HAPPY DAZE!--By Father David DO958 6 December 1980
--Are You Still in That Old House?--Or a New House!
1. I DO HAVE SOME FUNNY DREAMS! I was hunting for an old house where I used to live when I was a boy, 2119 N.W. 24th Street, Miami, Florida. I was trying to find it, isn't that funny? And somehow or another I was supposed to take care of it & I had the key in my pocket. There was nobody living there. I went in & it was in kind of a mess, looked like nobody had lived there for years.
2. JUST THINK, THAT HOUSE IS 50 YEARS OLD NOW! (Maria: 50 years old?) Well, more, because we moved in there when I was 7 years old, so it's about 55 years old now. (Maria: How old was the house then?) It was brand new, the church just built it for us. That's where the old cellotex cottage was out back that Leland Valentine slept during the Hurricane!
3. WE CAME TO MIAMI WHEN I WAS 5 YEARS OLD. I had my 5th birthday outside of Washington, D.C., in Virginia Highlands. We spent Christmas there, December 25th, I had my 5th birthday there, February 18th, & we came down to Miami while it was still cold Wintertime. It was hot in Miami & we lived in a little apartment at first.
4. THEN WE MOVED TO THIS GREAT BIG FOUR-STORY HOUSE, AN OLD MANSION ON BAYSHORE DRIVE across from the Episcopal Church clear downtown where John Marsh Department Store now stands. I remember I used to go fishing on a little pier near the library, & that was when I drove the truck & smoked the cigar.
5. THEN THE BOOM WAS ON & THAT HOUSE GOT SO EXPENSIVE WE DECIDED TO MOVE TO AN APARTMENT near where they were building our church just a block away, & I can remember that's where I had my 6th birthday. It's a good thing some of us remember birthdays & have some kind of a fuss made over them, if you want to remember your life at all & where you were!
6. I REMEMBER HAVING MY 6TH BIRTHDAY IN THAT LITTLE APARTMENT. That's also the apartment where my mother threatened to cut off my penie if I didn't stop masturbatin'! (Maria: That must have been traumatic!) That's also where I started school at Buena Vista Grammar School in the nice high-class Buena Vista residential area where they vaccinated me!
7. I CAN REMEMBER BEING SO SICK FROM THE VACCINATION that I crawled into a box on the back porch curled up like a little sick dog--& I was sick as a dog too! And that's when they were building the Tabernacle just a block away down the street. I can remember going down there watching the workmen build & playing in the building, & we started having meetings there & everything.
8. THEN WE BUILT US A HOUSE OUT IN THE NORTHWEST SECTION, which was a kind of a middle-class section then, I'd say almost a little lower than middle class. That's that section where I went to Comstock School where they used to nickname it Commonstock School because they had the most toughs & cotton pickers & what not!
7. I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY EVER PICKED SUCH A LOCATION FOR A REALLY NICE HOME LIKE THAT. There wasn't another house on the block as nice as ours. We moved into the cellotex cottage first, which was a duplex made to have two apartments, while they were finishing the house. I remember that's when I was 7 years old, because I had my 7th birthday there.
8. THEN WE MOVED INTO THE HOUSE, & IT WAS A GREAT EVENT, BIG CELEBRATION! That was in the heyday of the Tabernacle just before the hurricane in 1926, & I was 7 years old. Then the hurricane hit, demolished the Tabernacle & almost ruined our house, & Mother went out & raised the money to rebuild it.
9. THEN THAT GUY WESTON STOLE IT AWAY FROM HER because he had loaned her the money & that enemy on the Board turned him against us & he took it away. By that time I was in the 7th Grade. So we moved in to that old house--which was a new house then--when I was about 6, I guess, because we were already living in it when the hurricane happened when I was 7. I was 7 on February 18, 1926, & the hurricane struck the following September, '26.
10. THEN THE NEXT YEAR THE BOOM BURST IN MIAMI & EVERYTHING FELL FLAT! If it hadn't already been knocked down by the hurricane, business fell flat. In other words, the Depression really hit Miami two years before it hit the World--two years before Black Monday which occurred in 1929. The stock market crash was Black Monday of October, I think it was, 1929.
11. WE LIVED IN THAT HOUSE FROM THE TIME I WAS 7 YEARS OLD. I remember having my 6th birthday in that apartment, so I know I must have been 7. I know I must have been at least 7. Let's see, I would have had my 7th birthday February 18, 1926. I was always one year ahead of the date because I was born in 1919. So February 18, 1926 I had my 7th birthday in our new house, 2119 N.W. 24th Street. They'd finished the house & we moved in.
12. THEN THE HURRICANE IN SEPTEMBER OF THAT YEAR DEMOLISHED THE HOUSE & THE TABERNACLE. So Mother went out & raised money to rebuild it, & my sister & I travelled with her on the road for awhile while she did. Oh, those were terrible days in a way, & yet as I look back they weren't too bad for me as a child.
13. THEY MUST HAVE BEEN TERRIBLE DAYS FOR MY MOTHER TO LOSE EVERYTHING LIKE THAT, right at the height of her career. She used to be concerned about whether God blew upon it. He says, "You put your money in a bag with holes & I blew upon it & it was not." (Hag.1:6,9.) I guess her sin was that she really loved Miami & was determined to settle down there & not stay in the field.
14. SO SHE BUILT THAT BIG TABERNACLE & IT WAS DESTROYED, & her home was almost destroyed, & they lost $10,000 in the bank in the moratorium on the banks. But I remember living in that house from the time I was 7 years old. I ought to figure this out some day, of course I couldn't remember it all too well. But I moved in when I was 7 because I had my 7th birthday there in that house.
