Childhood

I Am Not Alone Anymore

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was always there. A loss, not even known for what it was. An emptiness that fell upon every thing that I experienced through my life. Empty of love and lost it when I was a child. I weep now when I realize what I felt that time when the emptiness took hold of me. I always thought it was abandonment. A memory that diffused relationship with everyone. I tried to cope with that memory, not even aware I was doing that. Clever words spoken and written. There were many times when that empty feeling would diminish and it was always the same thing. Smiles and words that promise embracing mutual friendship. I needed to forgive the people that it seemed I was abandoned by. My family did not know me nor did I know them. Relatives that should have known those things too. Inherited behavior, perhaps cultural.

“I believe that God’s purpose in giving us memory is to enable us to go back in time so if we didn’t play those roles right the first time round, we can still have another go at it now…finish with the past in the sense of removing it’s power to hurt us and other people” Frederic Beuchner

Music was soothing then and a smile inside at a moments of beauty got me hooked into that beauty. Songs and orchestral creations still work well. I remember some of those songs. that I played. the phrases of praise momentarily fill the emptiness. ”I loved what you did” or sometimes just a few notes spoken of. It always makes the emptiness fade. I still crave approval and contact. Applause was nice but fleeting, Playing Ashokan Farewell on the violin perfectly, without an accompanist on guitar for example. Fulfilling for a moment. List, Chopin and Beethoven are soothing time and again. A perfect den of pleasure, even driving. Alone.

It was a coldness in my very core that drove me to play well, and now, to write well. A romantic spirit. Those moments are when the emptiness would back off. Approval and love of just me. I did not know why those times of contact and praise satisfy. It seems selfish to enjoy a secret pleasure in being alone.

Isn’t it like that for everyone? Seeking smiles and laughter from people and amazingly, an interest in us that might be a friend. There are few friends that I can contact anytime for their care and seeing me and they myself for what we are. An empty man, perhaps like they are. Leaning on one another like an unmovable roof truss. Solid wood. With knot holes and defects but Oak or Gopher wood. A trust able to withstand bad storms.

Many of them are Gone now from the inevitable event we all must experience. They died. How inconvenient of them to do so. I still love them dearly and I know they still do. One close friend appeared to me just as he was dying. He was 2000 miles away, so it figures friendship and love is eternal. I lean on Jesus often, especially when I am desperate.

Most of those friends were the kind we all need. A phone call or even showing up without calling, just showing up. Not even a hint of inconvenience from the open door. “You were in the neighborhood? That’s over a hundred mile trip! Tell me what’s going on, I feel that you need encouragement and a good hug.

The day of the wall phone is gone. Now we have Facebook and posts telling us what’s right with us. All neat and clean without any tears or embraces of understanding. Isaac Asimov’s robots now have cell phones and good internet. We edit conversations akin to open book exams.

The two years of isolation and fear reduced our civilization to rubble. The covid theatre that had bodies piling up that where not there when the curtain was lifted. No smiles seen from anyone. The old game of keep away. A scowl if you were in public without ‘the mask’ The deadly bat flu made it fearful to come near and we were so much poorer, even crippled by it. We all lost and the stats and graphs and zoom meetings were just party favors for the worthless messages of untimely death. It’s always untimely for everyone. We always think we will live forever. That is true but not in the limited way we think of it.

There was enough money generated by the scamdemic to weigh it by the semi trailer load. Easier to count that way There was no one accountable anyway, Not yet.

I an not alone in my quest now. The world needs good friends and we must learn how to do it. Smiles. Waving from the mailbox at the lake people with cabins just over our hill that are seen in season. I have noticed that a slight smile and a nod are beginning to make a difference. Smiles and laughter ring out as bells from the steeple. Come. Gather together and be thankful for blessings and deliverance from evil. Look upon the world as a small child’s smile at an adoring adult. It opens our hearts as we look upon our world. Not through rose colored glasses but with clear vision. We take off the disguise of indifference and reveal ourselves and see.

This is who we were created to be. I’m not afraid of you. It’s civilization 101. I have been hiding for most of my life and I have began to offer myself to my best friend who is nearby. Close as my heart beats in synchrony with His. Asleep while I am dreaming, He tells me stories of romance and adventure.

