I THANK MY GOD EVERY TIME I REMEMBER YOU. PHIL.1:3 NIV

These pictures were taken at a family reunion in the spring of 1999, 10 years ago. There are three families, 1st is my sister with her family 2nd my family, 3rd my brother's family. Not all were able to be here, but most were.

"For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." *

As I told you, the first football game I ever saw I played in. It was when I started high school. I had attended country school and my dad was not interested in sports so we never went to town to see a game. My coach was a young man just out of the marines and he was tough. So you can see, all things were new to me. The first thing was learning what room to be at for the different classes I had. I came from a one room school.

I will try to share some things that happened during football at MHS. I had never seen an actual football uniform with pads so that was all new to me and when they told me I needed to buy a jockstrap I said 'huh?'!! I ordered my shoes through the school and I had had my physical so I was ready to start a new adventure in my life.

Our practice field was a half mile from the school so we had to run to practice. The upper classmen made it tough on us freshman. They used us for tackling practice and the coach ran the practice like a marine boot camp. We had to carry the equipment back and forth. There was no water at the field. If we got thirsty one of the players lived on the way. They had a yard hydrant so on the way back to the locker room that was the water hole.

My first year we had two new coaches and they didn't like the way the schedule was made. The schedule had small schools to play on non league games so they changed the schedule to have us play larger schools. Coach said by playing larger schools it would toughen us up and make us work harder. Some of the schools that he picked were Salina, Topeka, Hays and Wamego. These schools were 3 to 5 time larger than us. Some of the people in town thought he was crazy but it paid off a couple years later.

We had no school bus until I was a junior so business men in town would take us to the games. One time we took a cattle truck, we had straw bales to sit on. There would be a caravan of cars. We had 45 or 50 out for football. The Sheriff would take his car and one time when we were playing Hays where they had stop lights, we got to the stop light and it was red. He motioned for the cars following him to follow him. He turned on the lights and siren and took us all through the red light. If that would happen today they would kick him out of office just for using the car let along using the lights and siren.

There was a gangster that lived at the state lake. He was known as Whitey. Everyone knew he was a gangster but he liked football. He played on the town team and he was a good player. The sheriff also played on the town team so Whitey started taking a car load of players to the games. He also let the school use his big convertible for the queen to ride in in the homecoming parade. He also supported sports in other ways. He would be in our local fountain and if some football player would come in he would buy them a soft drink or ice cream. Whitey got killed in Nebraska. They were hijacking a truck load of furs and got in a shoot out with the law. There was also a woman and another guy with him. They were killed or wounded.

After our games, if Kansas University had a game at home, three or four men would take anyone that wanted to go to the KU game. They would have passes for us and put us up in a hotel. We would get to meet and talk with the coaches and players. Dr. Young was a K U fan. He asked me many times to go with him to the games. I went as often as I could. He would stop in Topeka for supper after the game. He liked Chinese food and there was a good Chinese restaurant there. It was my first time to eat Chinese food. It was with him also that I first had filet mignon and cordon bleu, things that were not on our country menu. Dr. Young was my dentist. He was a good man and he liked sports. He had two sons. One was born with cerebral palsy, or something like that. His other son was in high school and he was a great athlete. One summer he and some other guys were swimming at the state lake. They were outside the boundaries of the swimming area trying to swim across the lake and he got a cramp and drowned. This was hard on Doc so it helped him to have some of the players go with him to the games where he could treat them to different things.

We had one colored kid on the team. After the away games we would stop at some restaurant to get something to eat. If we stopped at a restaurant that would not serve him we would not eat there. It was hard to find a place that would serve him so we would stop at a hamburger joint and order hamburgers to go. We would sometimes stop at a small park and eat all together or eat on the way home.