15. THEN THE HURRICANE & THEN THE BOOM BURST & THE DEPRESSION & we still lived there & Mother tried to keep on going with the Tabernacle. The crowds got smaller & smaller because of the Depression. Lots of people went home to where they had lived, because Miami wasn't their home, & things got worse & worse until finally Weston took the Tabernacle.
16. BY THAT TIME I REMEMBER I WAS IN THE 7TH GRADE & I went to a big junior high school right across the street from the Tabernacle, Robert E. Lee Junior High School. That's where my bike was stolen off the back of my father's car. It's funny how you remember some of the worst bad things & some of the best good things! But I can remember those as fairly happy years nonetheless.
17. BY THE TIME I WAS IN THE 5TH GRADE, I & my mother had got pretty well fed up with Commonstock School & that rough crowd out there in the Northwest section, so she let me go in to town to the Buena Vista School which was in a very nice Northeast section of Miami near Biscayne Boulevard, but sometimes I had to walk back & forth about three miles.
18. USUALLY MY DAD DROVE IN TO HIS OFFICE AT THE TABERNACLE & took me by the school on the way. Then I'd walk back to the Tabernacle in the afternoon after school & ride back home with him. Well, a lot of times either he was away on business or he wasn't ready to go home, or had gone home, & I had to walk home three miles, which wasn't too bad. It was three miles home I remember, & I walked home mostly on 28th Street or 29th Street.
19. I AM JUST TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW LONG I LIVED IN THAT HOUSE, & why should I be so concerned about that house in the dream, of all the funny things? (Maria: Well, maybe because yesterday you were reading that Komic about the hurricane.) Maybe. But anyway, I went to Buena Vista School 5th & 6th grade, which was in town in the Northeast section near the Tabernacle, but I still walked back & forth to school clear out there to 2119 N.W. 24th Street. Isn't that funny, I can remember the number & everything? (Maria: That's incredible!)
20. I WENT TO BUENA VISTA SCHOOL 5TH & 6TH GRADES, THEN GRADUATED FROM GRADE SCHOOL TO JUNIOR HIGH & went to Robert E. Lee Junior High 7th & 8th grades. Mrs. Robertson was my 7th grade Homeroom teacher, & Mrs. Ure was my 8th grade Homeroom teacher. And I think it was while I was in the 7th Grade that Weston took the Tabernacle & we had to move the crowd into the Robert E. Lee Junior High School auditorium for awhile, right there.
21. MOTHER WAS STILL HAVING WHAT WOULD BE CALLED BIG CHURCH CROWDS NOWADAYS, you know, five or six hundred people, that's a pretty good-sized crowd. But compared to five or six thousand, that's not quite as big as it used to be! So when he made us get out of the Tabernacle, she had to move her meetings right across the street to the big auditorium of the Junior High School. That's when I was in 7th grade, when we were still living way out there at 2119 N.W. 24th Street in our house that we built there in '25.
22. I THINK THEY STARTED BUILDING THAT HOUSE IN 1925, because we moved in in '26. You know, I never really got this all straightened out myself when I think about it, but this is the way it must have happened. So I came in to Buena Vista School for 5th & 6th grades, then Robert E. Lee Junior High School for 7th & 8th grades, then 9th grade I went up to Wheaton College Academy, Wheaton, Illinois, when Mother was having trouble with the Jews & Tom the Gangster in Miami.
23. WHEN I WAS IN THE 7TH OR 8TH GRADE SHE HAD TO MOVE OUT OF THE TABERNACLE, & finally moved downtown to what was called the Church of the Open Door, a large two-story building right across from the City Hall. They had hotel rooms on the upper floor & we had it fixed into a very nice pretty chapel on the bottom floor, & it was a nice location.
24. THAT'S HOW COME I WENT TO SO MANY MOVIES IN THOSE DAYS, I guess I was 13 in 7th grade because I started school when I was 6--plus 7 is 13--& I was going to a lot of movies on my way home from Junior High School. That's just the age kids want to start getting into mischief & trouble & outside, & my great vice was going to movies!
25. I'D GO TO A MOVIE ALMOST EVERY DAY AFTER SCHOOL, pretending I was late or doing my homework or something. Robert E. Lee Junior High School was not too far from town, & I would go to the Church of the Open Door downtown in order to get a ride home with my folks or somebody back to the house which was way out. So while I was waiting for them--they didn't usually go home till about 5 o'clock & I got out of school about 3--I had just enough time to go to a nice movie almost every day, & it was only 10 cents!
26. BECAUSE I WASN'T TOO BIG, I GOT BY FOR 10 CENTS TILL I WAS ABOUT 14! Then the nice little girls at the ticket windows wouldn't tell me a 10-cent ticket anymore & I had to pay 25 cents! (Maria: Oh no!) You could get in for only 10 cents if you were 12 or under. But I got by for 10 cents till I was about 13 or 14.
27. SO I USED TO GO FROM SCHOOL, ROBERT E. LEE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL, 7TH & 8TH GRADES, TO THE CHURCH DOWNTOWN, the Church of the Open Door, to catch my ride home. Sometimes I'd walk to save the dime carfare & go to a movie. How about that? So I was about 13 or 14 then. I was 13 in the 7th grade & 14 in the 8th grade. We still had the church downtown, the Church of the Open Door, & we still lived out there at the house, 2119 N.W. 24th St., Miami, Florida.
28. THEN COME 9TH GRADE I WAS A MIDTERMER, do you know what they are? Did you ever hear about them? (Maria: Going in halfway through.) Yes, at the middle of the school year I graduated to the next grade, which was kind of difficult on some of us midtermers, you know? I graduated from 8A which was the second half of the 8th year, to first half of the 9th year in the middle of the year.
