!

The Pastor Who Baptized Me

Rev. Olen T. Phillips (1947-2000)

(Photo courtesy of  Loraine Phillips Mullin, his daughter)

The most important decision in my life was one I made when I was 16 years old, and that decision was based on a question - "Where will I spend eternity?"  Although being raised in the faith most of my life, I also grew up in what was a very fear-based religion that my well-intentioned but often misguided mother often miscommunicated.  However, that fear ultimately contributed to this important decision that I made the night of January 27, 1986.  Upon deciding to take the step to follow Christ, the person who led me in the right direction was a humble Southern Baptist pastor by the name of Olen Phillips, and to this day I am still grateful for the fact he took the time to reach out to me at that little church in Rowlesburg, WV, on that cold winter night.  And, almost 29 years later, I am still walking with the Lord.

The Rowlesburg, WV, Southern Baptist Church, where Olen pastored back in 1986 when I became a Christian

Olen Phillips was by appearance a diminutive man - anyone who didn't know him well might easily mistake him for the town postmaster or something.  But, beating within the heart of this humble vessel was a pastor's heart, and God really gifted him with that calling.  My step-grandfather's sister, Betty Rydzewski,  had started going to this Baptist church in Rowlesburg a couple of years before, and one night in November she invited me to go with her, and fortunately I did.  It was that night that I first met Pastor Olen.  Little did I know that less than 3 months later, he would also be baptizing me too!

Me being baptized by Olen on February 9, 1986, in Kingwood, WV.

Olen and his dear wife Linda were natives of north Georgia originally, and as I can recall, Olen grew up as a Jehovah's Witness but later came to Christ at a young age.  In 1981, the Phillipses accepted a call with the Southern Baptist Mission Service Corps (which I believe was part of the Great Commission emphasis the SBC had via its Home Mission Board then) and came to a little town I was very familiar with called Rowlesburg, WV.  I don't know the complete history of this, but as I recall the Rowlesburg church was started at around that time in the home of some people who had a heart to build a church in the area, and Olen was chosen to minister to them.  Some years later, in an interview with the West Virginia Southern Baptist magazine, they were asked why they believed God called them to the state, and their answer summarized their ministry over the years - "We think God brought us here simply because we made it clear to Him that we were willing to go and do absolutely anything He chose." ("When He Calls, He Really Calls!" in the June 1998 West Virginia Southern Baptist, page 6.).  Fact is, when Olen and Linda said that, they spoke their convictions - they ministered in West Virginia for 19 years in various capacities, and they always had a servant's conviction to do what they believed God wanted them to do, and I am thankful to be personally a fruit of that - much of the church work I have done myself over the years, as a matter of fact, deserves to have credit directed to Olen for sharing the Gospel with a poor, disadvantaged mountain kid and then provide that kid with the discipleship and ministry to be open to the Holy Spirit's calling himself.   That is why Olen has been, and will always be, a spiritual father to me, and I still love him like a father although he did go onto his eternal reward in 2000.    Which is why now I want to talk a little about some things I have learned from his example over the years.

Olen and his daughter Lori 

(Photo courtesy of Loraine Phillips Mullin)

If I can sum up the ministry of Olen Phillips in one word, it is this - obedience.  Olen was always open to what the Holy Spirit was directing him to do, and he always obeyed and followed that direction although it probably wasn't always easy for him to do it.  Linda, his dear wife, was the same way - she also had a heart for the youth of the community, and as my former Sunday school teacher I also learned much from her.  Another thing I learned from Olen was that the Christian life is not something you live out of fear of damnation, but rather out of joy of serving Christ - I cannot express enough about how grateful I am to him for helping me undo many years of some bad theology I had gotten into due largely in part to poor discipleship as a kid - Olen and Linda set me on a pilgrimage of growth, and also I learned from them how to rightly uphold and know the truth of God's Word and what it teaches.  St. Anselm, in his Proslogion, said that we don't understand to believe, but we believe to understand - Olen Phillips lived that conviction, and he communicated it to his people he ministered to in such a way that it really stuck and you could build upon it.  And, that is the legacy of faith I inherited from Olen Phillips as my pastor and spiritual father/mentor. 