In the fall of 1949 we won our league. There were only 13 points scored against us. That was Marysville and they are a bigger school. The statistics show we scored 210 to 13 in league play. For the season we scored 289 to 63. We lost one game and that was to Hays, a much bigger team. The score was 13 to 7. We had two T. D.'s called back. But what we thought was a bad call was this, we had the ball, it was fourth down and goal to go and they called it short, but there were some reporters taking pictures on the goal line and they sent us a picture that showed we made it by a good foot.

In the fall of 1948 I was a sophomore and the only one from the freshman and sophomore class to earn a letter in varsity football. I played tackle position, Vernon White was a line backer on my side. We were the only two that played all the games with out having a substitute. They didn't run a platoon system so that meant we played offense and defense both. We played the single wing offense.

I was picked to be captain for the team and king at the home coming game. We played Chapman that night and they were called the Greenie's. They had just bought new uniforms so they ran around the field to show everyone their new uniforms and announce that they had changed their name to the Fighting Irish. We kicked the ball to them, they fumbled it, and we ran in for a T.D. 20 seconds on the clock and the score was 7 to 0. We kicked to them again and they passed two times with out catching it. They passed on third down and we intercepted it for another T.D. With the clock showing 1:15 off the clock the score was 14 to 0. We kicked off again. They ran one play and on the second play they fumbled and we ran it in for a T.D. With a little over two minuets in to the game the score was 21 to 0. The final score was 39 to 0.

I had a good friend that waited to go out for football until his senior year. The coach put him in at the end of a game. They were kicking to us and the ball went right in his hands, what luck!! I always wanted to have the opportunity to catch a kickoff and run with it.

In 1949 we were challenged by a high ranking team in the state to play them on Thanksgiving day. They said they would feed us a Thanksgiving dinner if we would come and play them because they thought they were a better team than us. They had to get permission from the state because you were only allowed to play so many quarters a season. There were no play off games then, so we accepted their challenge. We played a rough game but we won by 20 to 13 and ate their turkey. It was the first M.H.S. football game to be broadcast on the radio.

I always had butterflies before each game but after the first play they were gone. That reminds me of the times that I go into prison or meet some one on the street to share the Lord with. After beginning to share with the first inmate, or neighbor, or family member there is peace. They're just waiting for you to share the Good News with them--you owe it to them.

*Scripture verse above---I Tim. 4:8 NIV

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A GENTLE ANSWER TURNS AWAY WRATH, BUT A HARSH WORD STIRS UP ANGER---PROVERBS 15:1 NIV

In 1972 some business men from town came and asked if I would consider running for county commissioner. I had run for sheriff before and lost by one vote and I was glad I did after thinking what the office requires. So I told them I would have to think about it. I didn't make a decision on "Oh, that would be great to be a county commissioner." A couple weeks later they asked if I had decided to run and I said 'yes'. So in November 1972 I was elected to the office of commissioner of Ottawa County, Kansas. This happened 6 more times for a total of 24 years. I had opposition each time.

Our county has 3 commissioners and they govern the county business. The County is the strongest form of government. One of our functions was to try to solve complaints and problems people had. One thing I learned is what Proverbs 15.1 says. When some one would come in the office with a problem that upset them and they wanted to vent it out it was best just to listen. In James. 1:19 it says " My dear brother, take note of this; Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry." NIV At first if someone came in the office angry about something that was not true I was totally the opposite. I was slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry. Then the fight would be on and no one would win. I found out if I would just listen to them they would usually answer their own question and solve their own problem. It's not good to fight fire with fire! There was only one person in 24 years that we couldn't reason with.