The creator of us all, different and beautiful. Loved and embraced as we listen and the world becomes pleasant and we enter into the joy of the Lord. Well done good and faithful. Well done.

It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Photo of my bench on the south hill (the cathedral) built by Soren

It’s so easy when you’re an Adult (1)

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Everyone, I mean everyone had to learn the basics when we were children. It’s obvious even to me. 81 trips around the sun now. Riding a bicycle for example. Did anyone climb on to a 10 speed racing bike and right away began strongly climbing hills with it? Of course not. So how did we get to that point of an understanding and skill to pull it off (starting with a smaller bike with training wheels of course) There had to be a teacher, an adult with knowledge and strength coaching, encouraging and helping us do so.

Another example: Writing and understanding language that is written. No one, not even Einstein, could do so right out of the gate of childhood. First huge flash cards perhaps, gentle words and skill as a teacher-parent to help. The the writing part (Gators handwriting could use some improvement) but as sloppy and ill formed the letters are, imitating the adults writing words to teach. Maybe even holding the child’s hand to help. It works, it’s the way things are done for every child ever born, even you.

As adults, we still need this training. Some call it school or primary, secondary, college an upward learning which still needs an adult with skill and love to ‘hold our hand’ to continue learning. As an example: I play stringed instruments, my son plays a percussion instrument. A side note; the piano is considered a percussion instrument! How did I and they learn how to do this? Another Adult who knows these things.

In my case, even bowing the violin while fingering the notes. Such off key and bumbled sounds caused myself to wince but so did my learning bicycle riding. At least I did not fall off the violin. ‘So easy when you know how’, is said. These are simple thoughts that I am just reminding you of reality, perhaps so obvious, we do not even have it cross our minds. Even potty training. Teaching is a skill not all of us have but potty training is a skill that all parents realize they must do. It’s one of the first classes along with eating spinach.

When we are all grown up adults (except some adults who never grow up), there is a class which I will call finding purpose and the reason we are alive to have one. It’s the big question which, amazingly is put on our ‘back book shelves’ until the inevitable urge to press in and get answers comes.

Many people do not want a complex answer, or one that looks to an older adult that has some answers. Often we ignore them as foolish and misled in their ‘professed wisdom along with other adults. Or their class on a ‘Higher Power’ which is a very beginning of purpose behind door 101. In the beginning class.

There even is a book which starts with those very words! Here is the the name of that book which many dismiss as ludicrous. The Bible. As I have stated in a previous column, It is a book that is written by and for adults and if you don’t want to read it, please don’t dismiss or talk trash about it. Read and understand it’s answer. The answer could be 42 1. That is the number of generations from Adam to Jesus.

There are also many other books which address the reason we are here and what to do about it and I have read many of them. A lot of them say we are here because of a random event that occurred long ago and we are also a result of randomness. These are not books made by and for adults to read. They are a child’s stories that are fun to read. Like most really intriguing fiction that engages our imagination. Many of them tell us there is no purpose to life except to enjoy it and die wealthy. How comforting and absurd.

The Bible tells us the God of all, created us just to give us the choice of loving Him or not. Love cannot exist without us choosing to love. We question the Bible, some dismiss it, some read and understand it. Akin to a Parent that shows us why we are here, and how we got here. God is that Parent and we are His children. At first reading it can be challenging. That’s the best part! You will read it over again. You can start anywhere in it. This book tells us the real meaning of life and why we are living. An old book, written by many authors, and they all have the same subject and the same Hero. It’s pretty good. (To be continued ) Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

1. deep thought computer from Douglas Adams hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

Discarded

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I was in my twenties when I found an apartment that fitted my mood. Recently discharged from the military and I was going to art school! The apartment fit the inherited car from his Grandfather, an old, square shaped Buick sedan. It wasn’t like my first car, the British Racing Green MGA with the real knock-off spoke wheels and Pirelli Cinturados and a Derrington wood rim steering wheel. No, It was the car of my discarded Grandfather, now passed down to me. Discarded because the once strong fireman was not capable of driving or putting out fires anymore. It felt good to me to get that old Buick.

