Chapter 22 The Big Surprise

Having been brought up in the Christian faith which was considered the most important part of life, my obligation to live for God--whatever that meant--was frequently impressed on me.  Rev. Plesscher in catechism classes had often made this point.   
My parents, my mother especially, while rarely saying it in so many words, surely made it clear that this is what our lives were all about.  While I had been receiving these signals throughout my earlier life, I had not been very conscious of them.  I had ways of tuning them out, not listening, postponing serious consideration until later, or, simply, rejecting them.  The public schools I attended, while not hostile to my family's faith, did nothing to focus my attention in that direction either.  Somehow, while I would never have labeled it bad advice or irrelevant, the message, "Give your life to God," was, nevertheless, something I had not taken with great urgency.  It was religious talk for religious people; and while I didn't consider myself exactly irreligious, it just did not seem to be especially for me--not yet, at least.
            
But things were changing.  The message was gradually beginning to come through as I moved into the post high school years.  During the winter of '46-47 I began to listen more carefully to Rev. Plesscher's admonitions in catechism class.  I began to have a few disturbing questions, for example, about whether I should be shooting pool after catechism in the Kanawha Pool Hall.  I began to think about the ten commandments and consider ways I could and should try to keep them.  A radio preacher, it may have been Theodore Epp, was on the air every morning during the time I did the morning milking.  Some of his impassioned pleas to surrender one's life to Christ were beginning to get my ear.
            
Don't get me wrong.  I was not ready to make any surrender to anyone just yet.  I had been going through those adolescent years in which I had achieved a certain degree of independence.  I was 18 years old and the whole world and life was stretching before me.  Life looked, if a bit fearsome, like an exciting challenge.  I was learning to find my way through it without the direction of my parents and others, and I was, generally, not displeased with the simple course I was taking at this early stage of being on my own.
            
Now, I had nothing particular against God at this point in my life, nothing, at least, that I would dare to challenge him on.  I had been taught a lot of good about him all my life long, and a lot too which caused me to respect him greatly.  I had no doubt that he was in charge of the universe and that he held the destiny of nations and individuals, including my own, within his hands.  And I knew that he was demanding, that I couldn't pull the wool over his eyes, and that if I were to reject him, he would most assuredly consign me to everlasting condemnation.  If that is what fearing God is all about--and I do believe it includes a very healthy respect for the demands and power of God--then, it is reasonable to conclude, I had the beginning of wisdom.  In some sense, I believe I had always had that kind of respect for God from my earliest childhood days.
            
While fearing or respecting God in accord with that passage in Proverbs, may be the beginning of wisdom, it is not the fulfillment of it.  I was 18 years old, but not ready yet to take the step that would enable me to discover what true wisdom was.  As mentioned, however, I was being confronted more and more with the necessity of turning my life over to Jesus Christ; but I was resisting.  I didn't want to make such a commitment.  To do so, I would have to give up the very freedom I was learning to enjoy.  No more could I be in charge of my life.  And I would, I thought, have to become really religious, a prospect that held no appeal for me.  It would affect my associations, cramp my life-style, and cast life into a somber mood.  And yet--and this is what unsettled me the most at this stage--I knew that if I did not surrender my life to Christ, I could ultimately expect only an endless, dark eternity, completely and hopelessly forsaken by God with an excruciating torment of conscience.  Not that I expected to die soon, but with such a certain destiny looming before me, I would have to be very careful how I lived.  Accidents or disease could invade one's life at any time.  Life, at best, was a precarious venture.  And someday, sooner or later, the issue had to be faced: surrender, give your life to Christ; or die eternally.  I had a profound sense that time would keep marching on, and that the day of reckoning would surely come.

My discomfort level was rising as the struggle intensified.  Finally, on the morning of March 3, 1947, just after a huge blizzard had piled up snowdrifts like sand dunes on the Iowa countryside, the issue came to a head.  I had finished the morning milking and was feeding the cows.  The preacher on the barn radio was urging his listeners to give their hearts to Christ.  I was listening.  I was pondering it.  But, no, I couldn't do it.  It was too much for me to throw away my life for something that was not all that attractive to me.  On the other hand, eternity in hell was a terrifying thought too.  So there I was, in a no-win situation: either way I would lose.
            
I don't know whether I weighed the alternatives there that morning and came to a rational decision, or whether I finally conceded that God had me in a corner and there was no escape.  I think, the latter.  In any case, there in the aisle between the horse stalls and the milking area, I fell on my face, prostrate before God and wrestled with the decision of destiny.  To surrender, it seemed, would be leaping into the dark unknown, casting myself into the hands of a God I really suspected would enslave me.  But I had no choice.  The alternative of an eternity without him was even worse and downright terrifying.  In desperation, I guess, I took the leap.  I surrendered to the God who had me cornered.