About 4 years ago I had an appointment with the V.A. in Topeka. It was early in the morning so we left early because it is 125 miles from our home. That morning, about 40 miles into the trip, the fog got so bad we had to slow down and that made us 15 minuets late. We checked in and the doctor said 'You're late and I'm not going to see you'. We told him about the fog but he wouldn't listen, he said 'I have people waiting on me' but there wasn't any one in the waiting room and his next appointment was 1/2 hour away. We didn't argue with him. We thanked him and got ready to leave. He said 'Well, I can see you for a short time'. So we went into his office and all the time he was grumping and growling we just listened and smiled. He told us that he was from New York and he had to get up early that morning and fly to Atlanta, Georgia because he had an apartment there. From there the government would fly him to K.C International three times a week where he would rent a car and drive to Topeka. All this time we were just loving on him. Finally he said 'I'm going to give you a scooter if you can pass the driving test'. (ed. note--Giving an old truck driver a test to drive a scooter??? :-) ) He told us to go to the physical therapy room and to tell them to give me the driving test. So I was taking the driving test and he came down to see how I was doing. They told him I passed the test. He told me to tell them that I wanted a red scooter because the blue ones were ugly and he liked the red one. So I told them I wanted a red scooter and his personality changed, he stayed and talked and joked with us and I'm sure his patients had to wait on him because he was in no hurry to get to his office. My appointment was just for psychiatric evaluation for my Parkinson's and I ended up with a red scooter and got to see the Word of the Lord work and set a man free.

YOU SHALL NOT STEAL Ex.20:15 NIV

One of the Ten Commandments is " You shall not steal". What I will share with you I believe is physical, mental and spiritual. One Saturday night my brother LaRoy and I were in Delphos with some friends at the park. Delphos had a park in the middle of the town square. When the weather was good it was a place where the young people hung out. It had a band stand and a water fountain and play ground equipment, all the things that goes with a park. Most nights were peaceable but once in a while some one would think they were a bad ass but found out they weren't so bad after all. This night was about the same time of the year as now, watermelon time. Some one was talking about stealing watermelons so that led into the planning of how we could "swipe" (not as bad a word as steal) some melons. There was a farmer east of town that always had a big patch of melons. People from all around would come and buy his melons. When the melons were ready he kept a watchful eye on the patch. He would even sleep out in the patch. So five of us decided to go and see if we could get some of his melons. We parked our car about 3/4 mile away from the back side of his patch. Only one problem, there is a creek we had to cross. It was dark, no bright moon, and we couldn't use a flashlight because he would see us so it took some time to get there. We had decided to each get a big melon and meet back at the car. We hadn't been there five minutes when a shot gun went off and he said 'GET OUT OF MY MELONS'!! So we grabbed as big a melon as we could and took off for the car. As we were crossing the creek someone fell in and got wet. I didn't think I would ever make it back to the car with that big melon. We finally got back to the car and four of us had big melons. My brother had a small melon and we all gave him a bad time about it. Someone said 'let's open one and eat it'. We cut one of the big ones and it was green so we cut another one. Finally we had cut all the big ones and they were all green. Then we cut my brother's little one and it was perfect so we had watermelon and stopped giving him a bad time.

When I was county commissioner we had an elderly man come to our office. He said 'I owe you some money' so we asked him what for? He started telling us "Back in 1936 the county had some steel posts by my place to barricade the road and I needed some to fix my fence so I took three of them. Then in 1937 you were building a bridge by my place and there were some planks so I took some to fix my feed bunk". This was in 1995, 69 years later. He was in his ninety's. We tried to tell him that was long ago but he said 'no I need to pay for them'. So we said $5.00 and he paid us and was set free from what had happened years ago.

Thirteen years later the Holy Spirit brought to my mind that I needed to confess to something that happened 46 years ago. It was when I was driving a truck hauling cattle for Morton truck line. We were hauling cattle to St. Joe, Missouri. There were two of us that night and on the way back we stopped at a small road side park to rest. There was a new picnic table in the park. I said 'I could use that table'. My trailer had the tallest gate so we put it in my trailer.

In 2008 the Holy Spirit said 'you have to make that right'. I said to my self 'That was before I was a Christan. It is all under the blood of Christ now so that must be the devil telling me that'. I tried to make all kinds of excuses not to confess my sin. I would think 'I'm a Christan now, I have a church that meets in my home, I had a jail ministry for 35 years and was a county commissioner for 24 years'. I tried every thing to tell my self not to do it. The Holy Spirit kept reminding me 'you tell them'. Finally I couldn't make any more excuses. So I called the state and told the person what I was calling about. He said you will have to speak with this other person. I told him my story and he said 'that is too long ago, just forget it'.