Grandpa had killed my cat when I was young, because it had to be as Grandpa could not have my cat in his home when Mom and her new husband went on their honeymoon to Sweden. I had no say as I was in grade school and felt discarded, set aside and not worthy of dialogue or even gentleness. Mom and her immigrant husband never went on that honeymoon either. One of those memories of the life of a person now dead but living within me. a.

It felt sort of similar too that my family sold my precious MGA when the draft came in with a whirlwind of death harvest for Vietnam. I signed up first before I could have gone west to the jungles. I went east to the Mediterranean sea instead.

So I sold Grandpas Buick right away, traded it for an Austin Healy Sprite. It felt good to be in a roadster again. Made up a bit for the Green MGA and the cat.

My apartment was a dump. Second floor above a Sherman Williams paint store on the wrong side of the tracks. Corner store, separate entrance. I had a neighbor who was down and out and bummed smokes from me. When I would ask him how things were going, the neighbor always said: “just take me to the dump” That memory reminds me of Marvin the paranoid android in Hitchhikers guide. “I’m not getting you down am I?”

It seems that the latest attitude we all have. “It’s at the end of it’s service life” or “that old thing? Too expensive to fix, toss it” “ You’re what! Pregnant! Git rid of it, You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!” and our favorite: “Heck, he’s over 80. Forget that cornea transplant. I mean really, how many years does he have left anyway?” “Put her in a home, she won’t notice anyway” And so forth. As side note, as I edit this post I just had eye surgery for cataracts and I am 81. Love it! I can drive without glasses now.

Feeling useless because the popular philosophy now is Existential in nature. One man in particular, a philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, went insane in the most beautiful country in the world, Switzerland. He came to the point of knowing the tension and despair for the loss of meaning in his life because of the loss of a personal God. His words are profound: “ But all pleasure seeks eternity-a deep and profound eternity”. Groucho Marks said: ” I want to live forever and I’ll die trying it” Truth from a great comedian.

Our country has found itself discarding our God of Creation perhaps because He is inconvenient and is sort of a kill joy because of all those rules he has. “I can’t follow all those rules in the Bible!” Of course we can’t, that’s the point of the rules. We need Him.

So we discard what we feel and know is not worthwhile to us. An old car, out of date food and personal relationships that are used up and don’t make us feel the way we want to. Or the way we feel we are entitled to perhaps. We have so much ‘stuff ‘ that it gets in our way when we don’t like it or need it. Broken things, old things past their expiration dates. Things that we don’t even remember acquiring. And so it goes on and on until it becomes easier to discard than repair. “That car, it was getting old and anyway, I was tired of driving it” How much different is it when it comes to this? “He was getting on my nerves. All this talk about going to a church marriage counselor! It was his fault, so I divorced him”

It seems prudent to us to just put it in a blue plastic container and park it down by the end of the driveway every Tuesday. ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water! Throw out the tub too!’ I can do what I want, that’s what the world says. Another philosopher, De Sade put it well: “If there is no standard, no real moral base, then that old woman walking down the road can either be helped or run over. No difference if there are no moral standards” Those standards have been firmly set by an eternal infinite loving God who knows us and desires us to love him with the same passion he loves us.

So, it’s our choices, the small ones that make a great impact on everyone. Should I discard this friend? This inconvenient baby? This old fashioned religious teaching? This God who never did anything I asked Him to do?

Always, always our choice to build, repair, embrace and seek truth in the eyes of the Man who is more alive than any man who ever lived. Jesus, the master repairman of old and stressed lives. It’s pretty good.

Norm Peterson / Jack Gator For continuation of this story line see ‘Motorcycle Pilgrimage 1-5

a. Mark Batterson “please, thanks and sorry”

Hey Preacher Man

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Right out of the gate we start with a startling quote: “It is becoming increasingly obvious that those who avoid the painful encounter with the unseen are doomed to live a supercilious, boring, and superficial life…Pastors who see this feel more like circus directors than leaders to a new life”.