In recent years, my faith pilgrimage has led me to a whole different Church tradition that is in many ways worlds apart from that little Baptist church in Rowlesburg, WV, but God used that church - and Olen and Linda Phillips - to bring me to where I am today.  Olen, I believe with all my heart you are in heaven with the Savior you so faithfully served, but I wanted to say that I love you, and one day in the hereafter I am looking forward to seeing you again.  

33 Years!!

It is hard to believe that I have been collecting vintage big band recordings for 33 years today!  I am doing this year-end perspective on the collection to show where I am at, how I got there, and where we are going with it now.  It sounds a little odd, I know, to be celebrating something like a record collection, but it is a pretty big deal.  Many of you who have followed me all these years know the story of how it began, but there is another dimension I will share today.

It was on October 1, 1982, that I got my very first record - it was a 1959 Harry Belafonte LP of all things (a self-titled LP with a green cover and Belafonte's picture on the front, RCA LPM-1150).  Again, this is old news to many of you, but there is another part of the story I want to share today, and that is why it was a Harry Belafonte LP.  When I first started to get interested in this type of music, I listened to a radio station out of Charlotte, NC, that played a variety of this type of thing, including a lot of 1950's pop standards in addition to big band recordings.  One of the songs they played a lot, which for some reason I liked then, was Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song" (you all know this one - "Day-O, Daaaay-O, Daylight come and me wanna go home...").  Of course, I don't have much to do with Harry Belafonte today - I outgrew that many moons ago, and besides, his politics leave a lot to be desired anyway these days (same with Tony Bennett unfortunately).  Anyway, October 1st that year was on a Friday, and I was in school and Mom went shopping that day at the old "Mall" in Rio.  She was the one who got me the record, and I recall she paid a whole quarter for it.  It was quite a nice surprise, and looking back on it Mom really put some thought into that seemingly small gesture, and she deserves some credit for that.  The following month, in November, I got my first actual big band LP's, but it was the Belafonte record that got the whole thing started.

That story being told, it is now 33 years later, and today I can say I have come a long way with the collection.  As of today, my collection stands at 1189 CD's, 902 LP records, 96 DVD's of concerts, vintage "Soundies," and other great footage, and about a couple hundred 78 RPM's.  Additionally, my logbook doesn't record a number of additions I have of material people have sent me that I have preserved myself on disc, as they are not professional recordings and cannot technically be logged onto anything.  And with the stats out of the way, let's talk about this past year.

For the first time in many, MANY years, I have a collection that is so comprehensive that very little else needs to be added at this point, although I still have a few things I am looking for.  That means that this year purchases have been less as there is less we need to get, and I have noted that I have gotten slightly more DVD's this year than CD's - also, although I didn't buy any LP recordings in the past year, this year I got a handful of material I have been looking for on LP.  With the addition of an LP-to-CD recorder back in 2012, I have been able to put some rare stuff on disc too, which is nice.  Another development this year too that I briefly mentioned earlier was the fact that I have ways of putting MP3's on disc now, and have successfully saved about 20 discs of that material.  Some of it is sent via email from fellow collectors, and some I have acquired by being able to convert some YouTube clips to sound and save them on disc.  I may be doing more of that in the coming year, and one project relative to that is a series of discs I have put together called "Big Band Varieties," which is going on seven volumes.  Unfortunately, this is about the only way I can get a lot of rare material into my collection, as so much good stuff on LP has not been reissued on compact disc and much of it probably won't be either - that is largely due to a newer generation that doesn't appreciate good music as much as many of us did, as to many millennial kids these days the Beatles are considered "vintage music," and Glenn Miller or Guy Lombardo is relatively unknown to such.  That factor, as well as much of the original generation that appreciated that great music either being of advanced age or deceased (I found it shocking that World War II vets - my grandparents' generation - are starting to reach their 90's and even 100's!), much of those collections of great music on vinyl end up in the local thrift stores and flea markets, which is good news for me, as $20 can get you a box of LP's if you know what you are looking for.  Fortunately, there are still a number of us around (myself, as well as my young friend Joe Enroughty in Richmond, VA, who even has his own Lombardo-style orchestra) who will preserve this rich legacy.

I am not sure what this new year for my collection will bring, as I have been purchasing less material, but I am sure I will probably be getting some things in the coming months.  So, as year 34 dawns, it is certainly a new era in my collecting passion.  Let's hope for the best, and we'll see where we are at next October.