Instantly, amazingly, the precise moment I yielded and said (in effect): "Okay, Lord, here I am," the lights of heaven went on and a most astounding, beautiful warmth and peace and sense of love, like a wave, washed over my whole being.  I sensed--almost saw--the brilliantly white-robed Jesus standing before me with arms extended.  I was totally and overwhelmingly surprised by this phenomenon.  When one plummets into a dark, unknown chasm, one hardly expects to land on a flowery, soft and lighted bed of delight.  But that is comparable to what happened with me.  I have no adequate way to describe what occurred.  In one moment, from aimless anxiety, unrest and uncertainty, I was instantly engulfed in a peace, tranquility and assurance such as I could never have imagined.  That experience was then, and remains to this day, the most dramatic, exhilarating, and thoroughly surprising one I have ever had.
           
I'm not sure how long I remained there in that prostrate position.  Not long, I think.  But when I arose I was a different person from the one who had fallen there a few moments before.  Somehow, now I could see clearly; whereas, before, I was blind.  Everything took on a new and meaningful dimension.  While I had always known this was God's world, I now could see it with the lights turned on and in color.  Even that ornery white-faced, high-strung cow that had so often enraged me by kicking my milk pail and, later, my milking machine, now became a creature of God which, I sensed, needed gentle handling.  The animals weren't just animals anymore, they were unique beings displaying the handiwork of a gracious Creator.

More important, people too would take on a new aura.  Previously, I tended to classify people as allies or rivals, as worthy of respect, or subject to indifference or scorn; all evaluations depending on how their lives impinged upon my own.  I would now see them as persons of worth in their own right because they were made in God's image.  Everything was different.  I was a new person living in a new world.  It was without question the greatest turning point of my life.  I would never be quite the same again after this great surprise.




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Chapter 19 The War Years



The War Years
"There will be wars and rumors of wars," Jesus predicted as he surveyed that expanse of time before he would return.  How true that has been and continues to be.  President Wilson in the Great War (World War I) promised that that would be "the war to end all wars," but two decades later the world would once again be engulfed in another massive conflict.
            
In 1936 Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini grabbed the weak African nation of Ethiopia, and in Spain the Fascist General Franco overthrew the democratic government of that country in a bitter civil war.  In 1937 the Japanese invaded northern China.  These events received prominent coverage in the newspapers of those years and I was aware of them, but the dangers seemed far away.  By this time also, Hitler, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, had built an impressive war machine in Germany and had moved troops into the Rhineland.  Britain and France, still reeling from the tremendous loss of life and crippling expense of the recent World War, trembled as they watched this little, dark-haired, mustached fanatic whip his countrymen into a frenzy, promising to restore Germany to pride and greatness again.  In 1938 Hitler and his Nazi party took over Austria, and then proceeded to demand the German-speaking Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.
            
The world breathed easier for a time, however, when Hitler met with British and French leaders at Munich in September of 1938 and assured them that he only wanted to restore what was rightfully a part of Germany: Austria and the German-speaking regions of Czechoslovakia.  To avoid war, France and England agreed to yield to these demands, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to England with the wonderful news that "we have achieved peace in our times."  But the next spring Hitler took all of Czechoslovakia, and the world suspected that it had a monster on its hands.
            
This suspicion was soon confirmed when in September 1939  Hitler blitzkrieged Poland, and within a month Poland had fallen.  By this time France and England, though woefully unprepared, had declared war on Germany.  The United States, still fondly nursing the illusion that we did not have to get involved in European wars, stood nervously by and watched with apprehension--watched as Hitler turned westward and successively overran Denmark, Norway, Holland and Belgium.

Meanwhile, back in Kanawha, Iowa, I was 11 years old and learning a lot about the geography of Europe.  The Des Moines Register, our daily newspaper, showed maps of what was happening every day.  I can still draw a fairly accurate map of Germany, resembling a wolf, crunching helpless Czechoslovakia between its huge jaws.  We followed events in the newspapers and heard the foreign news correspondents like Clifton Utley, H.B. Kaltenborn and Edward R. Murrow report on radio from various points in Europe.
            
In May of 1940 Hitler began his invasion of France.  Things were getting serious.  France, however, had a highly vaunted, fortified defense line called the Maginot Line, which ran diagonally accross France between Germany and Paris.  Surely it would stop the German tanks and troops and give Britain and France time to build up their forces in defense.  Hitler, however, seeing no gentlemanly reason to challenge the line, simply flew his bombers over it and skirted his troops around it through the Holland and Belgium.  Within weeks, France had fallen and Britain had suffered tremendous losses as it evacuated its troops from France in the Battle of Dunkirk.  Dark days had descended on England and on the world, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the English people, giving one of the most inspiring speeches of all time, promising to "...fight on the beaches,... fight in the fields and in the streets,... fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."  Blood, sweat and tears, he said, would be their lot.  The major concern now was:  How soon would Hitler invade England itself?
            