29. I THINK MOTHER THOUGHT THE HIGH SCHOOL WAS GETTING TOO BAD or the situation in Miami was too bad, I don't know. She & my father weren't getting along too well, & Dr. Koger was being very friendly, & we were even staying part time at his house. I remember Mother & were actually staying at his house.
30. MY FATHER WAS I DON'T KNOW WHERE, MY BROTHER WAS AT COLLEGE, MY SISTER WAS MARRIED & THERE WAS NOBODY LEFT BUT MOTHER & ME, & we stayed at Dr. Koger's house. Part of the time we stayed in the apartment over his office downtown. You know, I never figured all this out before! Maybe I ought to write it down someday! I was just trying to figure out how long we were at that house. Is this boring you, Honey? (Maria: No, not at all!) XXX! I love you!
31. I WAS 13 THEN IN THE 7TH GRADE, ROBERT E. LEE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL, 14 IN 8TH GRADE THERE, & then I turned 15, February 18, 1934. It's funny, it seems to me like it was 1934 when I went to Chicago. It's too hard for me to figure out exactly the calendar years, but I can remember how old I was & what grade I was in in school.
32. BUT ANYHOW, CAME 9TH GRADE, DR. KOGER & MY MOTHER DECIDED TO SEND ME UP NEAR CHICAGO TO WHEATON ACADEMY. That's where I gained half-a-grade because they didn't have mid-term change. When I went up there in the middle of the year they were already in the last half of the 9th grade & I had to make up all the work, which I did. I even read the first half of the algebra book & then joined right in with the rest of the class & passed in 4 mos.!
33. I THINK THEY SENT ME UP THERE TO KIND OF GET ME AWAY FROM THE MIAMI SITUATION & also be with my brother. I think they thought he'd be a good influence on me, or at least the Christian school would be. (Maria: Was it?) I don't think so! Well, in some ways it was good for me, it was rough & tough. I mean, it was hard, it was cold, & I had to work in the kitchen!
34. I HAD TO RUN ACROSS THE SNOW AT FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING TO GO TO WORK IN THE KITCHEN getting things ready for the day. My brother was head waiter in the dining room, but my aunt was helping him financially to get through school. Dr. Koger was helping me, apparently. So I was there for that semester, anyway, & completed 9th grade in one semester!
35. WELL, IF I STARTED SCHOOL WHEN I WAS SIX, FIRST GRADE, I would have been six mid-term. See, my birthday always fell about the time of the mid-term, February. So therefore 7th grade I was 13, 8th grade 14, 9th grade 15 when I was at Wheaton, & we were still living in that house when I came back to Miami.
36. USUALLY ALL THOSE SUMMERS I SPENT WITH MY MOTHER ON THE ROAD, especially after I was 16 & I could drive her. 9th grade I was 15, then we came back & I still lived at that house when I was in 10th grade & I was 16. I was now out of Junior High & I had to go to Miami Senior High School. They had a school bus that came our way, & often instead of getting off at my house, I'd ride it on into the suburb of Allapattah & go to a movie--if I had a quarter!
37. SO I WAS 16, 10TH GRADE, GOING TO MIAMI HIGH SCHOOL. Summers we were always travelling. We went to the World's Fair in Chicago, I think the Summer of '36, & the World's Fair in New York was, I think, Summer '39.
38. WHEATON PUT ME BACK ON AN EVEN FULL YEAR SCHEDULE WITH THE GRADES because I caught up the half year & finished with the 9th grade in the Spring in Wheaton when I was 15. Then I went back to Miami & went to the 10th & 11th grades two full school years at Miami High School, at which time I was 17. Then I knocked off 2 whole years of school to travel with Mother & take her around in evangelistic work, because that's when my father was taking care of the church in Miami or out on the road & a storekeeper in Long Beach.
39. WE HAD RENTED OUT THE HOUSE BY THAT TIME TO THE SATERS, that was Dolores' folks, because there was just the two of us then most of the time, my mother & me. We didn't need that big house & we needed the money. So I can remember living in apartments on Miami Beach quite often--that's where I tried to fuck Marylou that time--& living in apartments here & there.
40. IN OTHER WORDS, REALLY THE LAST I CAN REMEMBER LIVING IN THAT HOUSE WAS WHEN I WAS IN THE 11TH GRADE, Miami High School, & I think that was the last, when I was 17. So I really lived in it about 10 years, from the time I was 7--had my 7th birthday in it--through pretty much my 17th year in 11th grade, which is about 10 years. (Maria: That's a long time to live in one place!)
41. WELL, WE WERE AWAY A LOT, ESPECIALLY IN THE SUMMER ON EVANGELISTIC TRIPS & TRAVELLING. Sometimes we spent our Summers on Miami Beach in an apartment. But 2119 was still home & we still went back there for 10 years. I remember I was about 10 & living there when my sister ran away & got married when she was 15.
42. ANYHOW, THAT OLD HOUSE HAD A LOT OF GOOD MEMORIES & A LOT OF BAD MEMORIES, but the last I can remember living there was when I was in the 11th grade going to Miami High School. Because then I struck out on the road with my mother after I turned 16 & could drive. They finally started having laws about driving & driver's licenses etc., which they hadn't had to begin with, & by the time I was 16 they had laws that you couldn't drive until you were 16 &
you had to have a license--even a car license too!--Ha!
43. SO WHEN I TURNED 16 & GOT MY LICENSE I REMEMBER MY DAD TURNED MY MOTHER OVER TO ME. He said, "OK, son, now you can drive, here's your mother & the car, you driver her!"--& he was going to stay home in Miami writing his book & pastoring. About that time I remember we were living in the cellotex cottage with my father a lot while she was out on the road, while the Saters lived in the front house, to save money & get the rent.