In other words perhaps, a lot of people that attend meetings about spiritual matters about God (out there or up there) instead of God within us, become part and parcel of that superficial life. As I have written before, the casual and totally insipid greeting of “how are you doing” countered with “better than I deserve!” is also boring and superficial. ‘You have no idea of what you deserve” is my immediate thought. Either that greeting is met with confusion or a laugh. I try with “I recognize your voice and your face but not your name.

The name section of my mind was wiped out by the seizures I had years ago and I casually refer to that issue as my rolodex got deleted. ” I’m Larry” is followed by a little laugh and glance elsewhere in the lobby and the encounter can get better or can end right there.

Close encounters of the non kind. (another column observing most of us are trapped in our own little existential world ) It’s easier not to go there. It’s easier to look for that Lazy Boy chair out in the sanctuary and watch the Bible on the cell phone (lighter in many ways and easier to carry) Nothing gets in or out is the lock down. It usually begins and ends with our mind focused on what to say as someone is speaking. I do not listen well, at least I know that.

I so want to get to know people. I like their face and I can see curiosity and perhaps an open depth that is obedient to more. It is reassuring in some way, reassuring that we odd ones do not get past that door. So close! Maybe this time I will find a soul that is curiously seeking. Eager to explore. To hear someone else besides myself. If asked, I will speak of these things and reveal my self. The many self’s that made me who I am this day.

The baby dandled on my mother’s lap, the reclusive and secret sensualist youngster. A reluctant military man. A young drug addict and a seeker of pleasure from women. A hardened and extremely powerful railroad track worker. These are the bodies buried in the family plot but are still within me. I do not live in those bodies any more and can briefly remember some of those things. This is intimacy within myself and can be shared with trust with another. We all have those burial plots.

The invitation to look closer and understand me as I will see who you are in return. Who are you and why are you? It’s a basic question to ask of the One that created us and if I listen quietly, I can hear an answer, in dreams, thoughts and once in a very great while, an audible kiss of the romantic one who created me.

We are told to rise for the intro of the excellent music production and I dutifully get up and instead of singing, open my Bible and read in a Sotto voce voice. Usually, the scripture I randomly pick is in harmony with what is being sung. I do like to sing but after many years of choir and performing, I sing harmony that pleases me. It throws people off nearby. Same phenomenon singing happy birthday. I like the alto/bass parts. It’s hard to sing melody for most, let alone try that with someone next to you going an octave below with a third or fifth.

Eventually, the sermon is presented to the room. No one rises. It is much easier to follow along with Bible in hand and for some, much easier to journal. The pastor/minister/priest gives a dissertation on the scripture at hand, in a few cases with interpretation in original languages. Greek, Hebrew and Latin. I appreciate that, illumination and thought provoking for certain. Exegesis of The Word and the scholarship of seminary shows forth. Brilliant really. It paints pictures in my mind but still does not engender an intimate relationship. That is the next step for me. Asking about life and complex emotions and fears.

If I could read an excellent book about my wife or her reading one about me, Intimacy is not brought forth. Love letters are are in the Bible and that’s what I like. Talking to the one you love and hearing back. An intimate relationship. Everyone loves to get a real letter. Hand written ones especially.

Quite a few times I have heard what I needed to hear. Passion, exhortation to go deep, deeper than we think we can go. Dive into our heart and meet Jesus there. Listen to Him, allow Him to speak and guide us. The ministering gives us the opportunity to move in the waters of life. How deep under the water with Jesus do we want to go? Let that sink in. The minister is not a social organizer, he wants us to awaken to life itself. It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

With great thanks to Frederick Buechner, Mark Batterson and Henri Nowen

Unrepeatable Beauty

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There it was, so fleeting perhaps and gone quickly. So many moments in our lives that stun us that we cannot reproduce. The fragrance of a smile in the midst of a ferocious storm or a measure of music that was perfect, even in a recording cannot reproduce the moment you heard it. A memory of beauty is not the moment it was seen or heard or even smelled. A farmer working his field with the music of his machines. A hummingbird, dancing in the lilac bush just outside the window that I opened. The sound of It’s wings, the sight of the bird going back and forth, dancing for his mate just inches before him. Exciting, unexpected and so intimate that I had to sit on our bed and thank my creator for that gift.