By this time, many Americans were beginning to realize that our country would have to get involved in some way.  At least we could help supply England with guns and planes and tanks.   And we did, first by sale, and later, in the Lend-Lease program.  American factories began gearing up to produce these materials.  In the fall of 1940 the military draft was instituted and American young men began to be inducted into the Army or to join the Navy, Marines or Air Force.  If England should fall, would Hitler be content to stop there?  Or was he intent on world domination?  It was best to be prepared.
            
There was a lull in the conduct of the war as Hitler contemplated whether he could successfully invade and conquer England.  Meanwhile, he continued to bomb London and other cities night after night.  1940 merged into 1941. I was now a seventh grader.   Franklin Roosevelt had been elected to an unprecedented third term as President, defeating the Republican Wendell Willkie and vowing that American boys would not be sent into any foreign war.  Then, in the summer of 1941, Hitler made an astounding decision.  He decided to invade Russia.  After quick and easy successes which brought his troops almost to Leningrad and Moscow, Hitler's army bogged down and was later stifled by the severe Russian winter.
            
Meanwhile, our government was negotiating with Japan to get that country out of China; and we eventually cut off all shipments of steel, oil and gasoline to Japan.  Japan proceeded to strengthen its existing alliance with Germany and Italy, and their envoys continued to carry on talks with the United States Government.

December 7, 1941 was a moderately cold, cloudy day in Iowa.  Being a Sunday, we had gone to church that morning as was our custom.  That afternoon my parents and I visited with Uncle Ben and Aunt Annie Assink and the cousins on the old farm where I was born.  I, like my cousin Alvin, was in the eighth grade, and getting a bit too sophisticated to play cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers; but Helen and Harlan were younger; so with some toy six-shooters which fired with convincing blasts from powder caps, we engaged in what would prove to be our last episode of cops and robbers.  Alvin and I, the criminals, were hiding out in a grain bin of their corn crib when their older brother Henry intruded upon the scene.  We shot him several times, but after dutifully collapsing and quickly recovering, he informed us that we were at war.  The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
    
The gray skies darkened a shade or two as we headed to the house to discover more details.  The radio was giving the unhappy description of the catastrophe which abruptly turned our world into one of gloom and apprehension.  Several important American battleships had been destroyed, many lives were lost, and most distressing to us, we had been helplessly unable to retaliate.  That night in church, Rev. Plesscher talked about it and prayed about it.  (Somewhat to my surprise, even he had listened to the radio that Sunday afternoon.)  People knew what this attack meant.  They knew that now our young men would certainly be involved in real war.  There was generally at that point, however, an unrealistic optimism. "Six weeks, maybe two months, and we would be able to bring the dirty Japs to their knees."  We were at war, but the U.S. had never lost a war, and we would make quick work of this one now that we were actually involved.
            
The following day President Roosevelt addressed Congress and called for a declaration of war on Japan, Germany and Italy.   In describing the Japanese attack on December 7 he said that the day "would live in infamy."  Contrary to popular, early expectations, however, the Japanese were not to be brought to their knees soon.  As a matter of fact, within six months Japan had conquered a good share of Southeast Asia including Guam, the Philippines, Indonesia, French Indo China (Vietnam) and a host of other islands.  Japan's position was solid, and the United States soon recognized that it would be a long war.

With the help of a history textbook to refresh my memory I could give an account of the progress of the war to its conclusion almost four years later.  I shall not do that.  The early events of the war seem especially significant to my story because they reveal how my life was so dramatically changed and affected by them.  As time passed, however, things settled down, the war moved along, and life continued in many ways almost as if there were no war.
            
We, of course, continued to monitor the progress of the campaigns and battles in the newspapers and by listening to the morning and evening news broadcasts on radio.  But our lives were most impacted by the absence of so many young men.  The United States Armed Forces were built up to include over 15 million men (and a few women).  Almost every male who could pass the physical was put into the armed forces.  Brother Harold, having had a heart murmur all his life, did not pass the physical and was classified 4-F.  Even before we officially entered the war he had gone to an aircraft school in Omaha, Nebraska to receive training to build planes.  Shortly thereafter he was employed by the Bell Aircraft Corporation in Buffalo, New York, building the P-39 fighter plane.  Harold continued working there until 1942 when he returned to Kanawha, bought a truck and became a trucker.  He married Nettie Christians on November 17 of that year.  Somewhat later, he became the manager of the Farmers Produce station in Kanawha.
            
Henry, much to his chagrin, was also first classified 4-F.  He had an enlargement on the side of his head, something he had had since he was born, but the examiners thought it to be a more serious problem.  As soon as possible, Henry headed off to the San Francisco area and worked in a shipbuilding yard.  Early in 1943 he was re-examined, passed the physical and joined the Navy.  After training on the east coast, he spent most of his time until the war ended serving as a radar operator on the battleship Alaska in the Pacific Fleet.
     
