Young Love (#86)

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September 1, 1969

 

Nate and I were getting closer to the start of a new school year in Champaign – him is law school, me as a teacher. After a double birthday party in Wilmette for my brother Tom and our Dad, the next event was seeing Tom off to college in the East. He had transferred from Wheaton to American University and would be driving to Washington DC the day after his party. We wouldn’t see him again until Thanksgiving.

Bye bye TomMom was clearly having trouble letting go – her baby, a first son, the boy who’d arrived after doctors said “no more,” the child born on her husband’s 50th birthday. Her words were that Tom wasn’t ready to launch, but the truth? She wasn’t ready.

Tom was thrilled to be spreading his wings. After a breakfast together, we waved him off, and I wondered how Mom would cope. When he’d been a Wheaton student, she’d made frequent visits to his campus 25 miles from home. She would do his laundry, bring his favorite foods, drive him home for weekends – in other words, continue as a strong presence. Now there would be 1000 miles between them, and it was a blow to her.

I didn’t understand that at all. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have anything to do.

Bible study girls.She was the every-week organist at Moody Church (two Sunday services, Wednesday prayer meetings, Thursday choir practices). She ran 4 children’s choirs. She cooked dinner at the church for over 100 people every week and taught a Sunday school class of high school girls (left). She hosted a young people’s Bible study at her house.

The church was 45 minutes from home, but that didn’t stop her from driving there repeatedly each week to practice on the 4-keyboard organ, nor did it keep her from attending many other church meetings – such as Missionaides, a group that sewed for missionaries. Each week en route to that, she’d pick up a crowd of elderly ladies who wanted to go but didn’t drive.

Kids galore.She accompanied at scores of weddings and funerals, entertained weekly at home, welcomed youth groups for their socials (right), and spent time memorizing entire books of the Bible. (That was why she kept pages of Scripture rubber-banded to her steering wheel.)

Mom was also managing the redecorating of their new home, painting every room herself. She was shopping for carpeting, drapes, appliances, and furniture with the goal of having it all in place before our November wedding.

Oh… and she was planning that wedding. With everything else going on, it had sunk to the bottom of her long list, and as it turned out, mine, too. Nate and I were on the verge of moving out of town when it finally dawned on me why my parents had wanted us to wait a year before getting married. But it was too late to worry about that now.

UnloadingNext on our agenda was to load up again, clock those 156 miles back to Champaign, unload (with law school friends, left), and prepare for a new school year.

As for the wedding? It would come together eventually…. somehow.

“Nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37)

Young Love (#85)

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August 28-31, 1969

 

During our 10 days of counseling at Camp Moyoca, Nate and I got attached to our high school campers, even the obstreperous ones, and both of us were glad we’d had the chance to spend time with them. For me it was also a treat to work alongside old buddies again, and for Nate it was a chance to meet them.

Water skiing.I also loved getting to water ski again, and both of us found it satisfying to sit alongside “our kids” at late-night campfires listening to their testimonies of new commitments to Christ.

Nate referred to these 10 days as “a spiritual experience of depth,” and I was pleased at how well he managed his cabin-full of boisterous boys. (No doubt his recent military training factored in.)

Jim.It was pure pleasure to watch him stockpile experiences at “my” camp, knowing that in years to come if I spoke of old memories there, he would understand. And one other perk was that when the last day came, a lifelong friendship with the camp director, Jim Gwinn, had begun.

Just after the camp bus pulled away carrying campers back to the city, Nate and I had to race away, too. It was his turn to stand up in a friend’s wedding, and this time the ceremony was back in the Champaign area.

Those 156 miles were becoming a regular gig for us, and we went straight from camp to the groom’s house, where Nate tried on his white tux and was brought up to speed on wedding details.

Bob and Roseann's wedding.

In our free hours, we headed back to our newly-rented apartment to paint, finishing the first coat and starting the second. The rooms were gradually morphing from turquoise to white, taking on a fresh, clean look.

Painting the apt.Back home Mom and Dad were assembling pieces of hand-me-down furniture and a small stove for us. They were also donating the old carpeting from their new home (the tenant beneath us would be appreciative), and an aunt was contributing a couch.

Mom had arranged to borrow a giant van from friends, and our apartment paint needed to be dry before they arrived. So after the weekend’s wedding festivities, Nate and I painted long into the night to get the job completed, tackling those 156 miles afterwards to make it home in time for the annual double birthday party for Dad and Tom – both born on September 1st.

Everything was coming together nicely, except for one thing. My new first graders would be walking into their classroom in just a few days, and I hadn’t decorated a single bulletin board – much less made a teaching plan for Day #1.

“Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Young Love (#84)

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August 18-28, 1969

 

Camp borchureAfter a weekend spent painting our newly rented apartment in Champaign, we cleaned our brushes and raced back to Wilmette to gear up for an adventure as counselors at Camp Moyoca, the Moody Church youth camp.

This would be another new experience for Nate, but I had counseled in other summers and had a memory-bank full of good times there. Each of us would have a cabin of high school teens, boys for him, girls for me, though we hoped we’d be able to slip away between events to have some boy-girl time of our own.

Day #1 at camp happened to be Nate’s birthday. Tradition had long dictated that anyone having a birthday while at camp got thrown into the lake fully clothed. With my summer birthday, I’d experienced that “loving” attention repeatedly through the years and knew it often grew into a combination of wild and embarrassing – not to mention the Kangaroo Court that sometimes preceded it.

I wondered how Nate would take such a brute-force baptism. He had lived a quiet, orderly life and had never experienced (or even witnessed) such a thing. So as we drove the 45 miles to the camp, I tried to warn him.

JeanetteBut I needn’t have worried. Mercifully, he was spared. I don’t know whose directive that was, but I suspect the camp cook, Jeanette. She was going to be the caterer for our wedding, and we’d already met with her several times about the menu, giving her a chance to get to know Nate a little.

Jeanette cooked at camp every summer, and if we wanted to eat, we stayed on her good side. All of us did whatever she said (a healthy mix of admiration and fear), and I was pleased that she’d taken a special shine to Nate. To this day I wonder if she hadn’t been the one to order his birthday pardon.

Thankfully my birthday had just passed, or I would have been tossed in the lake for sure. And if Nate had seen such a scuffle, he might have felt compelled to rise to my defense, assuring a dunking for him, too – all in the name of fun, of course.

The hatAs the days passed, Nate became friends with other staff members, some of whom had been my friends since early Sunday school days. It pleased me that he was getting to know them, but even more important was that these friends were getting to know him. I was proud of him for throwing himself into every activity with enthusiasm, despite so many new experiences. Throughout the 10 days I didn’t hear a single complaint. Actually it was quite the opposite.

When we were able to steal away privately here and there, Nate reflected on all he was learning in the meetings and how he hoped to apply those things to our marriage. Both of us were growing closer to the Lord and also each other, and we began to see that God Himself had been the one to arrange these very special days at camp.

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.” (Ecclesiastes 12:1)