The beauty of paintings that come close is a slight opening to the painters grasp of a face. The Mona Lisa of Leonardo described by Vesardi :”There was a smile so pleasing that it was more divine than human” As I meandered in the halls of the Vatican almost sixty years ago, I was silent and amazed at the masterful paintings, the priceless paintings that came close. They made me long for the painters mind and visions that he tried to capture. Beauty close but not all of it. The smell of the oils, the touch of the brush on canvas and the gift to see what conveys some of the experience.

Later in my life there are moment’s still strong in my memory of desert sunsets. The sound and motion of lying in my bunk at sea, rocked to sleep with the rush of the warm bunker oil beneath the deck. Describing it can invoke memory but it is not being there. Beauty and comfort in a war.

The sound of laughter and an overwhelming partnership between a couple next to me. We were playing and singing in upstate New York, Cafe Leena near Saratoga . I was with Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson on my left. The song was obscure but the music swirled about them. Judy’s laugh and Bill’s smile created beauty for eternity.

A small storefront in Northwest Wisconsin that my family had transformed into a place of musical worship was beautiful. To the family, remembering years afterward of those moments of unity indescribable. We all played and sang together in the evenings. The small, hand painted sign over the sidewalk, hanging from the awning is gone. (Recently, that prayer room has been turned into a tattoo parlor.)

When we were there, the Pioneer bar that gave free internet to us through the brick walls. It burned badly years after we left and that bar looked like it got the wrong end of a 105 mm. Next to the burned bar building was a closed bakery storefront. No small tables with good breakfasts and glass cases displaying the sugary delights. All memories that cannot be captured with photos, smells or conversation. No more pedestrians walking out with with white bags of donuts. Those memories are stored away within and are precious.

As I edit this, the bar is being rebuilt, with the bakery part of it. A common plaza shared by them offers me a vision of sitting there with a crafted beer and a donut, enjoying the new view and ‘sus’ the ambiance of a rebirth. Worship music on the jukebox perhaps? God does interesting things.

The sighing of the wind through a tree top, the sudden smell of flowers as my son rides by on his opposed transverse 4 cylinder Honda. The sound of the power coupled with that wind. Where does it come from and where does it go? That is an old question asked by Jesus to Nicodemus. No isobars and satellite images that guess at where the breath of God comes and goes. Nicodemus could not answer that question either. Can you? As the song goes, “This is the air I breathe”

A combined beauty of things seen, felt and smelled that cannot be captured to enjoy again. Fleeting and a glimpse of eternity. Our memories are reminders but not the real moments, of stunning beauty

My navy best friend Chuck told me about it in five words. “It’s better than you said!” He said those words appearing to me just as he died several thousand miles away. Another memory, strong, stunning and indescribable. I do wonder what I said when I visited him. We grasp the wind and paint with our camera’s lens, beauty heard and seen.

“At the family burial plot, all the people I have ever known are buried there—the bouncing boy, my mothers pride, the pimply boy and secret sensualist; the reluctant military man; the beholder at dawn through the hospital glass of my first born child. All these selves I was I am no longer, not even the bodies they wore are my body any longer, and although when I try, I can remember scraps and pieces about them, I can no longer remember what it felt like to live inside their skin. Yet they live inside my skin to this day, they are buried in me somewhere, ghosts that certain songs, tastes, smells, sights, tricks of weather can raise, and although I am not the same as they, I am not different either because their having been then is responsible for my being now.” Frederic Buechner: ‘The Alphabet of Grace‘

It’s pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

Thoughts on the Experience of Worship

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

We have all seen the signs at church’s on our drives. Worship at 10. What is that really? How can a church service be also called worship? It would that worship is the most important thing to be conveyed to people driving by, looking for a convenient time to pop in. We know there is teaching or a sermon of some kind. Is that worship? Or is worship singing, music of some kind! Pianos or an organ played by the professional keyboardists?

Memories of a pastor up on the stage, waving his arms, conducting the off key choir of my sister and myself. There, on the solid-tombstone-like sign out by the road, is an announcement of Sunday school. The memories of stiff, starchy shirts and one-day a week shiny black shoes and a suit coat also worn once a week.