There were some farm boys who avoided the draft because they were needed on the farm.  To fortify that need, many farmers bought more land to insure that their sons could avoid serving in the military.  There was a general disapproval by the public against those who did that and the name "draft-dodger" was designated for such who valued their safety and security above the patriotic call to risk their lives in the service of their country.  Pa had given consideration to purchasing more land, but neither of his draft-age sons would have approved of such action.  As things turned out, people who avoided the draft were "winners" in more ways.  Not only were they guaranteed safety from the hazards of war, they also profited greatly from rapidly rising prices of farm products.  This prosperity left them in a good position after the war to purchase even more land and equipment to expand their agricultural operations.
           
Life in Iowa and most of the nation carried on quite routinely during the war.  No armies invaded our soil, no battles wreaked destruction of the countryside, no German or Japanese bombers ever ventured across the expansive oceans to disturb our tranquility.  The worst feature of the war, especially in the early stages, was the anxiety we all experienced about the eventual outcome of the war and, equally, of the safety of the friends and relatives in the armed forces fighting in faraway places.  One soldier from our church, Kort Delger, was killed in action, and two or three others from the town of Kanawha lost their lives as well.  Families with men in service proudly displayed in their front windows a little banner with a blue star on it.  When a gold star was shown, we knew that someone in that family had given his life in the cause of freedom.
            
There were inconveniences that we all experienced because of the war.  Since many products were hard to obtain either because supplies of them had been cut off by enemy control or because they were needed in the war effort, a system of rationing was introduced by the government.  Sugar was rationed, and to make it serve our family needs, Mom determined that each of us would be allowed one cup of sugar per week.  Honey or syrup was often used on our breakfast cereal to stretch the supply. 
            
Gasoline was drastically curtailed.  Most drivers were allotted four gallons per week, unless they could prove that their need for more was essential.  Farmers were allowed much more gasoline because they needed it for their tractors.  Tractor gas could also be used in cars and few farmers had scruples against diverting some of the tractor gas for automobile use.  Some farmers even helped out their fellow citizens with extra supplies of gasoline.  To help conserve the gasoline, auto speed limits were lowered to 35 miles per hour.  Loyal citizens helped to enforce that by giving the "V for victory" signal--3 short toots of the horn and a long toot--to those who passed them on the highway at obviously higher speeds.
            
Rubber, produced mostly in Southeast Asia, was almost impossible to obtain.  Synthetic rubber was used for most automobile tires and was of such poor quality that flat tires were frequent.  Two spare tires were not uncommon in the trunks of many cars.
            
Another material, hemp, used in the manufacture of rope, was also cut off during the war.  To substitute for the high quality Philippine hemp a related hemp product was introduced into northern Iowa in 1943.  It grew six to eight feet tall and was ready to harvest in the month of November.  Because there was no machinery to bundle it for shipment to market, high school students were let out of school for several days to bundle it and load it on to trucks to be sent to processing plants.  This was also an opportunity for me as a sophomore to make good money since farmers paid about 75 cents per hour for our efforts.  Years later I would learn that the name for this hemp plant was Cannabis or, more popularly, Marijuana. 

The course of the war gradually shifted in favor of the Allies (the good guys).  The American army had grown immensely and had become trained for action.  War materials--tanks, planes, bombs, guns--were rolling off our assembly lines in phenomenal quantities.  By June 6, 1944 we were able to launch a massive invasion of northern Europe on the French coast.  D-Day, the name given to the day of the invasion, had finally arrived.  I heard the news on the radio early that morning and remember distinctly reflecting on the turn of events as I walked to the pasture to get the cows.  The corn in the adjacent field was already five or six inches tall that sunny morning, and the future looked more promising than it had for a long time.  It would now be only a matter of time before the enemy would be defeated and the war would end.
            
And that end would come within a year.  Although there had been stiff fighting, especially at the Battle of the Bulge in December of that year, the Germans were on the run.  VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) came on May 8, 1945.  I remember that day vividly because we learned of it during a high school baseball game against Britt in which I, now a Junior, pitched a one-hitter.
            
With the war in Europe over, the Allies could now devote their undivided attention to the war against Japan, which still held out in the Pacific War theater.  Japan was already being pushed back, however.  The Philippines had been retaken, as had much of Southeast Asia.  On August 6, 1945, while I was drinking orange nectar during the afternoon break in the farm work, we heard on the radio the news of an awesomely, devastating bomb having been dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.  Three days later a similar bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.  The world knew the end had come for Japan, and that was confirmed when on August 14 Japan officially surrendered.  Henry could soon come home.
            
The long war was over.  The greatest, most massive alignment of opposing forces ever to have taken place had ended.  The world could return to sanity and pursue more noble purposes again.  At least that was the fond hope entertained by most.  Our church, and I think other churches too, gathered that evening for a service of thanksgiving and prayer.  Later the whole town assembled on main street and a bonfire was lit to celebrate the
happy occasion.