44. BUT THEN THE WINTER THAT I WAS 17, MOTHER & I STRUCK OUT ON THE ROAD & I DROVE HER FULLTIME IN EVANGELISTIC WORK from then on until I was 19. I spent two years on the road with Mother. We'd come back once in a while to Miami, but I spent most of that two years, from the time I was 17 to 19, driving Mother on the road in evangelistic work. I was 17 in 1936 & 19 in 1938.
45. I HAD GONE ONLY THROUGH HALF THE 11TH GRADE AT MIAMI HIGH SCHOOL. I had come back just for one semester & didn't like it, tried to transfer to Miami Edison for awhile & didn't like that. The schools were getting so tough & rough & the boys so bad that I didn't even like school anymore. I liked the studies & the books, but I didn't like the schools & the crowds & the wickedness!
46. I'M JUST TRYING TO REMEMBER HOW LONG I WAS IN THAT HOUSE. Well, I guess it was about ten years off & on--not that it's worth remembering, but because of this funny dream I had last night! I was trying to think why that house should have made such an impression on me. Well, I lived in it longer than I ever lived in anything except the old Ark. I lived in that camper for ten years too, from '62 to '72!
47. WELL, ANYHOW, BY THIS TIME, SOMETIME IN THERE, WE TRIED TO KEEP THE CHURCH GOING IN MIAMI WITH MY FATHER AS PASTOR while my mother & I were out on the road, but he didn't do so well. The crowd dwindled down till we only had a couple dozen people & things were pretty hard. It was still the Depression & he could hardly make it, so Mother had to help support him from the evangelistic field. But all the time she tried to hang on to the home base & the church there in Miami.
48. THAT'S WHEN WE TOOK OVER THE BEAUTIFUL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN THE NORTH-EAST SECTION IN BUENA VISTA. That's where I was the youth leader of the young people's group when I was 17, 18 & 19, as we went back & forth from the field. That's where I almost married Dolores, but I really liked Marian Clark too, & I couldn't make up my mind which girl! (Maria: That's your trouble, Honey, you just like women so much it's hard to choose between them!) Ha!--I chose you didn't I?
49. WELL, I LOVED'M ALL!--I HAD ABOUT 12 ON THE STRING! I kept meeting more in the evangelistic field, every meeting we held I'd fall in love with a new girl! I was like the sailor with one in every port! I was young & handsome & a singer & like a star, you know, travelling with my mother, & of course the girls began to fall for me!--Really for almost the first time in my life! It wasn't till I started leading the singing that girls began to fall for me.
50. I'VE GOT A BUNCH OF DIARIES SOMEWHERE WHICH I USED TO KEEP UP UNTIL I WAS ABOUT 15 which tell a lot of the story. I wonder where they are, do you know? Only one of those diaries was coded. I kept a diary for about five or six years at least, even more. Off & on I kept a diary. So I guess we were in that house at least ten years, because I remember then I think we sold it to Sater & stayed on the road most of the time.
51. WHEN WE CAME BACK THEN FROM EVANGELISTIC TOUR & THE HOUSE WAS SOLD & GONE, DR. KOGER HELPED US BUY ANOTHER HOUSE OUT IN CAMBRIDGE LAWNS, South Miami, a beautiful little two-bedroom house. I was working with Mother fulltime then & we still had the Church of the Open Door in that old Congregational Church building in Miami. So I guess it was about ten years I was in that house. Well, it's a long story, I can't remember all of it.
52. IT WAS WHILE WE WERE IN CAMBRIDGE LAWNS I PERSUADED MY MOTHER THAT PASTORING WAS NOT HER MINISTRY, that she ought to be in the evangelistic field & we ought to hit the road again--& we did! We went out to California & made that our base when I was 19, & I finished high school in Monterey as the highest honour student of 1938! Then Mom & I continued meetings together till I was 22 & WWII hit & the draft came, & on a trip back to Miami they caught me!
53. WE WERE ON THE ROAD & I HADN'T BEEN GETTING MAIL & THEY'D SENT ME A DRAFT NOTICE & I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW I WAS DRAFTED! My number was amongst some of the first to be called up. (Maria: Were they out looking for you?) Yes! They'd turned the list over to the FBI as draft dodgers, & I didn't even know it till we got to Miami & they said my name had been in the paper & on radio as a draft dodger because I hadn't answered the call!
54. WELL, THE MAIL HADN'T CAUGHT UP WITH US, we were travelling & wandering around the country, & a draft notice wasn't sent out air mail or anything, you know. So we came back to Miami just to hold a meeting at Christmastime & discovered that I was already drafted! So I had my physical there. Well, that's a long story!
55. BUT IT'S FUNNY HOW I DREAMED ABOUT THAT HOUSE LAST NIGHT! I dreamed I was looking for it again, walking trying to find it, & I had an old key in my pocket like I used to carry. And I went in & it was deserted & looked like nobody had lived there for years. Then I came out & I was looking for you. It seemed like we were living somewhere not far away or parked in a trailer not far away from there in a trailer park.
56. AND I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT FOR SOME REASON I WAS VERY SAD IN THE DREAM, sad about the house, & I was calling for you & you didn't hear me. And I kept calling for you & finally you came. I was real sad for some reason, sad about the house, & I said to you, "Life is just too hard, I just can't take it! The house is gone & this is gone, that's gone & I just can't take it! Life is too hard!"--And I kind of broke down & wept & you were trying to comfort me. Isn't that strange?
