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| Age: 2-3 | 8-9 | 20+ | 60+ | ||
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| Memories & Milestones | |||||
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| Age: 2-3 | 8-9 | 20+ | 60+ | ||
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Recently I was reminiscing about the past, and I recalled again some major milestones in my life. Let me start this story with some memories from the late 1940's. When I graduated from high school I had no idea what kind of work I wanted to get into. Since my uncle had a small jewelry store/clock repair shop across the street he offered to teach me clock repairing. This experience helped me get my first two jobs. I quit the first job to get what I thought was a better one, but I was laid off in about 6 months, after they filled all their Christmas orders. This job was final inspector on a small ladies watch assembly line. It was kind of boring and a little hard on the eyes, I had to use a double magnifying glass to inspect the watch. You must remember that this was long before quartz watches were invented, so there were a lot of gears and springs to check. After about a month looking for a job, I heard about an opening at a small local company, so I applied for it and got an office clerical job. This company had just started to use Electric Accounting Machines to print the monthly statements for all their customers. After showing an interest in these machines, I got a transfer to that department and became an EAM operator. These machines were the fore-runner of the computers of today. Milestone - My jobs from that time on were either EAM operator or supervising EAM/Computer operations and finally computer programmer up until I retired. Since retirement I have continued to do some programming and recently got into designing web sites. In addition to this site I am the "webmaster" for; my church, a missionary friend and my sister-in-law's non-profit organization. And I just finished a web site for a friend that started a new church in Mt. Wolf, PA. (Oct. 2009 update - My sister-in-law's non-profit organization is inactive. Also my missionary friend has setup her own web site.) Back to the narration - One day my supervisor asked me if I would like to do a special little job for the owner of the company. The owner's wife had returned home from the hospital recently but still needed nursing care. That particular morning the roads had been very icy, after a night of freezing rain. Since the day nurse didn't trust driving on the icy roads the company had one of their sales representatives living in her city to drive her to work. Now I was being asked to take her home. Milestone - Now you may ask, why is that such a milestone? More memories - Up to this time I had been so shy that I could never even ask a girl for a date. Yes I did ask her for a date and she accepted. On the first date we went to a movie. Now in those days if the movies would have had a rating system they would all have been rated "G". But that is not what my girl friend was used to, so our next dates were to either Saturday evening "Youth for Christ" meetings or Sunday church services. Now I grew up in a Christian home and we all went to church Sundays. That is until we children were old enough to stay home alone, then we could do what we wanted to do, so I stayed home. What I never received at home or at my parents church was a reason to attend church. They belonged to a small Mennonite Church and there was no Sunday School for the children to learn any thing about the Bible or Christianity. At home my parents were of the belief that the Holy Spirit would lead a person to the Lord. But they must have forgotten: (Rom 10:14 NKJV) How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? The biggest Milestone - It wasn't too long until I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and know that when I die I will be with Him in Heaven. If you want to know more about this decision that you too can make click here. This was the time of the Korean War and I believed I would be drafted soon. If I waited to be drafted I would end up in the Army probably as an infantry soldier on the front lines. I thought if I enlisted in the Air Force I might have a better chance getting some more training as an EAM Operator and keep away from the fighting. So I signed up on a Friday but on Saturday all enlistment's were cancelled for all branches except the Army. Milestone - Enlistment would have been for 4 years, while the draft was only 2 years. Milestone - I was drafted shortly after this and was sent to a training camp only 30 miles from home. This was amazing because of the way draftees were selected for training. As a draftee was sent to a redistribution center, his name was added to the bottom of the list in the sequence he happened to be in line. This list was added to the bottom of the list of everybody else that was already there and waiting. As a training center needed more men the number needed was counted down from the top. The day I was selected, 2 or 3 groups were sent to Texas, my group went to Pennsylvania and 2 or 3 more groups after this also went to Texas. I ended up, as I said before, 30 miles from home. While in the redistribution center we all took tests. I had a high enough grade that I could sign up for Officer Candidate School, which I did. Also we were given the option to select the branch of the Army we wanted, so I selected Finance thinking that in this branch I might have a better chance of getting into EAM operations. Any way it was better to be a Lieutenant in the Army than a Private. After infantry basic training, all of us going to OCS were sent, to another area of the base, to a required Leadership Training Course. Upon graduating we were to be sent to the school of our choice, however 6 of us never got any orders. Milestone - Do you remember that nurse I took home, at the beginning of this story? We got married on a three day weekend pass during this mix up of orders. Finally after 13 months since induction somebody found our applications for OCS and called us in to resubmit them with the current date. As I turned in the new application, completed just as the original, the clerk looked it over and immediately rejected the form, so I was up for redeployment that day. The question that caused this was, "Are you a conscientious objector?". I answered Yes, not even thinking what this meant to the Army. I sure didn't mind being in the Army, I just didn't want to be put in a spot where I had to kill another human being or be killed. The other 5 men all cancelled out within the next week because they would have gone to Infantry OCS. Within a week I was on a ship going to Germany. When we got to our destination, we had to be deployed to various Army installations, this time by being interviewed. When the clerk looked at my record, infantry basic and infantry leadership course, he said it looks like you are heading to the field as a squad leader. I spoke up and told him I had some experience in EAM Operations. He checked a different list and sent me and 4 or 5 other soldiers to a Medical Depot. They didn't have the machines yet and, surprise, none of the others had even seen any of these machines. Milestone - After several more men showed up, we were all sent to the Quartermaster School south of Munich for 6 weeks, right in the foothills of the Alps. Milestone - While in Germany, I was able to take a 10 day tour of Italy, a weekend in Switzerland and visited some relatives (4th cousins). I was promoted to Corporal and became second shift EAM supervisor for part of the 9 months that I was there. After being discharged, I returned to the same company that had introduced me to my wife and became their EAM Operations supervisor. After several job changes, and upwards of 20 years, I worked my way up to where I was responsible for the operation of three big main-frame computers at two different locations about 30 miles apart running 24/7 with 30-35 shift supervisors and operators. It was at that time I requested a change to computer programming, I finally had enough of supervising people. As computer programmer I was responsible for upgrading and maintaining the operating system installed on seven different main-frames located in the North Eastern U.S. & Canada. Have you noticed any thing about all these milestones? To me, it looks like each one leads to the next. Some might say, this is just coincidence or you were just in the right place at the right time. However I think it was all by divine appointment. Consider again the milestones;
Bob There is short continuation on page 2 |
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