And how was my life affected by World War II?  I've mentioned some of the things in the pages above, but did it shape me in any significant way to make me a different person than what I would have been?  These are difficult questions to answer.  Who really knows how the forces bearing on one's life really affect him.  I suspect that in waiting for the long conflict to end, I may have learned something about taking the long view, knowing that goals are not achieved in a day and that big changes don't occur instantaneously.  Certainly, I learned more about the world and its peoples.  And I learned more about what the larger community means, because so much of what went on during the war affected us in community beyond the family and the church community.  But more important than how my own life was affected, were the enormous changes that would occur in the world and society as a whole.  The world was thrown together, and that, with the enormous advances in technology the war brought about, would mean the beginning of our world becoming a global village.  And this would bring a new perspective to our lives forever.

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Chapter 17 Sundays

Christian Reformed people in the days of my youth were distinguished for their observance of the Sabbath Day--actually Sunday, since it was the first day of the week that was observed, not the seventh.  Now, it is true that most American Christians had at one time given that day much more regard than they do today.  Reading the literature of the late 1800's and early 1900's will verify that.  The city of Philadelphia, as late as the 1930's, had to end Major League baseball games on Sunday by 5 o'clock in the afternoon in order, I understood, not to interfere with attendance at evening church services.

Kanawha CRC 1933 

Of course, Sunday meant going to church, and, even though that practice was not explicitly stated in the commandment of keeping the Sabbath Day holy, it was clearly understood by us that going to church was a major part of doing that.  

For us, going to church twice was an important part of that too.  To neglect the second service, we thought, indicated more of a concern about serving our own desires than in attempting to follow His will for our lives.  There were, of course, "oncers" in those days, although fewer than now, but Ma and Pa warned that the oncers would see the day when their children would attend church little or not at all.

Speaking of Sunday evening services, the practice of having them was common among most denominations in those days, the Lutherans and Roman Catholics excepted.  Even the Methodists in Kanawha had Sunday evening services, but it was said that there was not much vitality there.  My parents, Ruth and I attended one of their last such services.  There may have 15 to 20 people in the sanctuary, including us.  A short time later they discontinued the evening service.

But the Christian Reformed Church was very firm, not only on attending worship services, but on how we conducted ourselves on the rest of the day as well.  Interestingly though, the German Christian Reformed churches, of which my church in Kanawha was one, were considerably less rigid on these matters than were the Dutch churches.  I would discover that later when becoming familiar with the practices of people in Grand Rapids and Chicago.
            
Kids from our church, myself included, were given considerable freedom to play or do almost anything we could do on another day.  We could play ball in the yard, go to the creek, go swimming in the gravel pit, climb trees--almost anything.  Young people, too, were generally free to drive almost anywhere on a Sunday afternoon.  Sunday movies, however, were taboo.  Although movie attendance in the Christian Reformed church had been discouraged by a synodical decision in 1928, CR young people in my area did not let that restriction interfere much with their going to movies.  But to do so on a Sunday was considered by most a sin; and to do so during the Sunday evening service was something only a hopeless reprobate would do.

Again, playing ball and other sports on Sunday was okay; however, playing on an organized baseball team or even attending an organized game would be violating the Sabbath.  

Major League baseball, consequently, would be a forbidden vocation because they played on Sundays.  Johnny Vander Meer, who in 1938 became the first and, as yet, the only major league pitcher ever to hurl two consecutive no-hit, no-run games, was, I discovered later, a Christian Reformed boy from New Jersey.  Being a pitcher, he started out pitching only on week days. Eventually, however, he succumbed to the demands of Sunday baseball, became part of the world and left the church, at least, the Christian Reformed Church.  George Zoeterman, a 1948 graduate of Chicago Christian High School, joined the White Sox organization as a pitcher, but discovered that he could not comfortably continue in baseball without pitching on Sunday.  He, however, left baseball and remained with the church.

In the summer after my junior year in high school, some of the people of Kanawha wanted to organize a baseball team.  The boys were returning from World War II and people were eager to begin renewing community life.  To have such a town baseball team, of course, implied that many of its games would be played on Sunday.  There was, however, a problem.  The town had an ordinance which forbade the playing of organized baseball on Sunday in Kanawha.  How that ordinance was ever put on the books, I'm not sure; but it was, and now, when the promoters of Kanawha baseball swung into action, probably unaware of such a rule, they would discover that the hometown Christian Reformed Church regarded Sunday baseball a violation of proper Sabbath observance.

The team had already been organized and two or three games had already been played, when Reverend Plesscher, our pastor, mobilized for the counter attack.  An informal reminder to the town council that the No-Sunday Baseball ordinance was being violated produced no results.  Rev. Plesscher then preached a powerful sermon on proper Sabbath observance, the blessings which would result to those who observed the day, and called attention to the serious violation of the day and of the town ordinance that was occurring with the introduction of Sunday baseball.  The next week the consistory met and drew up a formal protest against Sunday baseball in Kanawha.  The protest was printed in the weekly paper, The Kanawha Reporter, citing how the Sabbath should be honored and how playing organized baseball was a violation of such principles and should be discontinued.  The protest was signed by the names of the members of the church consistory including, among others: Ed Assink, Fred Abbas, John Peters, and the president, Rev. D. H. Plesscher.