Children’s thoughts of school on one of only two days off from ‘regular school’ Incomprehensible words and recitation of forgotten things we were supposed to study quickly on Saturday evening so we looked and sounded perfect. The old flannel graph with cloth cutouts of sheep, shepherds, and Goliath. I did not enjoy Sundays when I was very young.

It was Usually hot in summer and winter and in a basement room with other kids, rolling their eyes at the teacher when she wasn’t looking. The bright side was dinner out at Hart’s with the baked chicken that my Grandpa liked too! The chicken was worth the trip. My only excuse these days for not having a grip on what was being poured into me was the rule we had to be in Sunday school until we were 21. Then we were welcomed into the main church building on the other side of the parking lot.

Now I see what I had not seen in my childhood. Beauty and sermons that take your breath away with the truth of them. The music has the same words. Now with Electric guitars., drums and sound systems that actually work. There is good coffee in the lobby and our friends are there too. There is an eagerness to be with people to experience the Lord and His words. Love letters, scripture. I sing the notes I hear, always have heard. Sometimes I sing Harmonies which can puzzle nearby worshipers. I can tell and so I get back onto the main octave and notes. It’s fun for me to sing loud because the music is loud too.

Not long ago I was joined to a Christ centered music team that sang love songs to the Lord. We traveled a lot and sang at many houses of prayer in Minnesota and Wisconsin. We even had the grace given to sing at Times Square Church in New York City. There was no one else in there but the janitor who let us in. I like to impress people when I mention that event till it comes down to the empty church bit. None of them are empty though are they?

Photo by Hudson McDonald on Pexels.com

That music starts a life of its own and a path opens up. And so goes the romance of all loves. The love that lasts. The sound of the best sunset you can ever remember. A realization that nothing else even comes near.

How it feels to touch the heart of eternity. Waiting with hushed voices at times, glancing side to side to see that Man that is there. The Man with fire in His eyes. Musicians and scholars seeing for the first time the bridegroom. The singers sing and the scholars dig into old languages, seeking the reason for this romance. The focus. The looking glass of a telescope fixed on light that is impossibly old.

On our side of eternity it seems like the flame on a guttering candle. No one can see what you can see, no one can sing what you can sing. There is no one like Him so open up your eyes and see. Getting to the place where our souls can rest while the fires are banked and steam is rising. A sharp intake of breath. Astonishment and once again time starts anew. The worship, akin to David’s worship in the wilderness or the 40 years of Israel in the desert.

Quite a few times at the end of a session of several hours there is hushed singing with no instruments. The team can hear others from the room also softly singing. They finally stop and there is a feeling that comes to that you can’t lie down and you can’t stand. Absolute silence in the room that is radiating Jesus’s presence. Stunning joy with some tears. People are baptized with John’s water and the Word must be baptized with fire to go into our hearts. A blazing bush drew Moses and a blazing church will draw the world. Music and the truth of scripture are the kindling and you are the fuel that responds to the flames of love coming forth.

“Every poet and musician and artist, except for Grace, is drawn away from the love of the thing he tells, to the love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.” a.

a. C.S Lewis the great divorce

It’s pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

An Old Fashioned Cell Phone That needs no Contact Numbers

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was over a half century ago that I began contacting strangers and having meaningful conversations with them. It was safe as I was doing it with my ‘Ham’ radio with both Morse code and vocal techniques. It began in early Junior high when electronics took a hold of me and as a very shy and reclusive child I was attracted to actually talking to someone that was interesting and listened to me.

I managed to randomly speak with foreign people from half way around the planet at rare times and all over our country if I planned the time, position of the frequencies that would ‘bounce’ off of the upper atmosphere. Usually from 20 to 10 meter wavelengths. Sun spots were an annoyance and disrupted the ‘skip’ from the heavy side layer. Radio signals would skip in a wave form all around the place when the situations were right. I remember the night when a radio operator in Russia answered my query for a ‘chat’ The signal was a repeated two letters “CQ” Seek you. Asking for someone far away you added the suffix DX which means distance in radio lingo. Lots of those acronyms still linger. 73’s means good bye and 88’s means love and kisses. QSO means conversation. Cops still use some of these.