57. I DON'T KNOW WHY I SHOULD HAVE DREAMED ABOUT THAT HOUSE OR WHY I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DISCOURAGED--maybe because of the memories. Sometimes you think back on some of those memories & it just makes you sad because it's all gone. Thank God I'm so much happier today than I was in those days. I have you & the Lord & the Family & I've accomplished my life's work. (Maria: Lasting accomplishment, because it can really continue & multiply!) Amen!
58. I'M HAPPIER NOW THAN I EVER WAS, SO I DON'T KNOW WHY I SHOULD HAVE DREAMT THAT SAD DREAM! Maybe it was just to let the Lord remind me how much happier I am now, how much better off I am now. I had no lovers then, no wife & no sex except masturbation. I kept going to movies all the time seeing all those pretty girls & wishing I could have one, & I'd just have to go home & jack off!
59. THAT MUST BE WHY THE LORD LET ME DREAM THAT, JUST TO BE THANKFUL FOR TODAY! I'm happier in this little place at my age than I was then. My youth was pretty much of an agony & a torture sometimes, especially the rough kids at school. So honestly I think I spent some of the worst years of my life in that house--that's one thing that depresses me about dreaming about it--from the time I was 7 to 17 going through school, which to me was a real torture, being with those Worldly kids. Then after that followed much happier years with my Mother in evangelistic work.
60. THEN WHEN I WAS 19 THE FAMILY JUST INSISTED I AT LEAST HAD TO TRY & FINISH HIGH SCHOOL, so I went to live with my brother in Carmel, California near Monterey where I finished my last year-&-a-half of high school. I'd dropped out in the middle of the 11th grade, so I finished the last year & a half & got enough credits in just seven months to get my diploma from the Monterey Union High School there in Northern California where my brother was a teacher.
61. (MARIA: YOU GRADUATED AS AN HONOUR STUDENT THERE, DIDN'T YOU?) Yes, I graduated with the highest scholastic record in the 80-some year history of the high school! I would have been Valedictorian but I hadn't been at the school log enough. So Bob McMenamen became Valedictorian, a real smart rich guy I liked.
62. I'LL NEVER FORGET, I WAS IN LOVE WITH MY BIOLOGY TEACHER THERE, MISS HOAG. She took me out on a long exploratory (ha!) field trip one day, just she & me alone.--I think she wanted it & I know I wanted it, but we were scared. I remember helping her over the rocks, my arms around her hanging on to her & her hanging on to me. I'm quite sure teachers fall in love with their students sometimes--I know I used to! (Maria: You were 19, & how old was she?) Oh, she was about 30.
63. SHE THOUGHT I WAS MARVELLOUS FOR SOME REASON OR OTHER, I don't know, because I was so brilliant? That's where they took my I.Q. & said it was 176! We had I.Q. tests, you know, because we were graduating from high school. I.Q. & aptitude tests & all that stuff getting ready to go to college.
64. I HAD THE HIGHEST I.Q. OF ANYBODY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL OF 3,000 STUDENTS! It was a big high school, they came from all around Monterey from as far as 60 miles away. (Maria: Oh Honey, how can you live with a dummy like me? Well, maybe it shows off your brilliance better!) Honey, I love you! All that brilliance didn't do me a bit of good until I had the Holy Spirit & the Word & found what He wanted me to do. I wandered around for fifty years like a Gospel bum!
65. WELL, I GUESS THE LORD WANTED ME TO BE THANKFUL FOR TODAY! Life's been better ever since. Those were the saddest most torturous years of my life I spent in that house, from 7 to 17. (Maria: I guess generally those are the hardest years for a boy too, though, huh?) Yes, I think they're the hardest years for anybody, when you're young, growing up. If you survive those years, you may make the rest of it!--Ha!
66. SO WE WENT BACK TO MIAMI FOR AWHILE, LIVED AT CAMBRIDGE LAWNS & had the Church of the Open Door, but we had a lot more trouble with the Jews & a Catholic priest & a few other things, so finally I convinced my Mother her place was on the road. So we went on the road again.
67. SO I TRAVELLED WITH HER IN EVANGELISTIC WORK FROM THEN ON UNTIL I WAS 22, & by that time we were living at 441 N. Lake St. in Los Angeles, California. Then came the trip back to Miami, & I was drafted Christmas 1941! When I got out of the army the next year I went back to Lake St. where we were living. My father had gone to work for Westmont College, so we moved right away to a house up in the Hollywood Hills at the end of Hollywood Blvd.
68. WE ALWAYS KEPT A BASE OF SOME KIND & USUALLY MY FATHER RAN IT while he had jobs here & there or pastored a church or whatever, while Mother & I were out in evangelistic work. So we were there at that house in Hollywood, 1821 Oakden Dr., two years at least, & our address was Box 806, Hollywood, California for years.
69. THAT'S THE STORY OF MY LIFE, WELL, THE FIRST PART OF IT! That ain't half the story, but that sums up how long we lived in that old house in the sad lonely torturous days of my early life, my youth. The happiest days of my youth were spent serving the Lord driving my Mother in evangelistic work & leading the singing.
70. WHILE LIVING IN THAT HOUSE IN HOLLYWOOD HILLS, AT AGE 24 I MET MAMA EVE & MARRIED & we began having children. That was a very happy time, to be married & have a wife to fuck whenever I wanted to, & I loved the babies & the children, although they began to worry my Mother & she was afraid they'd hinder our evangelistic work, because Eve was our pianist.
71. SO THOSE WERE THE HAPPIEST YEARS UP TO THAT TIME OF MY LIFE, evangelistic work with my mother. But then after I got married & started having children, it began to get a little difficult to get evangelistic meetings with such a large family. I began having to leave Mama Eve at home with the children, & it went on like that for two years.