My father and others on the consistory, I'm sure, were not eager to put themselves on record as opposed to something that most people in Kanawha regarded as a wholesome and innocent way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  These were, after all, people who were sometimes friends or neighbors, and people we interacted with on a business or casual basis.

Everyone knew each other in small town America.  Nevertheless, sometimes you must stand up for the Lord and do the right thing even though you may become the object of scorn and ridicule by the people of the world.  And scorn there was, though the ridicule, as far as I know, was not openly directed toward us.

My high school coach was the first to inform me of the protest which appeared in the paper.  I was in the town cafe and The Reporter had just come out.  He along with some of the promoters of the team had apparently been discussing it at their table.  Coach Thomson, with whom I was on very good terms, came up to me and showed it to me, asking if I had seen it?  I hadn't.  He waited for a reaction as I read it.  But what could I say?  Sometimes the right simply has to be contended for and the unpopular stands must be taken.  And what could Coach say?  It was apparent to me that he would not be able to understand such a "senseless" position.  But then, what can you expect from a person of the world

Whatever opposing political moves, if any, were attempted by the proponents of Sunday baseball after that, I do not know.  In any case, the town council apparently honored the protest, because immediately a new baseball diamond was constructed just outside the town limits along the highway heading north.  The Kanawha baseball team would play its Sunday games there.

Was it during the first game played at the new location?  Or was it later?  I am not sure.  But on a Sunday afternoon, while there was a crowd down at the new diamond, several of us from the Kanawha and Wright Christian Reformed churches were in town looking for activity.  The town diamond was vacant, so soon we became involved in a scratch baseball game of our own.  Among those in the game were Paul Assink, son of a signer of the protest against Sunday baseball; Donald Abbas, son of a signer of the protest; Harry Peters, son of a signer of the protest; plus others whom we need not identify.  The inconsistency of our doing this did not impress us greatly; However, such inconsistency was not lost on those who, after the game on the other diamond had ended, drove by our diamond and saw us, protesters of Sunday baseball, playing baseball on Sunday on the town diamond, while they were being relegated to playing on a make-shift diamond out of town.  No doubt, many eyebrows were lifted, many foreheads were furrowed and many lips pursed in indignation as fuming words passed through them. But, there is a difference between organized baseball as opposed to informal games, is there not?

Like the kids, adults in our church were not under severe sabbath restrictions either.  

It would be all right for us to have a large gathering of relatives over on a Sunday afternoon as long as the Sunday evening church service was not neglected.  As a matter of fact, it was our practice every year or so to leave early on a Sunday morning and drive 35 miles to Titonka to visit the Alkes, my father's sister's family.  The Alkes had several children our age and these periodic visits were among the highlights of our growing up years.  We would go early enough in the morning to attend the Lutheran church with them and leave in time to attend our own church at night. They would do the same when their turn came to visit us, except they had no evening service to crimp their plans.  In later years, these visits would often include other families of the Assink clan so that it became a virtual family reunion.

But in the summer of 1942, my parents faced a real dilemma.  Uncle Bill and Aunt Annie  took it upon themselves to plan an official Assink family reunion to be held on a Sunday, not at one of the farms of the family members, which had been done before, but at the Clear Lake town park.  Now, that was going too far.  Not only might it be difficult to get back to do the chores and get to church on time at night; but, even more important, having it in a public park in a recreational city like Clear Lake made it a much more worldly thing to do on the Sabbath.  It did not take my parents long to debate this matter.  We would not attend.  Uncle Henry also felt that this was not proper.  Uncle Ben's family--they sometimes skipped the evening service anyway--decided to go, and so did Aunt Gertie's family, the Freerksens.  But we stood on principle: Sundays were not appropriate days for family reunions in public parks at a lake nearly 40 miles from home.

As it developed, that Sunday turned out to be a rainy, cold, miserable day.  And then, the aftermath:  Uncle Bill became very ill with a kidney infection, and within a week he was dead.  Some conjectured that he had become overly chilled at the reunion.  In any case, did this happen because God had been shown disrespect for his day?  The occurrence of these events in such emphatic fashion made that conclusion seem reasonable. 

Whatever one may conclude from an episode such as that, our CR community was not terribly rigid about enjoying Sundays.  We simply could not take that enjoyment too far.  Within the family?--okay. Out in the public?--no.  A large family get-together on a member farm?--okay.  At a public park next to a lake?--no.  Sixty or seventy people gathering as family?--okay.  Forty or fifty people as a neighborhood gathering?--no.