I became a fulfilled recluse in my bedroom and became bolder at speaking to total strangers.

Now, things with radio seem very old fashioned. The visions of families glued to their RCA console radios, listening intently to sports activities from Olympic competitions across the world. This has recently been illustrated in the movie ‘Boys in the Boat’

It was exciting and there were no distractions of costuming, personality announcers on the video streams and of course, advertising ‘breaks’ Television has reduced excitement of real time news with entertainment and advertising splash. Not to mention some of the obscene links on the webstream news links. Very distracting on not in real time either. Breaking news of scandal real or invented. Who knows?

You can find those old wood console radios in second hand stores. Sometimes the filaments will glow from the tubes on the chassis in the back filled with primitive electronics when you plug them in. Big capacitors and transformers. Older than the stuff on Apollo 1. If you can rig up a decent ‘long wire’ antenna, you will actually get reception! Those radios were the center piece in living rooms across the country and now, as antiques, they still are. Especially if they still work. The speaker(s) were pretty big (JBL 15”) and the sound is pretty decent too. Usually only AM radio is available. FM (frequency modulation) and SSB (single sideband) came later. Ask me to explain those terms if you want. Electronic geeks like hams, love to talk about just anything about their hobby. Most of it indecipherable by everyone else.

This training in talking to absolute strangers and has stayed with me and makes it natural for me to talk with check out clerks, people at shoe stores or just someone that smiles from the easy stroll we both are taking down the small town street. At church, the common reasons were are asking them if they or I can pray together is usually pleasantly surprising. It is a position I now hold in a very large church (2000 + attenders and staff). I arrive early so that it is easy to meet and greet staff and volunteers getting ready for the day. I am right where I have been led to be since I was 12 years old. What a coincidence or was it a plan all along? Who designs those plans is a good question too. Ask me sometime and we will have a good QSO.

It’s been pretty good. Norm Peterson K0JMV /Jack Gator

picture of ham radio shack courtesy of KB1SF

Stiff Eaton Collars and high school songs

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Photo of a wood waste basket I made in shop class in 1960

This late spring morning as I was making our bed, I began humming my high school rally song. “Fight for dear old Henry High” I called an old classmate and had a great conversation. We went deep which was a pleasure. The school has now been renamed and the involved people wanted to name it after Prince the rock star. It didn’t happen due to my old friend who intervened.

The memories meanwhile, flooded in and Ken and I talked a long while with my cell phone on the kitchen table, volume up high with the mic turned over the table edge. An illuminating chat and went far deeper than I thought it would. Similar eye surgeries, stacks of books at hand near our chairs in the living room type of connections.

The title of this column refers to the memories of my favorite author, C.S. Lewis. Preparatory schools with all the unpleasant clothing and such for him. It’s universal among us all. We remember the odd things about those 12 or 16 years. Everyone tried to overcome the isolation and angst that came with education in a public school. The clubs, the teams of athletics and the clicks that we were part of or not. Competition for high grades or outrageous behavior. I was a combination of geek and outrageous. Harley chopper and lecturing on Einstein’s theory of relativity in physics class. Trying to fit in somewhere.

It didn’t help that my mother was the assistant principals secretary either. A connection to power and influence. Plutonium residue upon my prescience. I had three friends and sold my motorcycle to one of them after high school. It would be worth five figures or so today. Hundred bucks and I needed money to get to the exciting town of San Diego. At least I took my briefcase and slide rule with to there.

A rather interesting story that is found in the archives of this website. Auto biography of Norm chapter 2 gives more detail of this adventure.

Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Healing from Prayer

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There it was, a calling. A nudge of confirmation. A recent column describes the onset of this calling., it began in Sunday School in Minneapolis. I was 10 or so and the Sunday school was held in a tall building downtown. It retrospect it looked like training building for firemen.

The main church was across the parking lot and it held a lot of people and quite a few of them were Shriner’s. Grandpa was a high ranking one and he drove us every Sunday. 23rd degree something. The School teacher made sure we memorized a prayer and I still remember most of it. I was not overly enthused about the whole deal, but I went along. When the teacher passed the offering plate, I would produce my offering and say “I want this to go deep!” Palming quarters as I reached in. Candy money at the store right across the street from School. Perfect store placement. The first fast food outfit I know of.