72. FIRST DEB WAS BORN, THEN AARON WAS BORN, & THEN MAMA EVE WAS PREGNANT WITH THE THIRD, HO, & THAT DID IT!--Mother as good as fired us! We were living at Goleta at that time, Santa Barbara, California, & Dad was Controller of Westmont College. Mother said she couldn't make it anymore with such a big family in evangelistic work & said I'd have to quit & go back to college or something, so that's what I did in the Fall of '48, age 29.
73. I WENT BACK TO CHRISTIAN COLLEGE THERE FOR A SHORT WHILE UNTIL I GOT THE PASTORATE OF THAT CHURCH IN VALLEY FARMS, which was no church at all yet. So in 1948 just before Ho was born, we went to Valley Farms to build the church, & that's where Ho & Faith were both born. We were there over two years. Then when they kicked me out, I went back to college for awhile & finally to school-teaching, & then finally on the road with my own little family, car & trailer--the old taxi, the 19-foot black trailer, wife & 4 kids!
74. WE REJOINED MOTHER FOR A FEW MEETINGS WHEN SHE FOUND OUT THE KIDS BY THIS TIME WERE A REAL ASSET TO EVANGELISTIC WORK, but we'd already been spoiled for churches by the Soul Clinic. So that's when we went to Miami & started the Soul Clinic School there & the kids were still small. Well, it was '54 when we first went to the Soul Clinic, '57 when we went to Miami, I believe, & then we were in Key Largo in '60, back in Miami '61 & by this time I was working for Fred & booking TV.
75. '62 WE GOT OUR CAMPER & I WAS DETERMINED TO TAKE THE FAMILY ON THE ROAD. I was tired of being alone on the road away from them, so I bought the old Ark in December '62 & hit the road in it with the family the following Summer '63. Meantime I'd been taking them on the road sometimes with an old 5-ton truck & 5-ton 35-ft. trailer & all our stuff--total 10 tons!
76. THEN 1964 WE MOVED THE ARK & FAMILY OUT TO TEXAS TO THE RANCH. The Texas Soul Clinic was gone, there were no more people there & Fred needed somebody to watch the Ranch. So we headquartered then at the Ranch while I continued on the road for TV & used the Ranch as our home base. (Maria: Did you like the Ranch?) Oh, we loved it there! Especially the kids, they loved life on the Ranch!
77. WE HEADQUARTERED THERE ON THE RANCH THROUGH '67 during the time we were at the World's Fair in '64 & '65 till 1966 when Fred fired me & we hit the road with Mother on her last grand 10,000 Miles of Miracles trip where we went 'way up through Canada that Summer, & back to Miami & over to the Bahamas that Winter, & back to the Ranch in '67.
78. MOTHER INVITED US THEN TO COME TO CALIFORNIA TO WORK WITH THE HIPPIES, so with our little Teens for Christ team we hit the road again & went to California in the Camper & spent Christmas 1967 with my Mother. Then we worked there at Huntington Beach all next year, '68 & you came in January '69, & we left there in April driven out by persecution.
79. WE HIT THE ROAD WITH THE WHOLE FAMILY OF ABOUT 50 TO BEGIN WITH, & WOULD UP WITH ABOUT 125 OR MORE by the time we had spent a year on the road with the COG. '69 to '70, arrived back with our new big Family of 125 hippies in February of '70 at the TSC Ranch, & you & I were there till September when we left for Europe & Israel. Deb & Jeth were causing trouble while we were gone, so we came back to the States in May of '71 to get them straightened out.
80. WE SPENT 1971 & 1972 THERE IN THE STATES CLEAR THROUGH THE WINTER IN THE CAMPER, in the Ark, in that park in Oklahoma, remember? (Maria: But first we went to the Dalrich Motel.) Yes, oh boy! Well, I'm not filling in all the details, it's too long a story!
81. (MARIA: THE DALRICH MOTEL WAS WHERE YOU DEALT WITH THEM & ALSO WHERE WE GOT "SPACE CITY", & also where we had more or less the first "All Things"!) Yes, well that's all part of the story, but I haven't got time to go into all those details, Honey. Good night, some day maybe I can tell the whole story, but I'm just trying to hit the high spots & the dates.
82. WE CAME BACK TO THE STATES IN MAY OF '71 FROM ISRAEL & EUROPE, stayed there until the following April of '72, & during that time we were at the Dalrich Motel & in Oklahoma. We had "All Things" & got quite a few revelations & tried to get Jeth & Deb straightened out, which never seemed to be very possible.
83. I REMEMBER WE ARRIVED IN LONDON IN APRIL 1972, exactly the same date we arrived there the first time. The guy wanted to know why I always arrived there on April 13th! And then began the Lit Ministry, praise the Lord--& the Family knows the rest of the history. And it seems to me life got happier all the time, till I'm happier today, Honey, than I was yesterday!
84. I'M HAPPIER TODAY THAN I WAS IN MY WHOLE LIFE--with you & the Family & this happy life of service for the Lord, the Letters, the Magazine & our missionaries around the World winning souls everywhere, everybody happy serving the Lord, winning souls, distributing His Message! So I feel like I've had a very full life.
85. THAT'S MY LIFE HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL! I just hit the high spots to try to get the years straightened out, & all prompted by that sad dream I was having about that old house last night. Those early years look like Hell now compared to the happy years of today. So I'm living the happiest part of my life today! It's funny, but most people seem to live theirs the other way around.
86. PEOPLE THAT DON'T KNOW THE LORD, THEY'RE HAPPIER IN THEIR YOUTH & SAD IN THEIR OLD AGE. I was sad in my youth till I got into fulltime service for the Lord--the time I started travelling with Mother in singing & evangelistic work--then I began to be happy & I've been serving the Lord ever since! PTL!