Abstaining from work, as may be expected, was also a major focal point of Sabbath observance, however.  Some work, of course, was necessary.  The cows had to be milked; the eggs gathered; the pigs, cows and horses, fed and watered.  Occasionally a calf would be born on Sunday requiring additional attention.  Or the cows might break into the corn field.  In such a case the fence might need some temporary fixing.  The crucial factor:  Was it really necessary?  On Sunday, field work was never necessary.  Castrating pigs, putting in a new fence, repairing machinery or buildings, likewise, were blanketed by a prohibition.

Occasionally some fine distinctions might be called for.  One such case occurred when, on a late October Sunday morning, we woke up to a surprise snow storm, and we had some of our growing heifers grazing on Doc Stewart's fenced-in pasture land along the Boone River.  My dad faced the question of whether this was one of those situations where the biblical ox had fallen into the pit.  Even though rescuing the heifers would require hiring a trucker, making him work on Sunday, paying him for his services, as well as missing church, Pa felt this fell within the boundaries of necessary work and was, therefore, justifiable.
But what about those Sundays when there was hay in the field ready to be brought in and the threat of almost certain rain to come later in the afternoon?  Or when the season had been too wet to cultivate the corn, and weeds were beginning to take over; but along came a Sunday in which the ground had dried just enough between rains to get out there and cultivate?  Or when the oats were ripe in the field and stormy weather was predicted for Sunday evening?  Could we go out there and cut as much as possible before the winds and rain would flatten it and destroy a good portion of the crop?

In all my years on the farm, never did we go out to do field work on Sunday even though situations similar to the above occurred from time to time.  

Somehow, we had to have faith, trust that the God who could quiet the storm on the Sea of Galilee for the disciples, could also prevent one here.  And the God who could create a dry path for the Israelites to cross the Red Sea could also dry up the fields so the corn could be cultivated during the week.  No, Sunday was the Lord's day.  We would keep it holy and let him provide for our needs on the six days in which we would labor and do all our work.

In later years, as I matured and became a loyal member of the CRC community, I would adopt the common CRC view of the Sabbath.  That view, though largely commendable, had its weaknesses.  It focused too much, I believe, on the Old Testament view of refraining from doing various things.  It also had the tendency, though unintentionally, of making church-going an end in itself.  The New Testament emphasizes more the celebration of God's completed work on that day, the day in which our salvation was completed in the finished work of Jesus in the resurrection on the first day of the week.  It was a day in which we could celebrate rest, not primarily the rest from physical activity, but from attempting to gain our salvation from our own works, and rely instead on what Christ had done for us.  A day would come, many years later, when I would understand Sunday in a less legalistic, more positive way, a way more in accord, I believe, with what the New Testament teaches.  But the Sabbath I grew up with had, in spite of some inconsistencies, a disciplining and positive influence on our lives.  It taught us to take God's will, as we understood it, seriously.  It taught us that seeking God was best pursued in faithful attendance at worship with his people.  It taught us that this was, after all, God's world, and, if we took his commandments seriously, he would somehow provide, in spite of losses that might result from our efforts to keep them.  For these lessons I shall always be grateful.


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Chapter 16 Town

Town was Kanawha, Iowa, a little community of homes, businesses, churches and approximately 700 people placed in an area occupying less than a square mile.  Town was one mile east and three miles north of us, except for when I was very small; then it was two miles east and three miles south.

Town was never "the town" or "a town"; it was Town, which meant, it was Kanawha, a town in north central Iowa.  When we went there we didn't go to "a town" or the "town nearby."  We went to Town.  Before Pa would light his cigar, get in the car and drive off he would usually let us know that he was going to Town; and that meant to Kanawha.  If, for some reason he had to go to the county courthouse, he would not go to Town; he would go to Clarion.  Clarion may have been a town, but it definitely was not Town.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rptrs/8513927095/in/album-72157627953866355/
   
Occasionally, maybe twice a year, we would go to a big city, like Mason City or Fort Dodge.  Once we even went to Des Moines for the State Fair.  But normally we went to Town for most of the things we needed such as groceries, hardware items, gas, auto repairs, and livestock feed.  Minor items of clothing would also be bought in Town, but something as important as a new suit would usually be reserved for a rainy day trip to Mason City approximately 50 miles away.  Our livestock and grain sales would also be transacted with someone in Town.  When we got a new tractor or a new car, even those were, in my time, purchased through a local implement or car dealer in Town.  For cars, we had the choice of a Ford or Chevy; and for tractors, it was either the red Farmall or the green John Deere.  And a significant rivalry persisted, especially among kids, over the respective merits of those brands.  We were always Ford people and Farmall people.  But, wherever our loyalties, both were sold in Town.
            