That short prayer was one that I uttered a few times through my life as though it was a collection of words that would connect the dots I can not. Change things from the magic of words. Akin the the under ones breath muttering from a nursery rhyme that comforts. There is a movie that illustrates a man that does this under decisions of stress.

“Jesus Christ show me today how to walk in every way.” I haven’t used it in a long time and I have some of it askew, but that was as I remember. It was important and seemed like the ham radio I was involved in as a basic ‘call sign’ The two letters C and Q. Seek You.

Much better than a physical comforting like drugs or sitting on Santa’s lap as the line at the department store allowed you to be next. He doesn’t heal, he just helps sell stuff.

Impossible. Imprinted as truth to a young child who believed seeking finds. Something or someone. I remember contacting a Russian during the cold war when the only currency was Duck and cover in grade school. I was a very different child and difference scares people. Some people except other different ones. Those sorts of things worked for me.

I muttered the phrase once when it made a life altering experience. I was addicted to heroin and did not want to be but it was so pleasant took physical and mental pain away. Completely. Ask a former addict or a counselor to verify this. I said it when I was alone with my line on glass and a hundred dollar bill rolled up to snort it with. I then heard five audible words that quoted scripture out of Deuteronomy. A. “Live or death, choose now” I chose life. It was over instantly. I bagged up the heroin and gave it back to my friend that introduced me to it. No withdrawal either. (This event is also in the Motorcycle Pilgrimage series.)

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. A. Deuteronomy 30:19. It’s pretty good.

Norm Peterson or Jack Gator. Take your pick, the book or the Author. All true stuff.

Atomic Child

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was 80 years ago when the City of Hiroshima was destroyed. It was exactly my first birthday. August 6th 1945. I just saw a friend holding his one year old child Sunday and him toddling off after he reached for my hand. D day was exactly two months before I was born, June 6th 1944. Those things got me to thinking about my life and betrayal by the world. It led to war and destruction and the loss of millions of lives. Lust and greed fueling it.

As many of us, I was betrayed. My best friend in the Navy did so. My first love and fiance left me secretly. The girl I was in love with when I lived on the West Bank had a sexual liaison while we were staying with my father in California. Dad was betrayed by my mother. When my girl visited an ‘old friend’ while we were at my Dad’s, she slept with that friend. My dad’s response when she returned late that night was: “they all do that” It got to be normal life for me.

I grew wary and found it impossible to get involved with anyone, especially women. I never knew why really, as many of us do, we just think these sorts of things are normal life. There are details of my life about these things that I do not reveal, they are too personal and harsh. Even for this writing to the public and my family. Just like the world’s history. I will some day.

Then today, while I was reading about WWII and all of these thoughts were prancing about in my mind, The sun came through the building storm clouds. It shone right on my face as I sat in the living room with a history book in my lap. I heard: “ I was betrayed by my friend too, and I know exactly what you have been through” Comforted and even cradled I was overwhelmed. “I will never betray nor forsake you” Words from the creator of everything.

The last time I was betrayed was the newspaper Editor that printed these sorts of things I write. Too much Jesus and we will have to let you go he said. I am comforted and affirmed now when I remember my response: “Will you then allow me a final column to tell my readers I can’t write a column every week, that it’s a burden”? It was printed and I did not betray him and the owner of the paper. It was a lie of course, but it seemed like the decent thing to do. After all, they would not print the truth of the matter.

The friend that sold me out for his addiction in the navy converted to faith in our savior Jesus shortly after I visited him on his dead bed in Maryland. I was permitted to see him pass into Eternity on the exact time he died thousands of miles away. He told me as he disappeared , “It’s better than you said!” It was a turning point in my life to say the least of it. His wife was comforted as I spoke with her later that day.

There is no room to prevaricate about the state of the world now, it is filled with anger and betrayal and is not surprising to me. The words I heard when that glow of the Son warmed my face this morning are timeless and eternal truth. I am loved and held forever. Norm Peterson “the Gator”