87. AND THEN WHEN WE BEGAN TO HAVE THE FAMILY--THAT REALLY HAS MADE ME HAPPY! PTL! And I think it's made them happy too! And we've made millions happy through the Message of the Lord's Love! PTL? I was just reading the Stats where we have won so many millions to the Lord, & the Family is now over 8,000 in nearly 2,000 Homes! We have witnessed to billions & we've won already something like 3 1/2 million souls to the Lord!
88. SO I'M QUITE HAPPY & SATISFIED WITH WHAT THE LORD HAS DONE, & these last years are the happiest years of my life! PTL! Hallelujah! TYJ! And the Lord did it all, brought me through those horrors of my youth, those sad bad years of youth to the mad glad years of age! Hallelujah!
89. REALLY, ABOUT THE ONLY HAPPY THINGS THAT I CAN REALLY REMEMBER MUCH ABOUT MY YOUTH WAS OF COURSE CHURCH, going to church & hearing & singing about the Lord & serving the Lord. School was almost a hell on Earth because of the bad kids! I loved the studies & the books & I made good grades, but school was a horror like living in Hell because of the evil there!
90. SOME OF HAPPIEST THINGS, I CAN REMEMBER ABOUT THOSE SCHOOL YEARS IS BEING ABLE TO GO TO MOVIES! I went to a lot of movies in those days, almost every day after school. I'd sneak off to a movie between school & coming home when it only cost 10 cents when I was 14 or under & 25 cents when I was over 14. (Maria: So it was sort of an escapism, huh?)
91. YES, IT WAS DEFINITELY AN ESCAPISM. A lot of times if it was a bad movie I'd feel real guilty about it, but a lot of times they were happy musicals of the happy music of my youth & I enjoyed it. Some of them were great movies, idealistic, enobling, inspiring!
92. BUT I THINK THE LORD ALLOWED THAT TO GIVE ME A REAL THOROUGH EDUCATION IN THE WORLD which I had never had an opportunity to have because I was reared in such a strict Christian family & always in church. The only contact I'd had up to that time with the World was in school, & that was bad enough!
93. BUT I THINK I REALLY GOT QUITE A GREAT EDUCATION FROM THE MOVIES IN THOSE EARLY DAYS OF MY YOUTH & school days which taught me a lot about the World that I didn't now. So I really think it was a necessary part of my education. The Lord allowed me to, & my mother wasn't too strict about it. The only thing she didn't like was me going to movies on Sunday, because the church people complained about it.
94. BUT I WAS ALWAYS SNEAKING OFF AFTER SCHOOL OR EVEN AFTER DINNER AT NIGHT TO GO TO A MOVIE SOMEWHERE. My brother & sister used to tattle on me sometimes & my Mother or Dad would scold me a little bit that I was wasting my time. They weren't real hard about it, though, because they liked movies too. They used to take us kids to movies when we weren't near the church or in a town where we were having meetings, where we wouldn't have to be seen by people who knew us, because it was a stumblingblock to the weaker brethren we worked with. (I Cor.8:9.)
95. ON THE ROAD WE FREQUENTLY WENT TO MOVIES TOGETHER AS A FAMILY. My Dad was especially fond of cowboy movies, & I was especially fond of travel, adventure & weird movies like "Frankenstein", "Dracula" & anything science-fiction, supernatural or weird. I was especially particularly interested in the supernatural. So I got quite an education from the movies!
96. I WENT TO MOVIES AT LEAST TWO OR THREE TIMES A WEEK ALL THOSE SCHOOL YEARS, days of my youth, & that actually, as you say, was escapism & some of the happiest relief that I had from school & the hellish horrors of Worldly school kids & tough bullies! But then of course, after I started working with my Mother in evangelistic work & singing, why, those became the happiest years of my life!
97. AND THE YEARS OF MY MARRIAGE & PASTORING & SCHOOL TEACHING WITH MY LITTLE FAMILY & CHILDREN, THOSE WERE VERY HAPPY YEARS! They were very hard years, I think they were the hardest years of my life outside of my school years, the years of my marriage & small family & pastoring & school teaching & trying to survive. I think they were about the hardest years of my life, but some of the happiest because we were serving the Lord & we had our precious little children, rearing them for the Lord in His work.
98. BUT THE HAPPIEST REALLY BEGAN WHEN WE STARTED THE FAMILY!: Huntington Beach with my Mother & starting with the hippies were pretty happy times. That year on the road was really tough, & a miracle of God that we survived it! But then after we got to TSC, things began to boom & it was a little bit easier financially, etc., & we were highly publicised & becoming popular, famous & populous & had the Family!
99. AND THEN OF COURSE MY YEARS WITH YOU, THAT MADE THAT 1ST YEAR ON THE ROAD BEARABLE BECAUSE YOU WERE THERE, & I began to receive the gifts of the Spirit & receive messages from the Lord, & oh, that was the biggest thrill of all when I got those prophecies & messages & began to really hear from the Lord! I sure needed to, I'll tell you, with a family of hippies like that! We needed to hear from the Lord!--Only He could've done it!
100. THEN WHEN YOU & I WENT ALONE TO EUROPE, I think that was even happier, because we didn't have to worry quite so much about sitting on top of the "bomb" all the time with all of its troubles & problems. We left Jeth & Deb in charge, let them worry about it, & we went to Europe & Israel, & came back for that next year.