There were also the Town kids and the country kids.  I was told that the animosity was once considerable between those two groups, and gang fights were common when the country kids came to Town.  In my era, however, when practically all the country kids went on to high school in Town and automobiles and roads had improved to the point where the farm kids came into Town rather frequently, the hostility between these two segments of society had lessened considerably.  Only occasionally were we ever referred to as "hayseeds" or "country hicks," but a previous generation knew those expressions well.  But the continuing prestige of Town over country was indisputable.  Our family, for example, attended church in Town, while the Roskamps, the Verbruggees, the Davids and all the other Wright Church (Wright County Christian Reformed Church) people went to the country church.  We, of course, were several rungs in prestige above those who were not so privileged as to attend church in Town.

The city has always been a lure to rural youth, and similarly, on a lesser scale, Town always held its fascination for me as well.  Very early in my life, I looked forward to going along with Pa and Ma as they took a trip into Town.  In my earlier years prior to World War II, Kanawha had a bustling activity in commerce.  The two and one half block-long business section with side streets had at least three grocery stores; two hardware stores; a lumber yard; a drug store (with a soda fountain and comic books); two or three cafe`s (restaurant was a foreign word to us); a harness shop, which also served as a shoe store and a shoe repair place; a creamery where farmers sold their milk for the production of cream and butter; two poultry and egg stations; a feed mill; two grain storage elevators; a livestock sales pavilion where cattle, pigs and horses were auctioned off (and boxing or wrestling matches were sometimes held on winter evenings); two farm machinery (implement) shops;  four gas stations; two automobile agencies with auto repair service; a dry goods and clothing store; two taverns, one of which also had a pool hall and was referred to by Rev. Plesscher on occasion as "a den of iniquity;" a movie theater; a telephone switching center; a bank; and a couple of insurance agencies.  Added to all these, were two doctors and a dentist to provide health assistance, three churches to uplift the spiritual life, and a grade school and high school to educate the oncoming generation, a softball/baseball diamond (with lights for night softball games) where many a classic athletic struggle was fought.  Town, as you can see, was a beehive of activity, for it served not only its own residents, many of whom owned or operated the businesses, but the outlying community of farm families as well.
            
The stores and businesses were open, not only during the day, but on Wednesday evenings during the summer months to serve the farmers who often could not get in during daylight hours.  Wednesday nights featured band concerts (traditional bands with horns) at the bandstand in the park.
            
Saturday night, however, was the big night. Farmers and townspeople alike from all over the area would come into Town and do the main part of their weekly shopping.  For some of the men it would be the night to hit the tavern or the pool hall.  Others would enjoy a game of horseshoe behind the Standard service station.  For kids, it was a night of adventure, a chance to gather with all your friends and acquaintances in the park, and a chance to spend your quarter allowance on ice cream sodas or hamburgers.  It was always too early when Pa or Ma would chase us down and say it was time to go home.  And what a painful hardship it was when Harold or Henry required the family car and my parents would say they weren't going to Town on a particular Saturday night.  There I would sit, consoled only slightly by my fellow suffering sister Ruth, as the summer darkness descended on the lonely farm scene.  What agony to know that just a few short miles away in Town all kinds of fun was undoubtedly occurring under the bright lights as well as in the murky shadows, fun that I would not be able to experience that particular night. 
            
High school-age and older kids also considered Saturday night the highlight of their week.  Only they usually did not stay in Town, but left for even more exotic places like Britt, Clarion, Garner or Belmond where the girls were less well-known and, consequently, prettier and more exciting.  Some of the wilder kids would even hike off to Clear Lake's Surf Ballroom for a night of dancing and some illicit drinking.   At that time, most of the folk in the Christian Reformed Church (there were some exceptions) considered the Surf (where Buddy Holly had his last performance before dying in a plane crash in Clear Lake) to be too far off limits.  It might be okay to have a couple of bottles of beer or share a bottle of wine, but go to a dance hall where people indulged riotously in wild merriment?  That would be akin to attending the movies during the Sunday evening church service.

By the time I was in my last year of high school, the war was over and things were changing rapidly in rural America.  Better roads were being built: almost all the main roads connecting the towns were paved.  Automobiles were rapidly improving too.  All of this meant people could do more of their shopping in the bigger cities.  Besides that, farmers were experiencing unheard of prosperity.  Farm machinery was becoming bigger and more productive.  These factors led to larger farms, fewer farmers and smaller farm families.  The little towns like Kanawha began to serve fewer and fewer people.  One business after another began to fold, leaving vacant stores and eventually empty spots on main street.  Television began to come in and people, rather than coming in for the Saturday night movie or the social experience of meeting their friends and neighbors on main street, were apt to spend the night at home.  If they wanted to do something exciting, they would head for the bigger cities.
            
This process has slowly but unceasingly continued, and today, some 50 or 60 years after its heyday, main street in Town, though still there and recognizable, has only a sprinkling of the businesses it once did.  The most prominent center of activity today is the Rest Home for the elderly who are no longer able to care for themselves.  Progress with its consuming ferocity has sounded, if not the death knell, at least an ominous note for Kanawha, as it has for all of small town America.  And Town, now relegated largely to golden memories and pictures in the old scrap book, will never again have the meaning it once did.


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