101. COMING BACK FOR THAT YEAR TO THE STATES TO STRAIGHTEN OUT JETH & DEB WAS SORT OF SAD IN SOME WAYS, but you & I were very happy in the Camper living in that beautiful park in Oklahoma. Then of course, when we went back to Europe & really got rolling in London with the literature, those were thrilling days! Then began renewed persecution, so we had to start moving again in March 1974.
102. AND OF COURSE MOVING TO TENERIFE, THAT WAS THE "DAYS OF HEAVEN ON EARTH!" The days of real Heaven on Earth really began there in Tenerife, I think. (Maria: And some of our worst days, some of our worst trials!) Yes, some of your worst trials & tribulations were there. (Maria: Yours too! And some of our worst nights!) Nevertheless, those were the days of Heaven on Earth--days of Heaven, nights of Hell! That's when we began the FF Ministry, & it had its problems!
103. BUT PTL, I THINK IT'S BEEN GETTING HAPPIER ALL THE TIME EVER SINCE, Honey, don't you think so? (Maria: Yes, for sure!) PTL! TYJ! (Maria: The more we're able to accomplish for the World!) We went from Tenerife to Libya to Italy to Spain to Switzerland & now here, & the Lord's been better to us all the time. The Letters are getting better, Family getting better & bigger & working harder & accomplishing more, till I think really this is the happiest day of my life right now, today! Hallelujah! TYL!
104. AS I LOOK BACK ON ALL THOSE HORRORS & HELLS & TRIALS & TRIBULATIONS OF THE PAST, TODAY SURE LOOKS GREAT! I'm sure happy today, TYL! Things are so much better today than they were then. My youth was really hard & sad. My school days were a real trial. My days on the road with my Mother were very happy days, that was Heaven on Earth too. The days of my marriage & little family & children, those were very hard days but happy days.
105. THEN THE BEGINNING OF THE BIG FAMILY AT HUNTINGTON BEACH, things were rough & tough, rough on the road & hard, but they were happy days! TTL! The days in Europe were Heaven on Earth with you alone!--We had a wonderful time, amen? (Maria: Hearing from the Lord!)--In which we heard a lot from the Lord & were writing continually, beginning our writing ministry. I realised then that I'd finally found my ministry when we began writing the Letters, so that was a great satisfaction & fulfilment of dreams come true!
106. I BEGAN TO REALISE THEN I'D FINALLY FOUND MY LIFE'S WORK & MY MINISTRY IN WRITING & helping the Family & leading the sheep, feeding the flock! PTL! Hallelujah! TYL! So it's continued ever since, happier & happier! (Maria: And now we've almost gotten up to publishing a thousand Letters!) Amen! Started off from A to Z, to now almost a thousand Letters! Praise God! Hallelujah! TYJ!
107. SEVERAL BOOKS & NOW A BIG THICK MAGAZINE & more books & more children & more Family & more souls won & more satisfaction & joy in His service, & more love & more happiness, & it's been a bit easier financially, too! TTL! Although our financial responsibilities are much greater & we have a lot more people dependent on us now, the Lord has prospered us & made it possible for us to do more & more for Him & them all the time.
108. WE PUBLISH MORE, FEED MORE, HELP MORE, SPREAD THE GOSPEL MORE, until I just can't imagine being really any happier than we are right now, living in God's beautiful sunshine in a beautiful country in a beautiful little place & busy everyday for Jesus publishing His Word, receiving His instructions & His revelations & passing them on to the Family to guide them & lead them & teach them & help them to live & work for Him for the rest of their lives! PTL! Hallelujah! TYJ!
109. SO THESE REALLY ARE THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF MY LIFE RIGHT NOW! I mean it! Really! Most of my life is behind me, thank God, & I certainly wouldn't want to re-live it again if I could help it! It's been even hard to recall it, to remember it, & many many of the memories are sad. But there were lots of happy memories too, especially my service for the Lord, service with Mother, service with my little family & now service with the big Family. So Hallelujah! (Sings:)
110. "HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN,
THE SKIES ABOVE ARE CLEAR AGAIN!
Let us sing a song of cheer again,
Happy days are here again!"
I don't remember the verses, something about,
"All our troubles are gone
We're so happy from now on!
Happy days are here again,
The skies above are clear again!
Let us sing a song of cheer again,
Happy days are here again!"
111. I UNDERSTAND THIS IS REAGAN'S THEME SONG. It was the FDR--Franklin Delanor Roosevelt--President Roosevelt's theme song in his election in the middle of the Depression 1932, & it was really celebrating bringing back liquor & the Repeal of Prohibition. That was their theme song at every Repeal Party & celebration of Repeal & return of liquor, was "Happy Days Are Here Again!"--The return of the spirits!
112. WELL, REALLY I SHOULD BE SINGING, HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE YET, & happier & happier days every day! So I could sing:
"Every day with Jesus,
Is sweeter than the day before!
Every day with Jesus,
I love Him more & more!
Jesus saves & keeps me,
And He's the One we're waiting for!
Every day with Jesus,
Is sweeter than the day before!"
113. "AND I LOVE HIM BETTER EVERY DAY!
I love Him better every day!
Close by His side,
I will abide,
I love Him better every day.
I'm happy today, yes, happy today!
In Jesus' love I'm happy today!
He's taken all my sorrows away,
That's why I'm happy today!"
Hallelujah! PTL! Amen! TYJ! I don't think I could be any happier, I don't see how I could be! PTL!
114. HAPPY NEW YEAR!--THAT'S THE THEME OF THIS ONE, AN EVEN HAPPIER NEW YEAR THAN EVER BEFORE! I don't see now we could be any happier, but praise God! So, Happy New Year 1981! I guess this is my New Year's Letter for 1981! GBAKYAMYAB!--Love, Dad.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family