The moral to these stories is " YOU SHALL NOT STEAL" and you won't have to have something on your conscience for 69 or 46 years.

Hard Times

In the early forties dad had a stomach ulcer, one of the worst kind. It got so bad he had to have an operation The only doctor around here that would take the case was a doctor in Halstead. He had a clinic that worked with the hospital. It was the Dr. Hertzler Clinic. It was well known in the mid-west as being the best place to go if you had a serious problem. It was set up so some member of your family could stay close to the hospital because there were patients there from all over the country.

Dad had 2/3 of his stomach removed so he had to spend a lot of time in recovery. This was the most severe one that the doctor had done at that time. I don't remember how long he had to stay at the hosital before coming home. But the operation and hospital and after care cost a lot of money at that time and we had no insurance so that put us in debt big time. So, no way to pay the bill. They set it up on a monthly payment plan.

After dad got on his feet mom got a job in town as a cook in a restaurant. My sister was a freshman in high school so mom got a room in town because we only had one vehicle. Back then there were no school buses, you had to get there on your own. So my sister stayed with mom in town and worked at the restaurant on weekends.

That left us two boys and dad on the farm. Things at home changed. Two boys and a dad wasn't like having mom home. The first big change was food. We should have turned into a potato! Every meal we had fried potatoes that were about half done, a lot of pork and beans, pancakes and shredded wheat for breakfast, and peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches for our school lunch boxes. When we would go visit our friends, the Casey boys, their mom knew that the meals were kind of slim down home so she always offered and expected us to eat with them. My brother and I made it a point to visit them often.

We always looked forward to Saturday night because we got to go to town and mom would have us help peel a 100# of potatoes (they served real potatoes in those days). We would take some of them and make french fries in their machine that cut them. When we got done with that, mom would fix us a hamburger and french fries. Sometimes we would get a piece of pie or a chocolate malt. During the winter we would get chili if they had any left. One thing that stuck in my mind, there would be a knock on the back door of the restaurant, mom would go open the door and there would be some black people traveling through town who would ask if they could buy some food. Mom always fixed them what they wanted.

Sometimes we didn't have a lot to eat and our clothes weren't always real clean to go to school, but that is how we helped pay off the medical bills. Our local doctor told us if we would take care of some of his horses he would deduct it off of his bill. That way we didn't have to put out any cash to him. We boarded his horses for many years.

That is how we got through some hard times.

FAMILY: "SONS ARE A HERITAGE FROM THE LORD, CHILDREN ARE A REWARD FROM HIM." Psa. 127:3

Saturday, Aug. 15th, we gathered at the farm to celebrate life together. Life is something that takes on a whole new meaning when you share it with others. You could sense that something bigger than all of us was going on that day. When family comes together they remember the past, enjoy the present and look to the future. Getting to meet new additions and renew old relationdships are some of the benefits of making it a point to be together.

The weather cooperated beautifullly, the food, shared by all, was outstanding, and the general atmosphere was great. The trampoline got a good workout and in the afternoon a blue-rock shoot was enjoyed by the participants and the ones who watched. Some went over to the Indian cave and were surprised to find that a turkey buzzard had made a nest in it and was sitting on it. So not much exploring was done at the cave.

There were 65 of us gathered from various parts of the U.S. We were sorry that some could not make it but they were remembered and were here in spirit.

The family crest, shown above, is from the registry in 1560. You can see in the coat of arms a web foot which appears in the initial drawing. There is a swan with a silver neck and a red beak. According to our information, this coat of arms showed up in the Catholic church treasury in Glarus, Switzerland in 1799. The family name means 'little trousers' or 'little britches', referring to the lederhosen (leather pants) worn by young boys.

HE WHO KEEPS THE LAW IS A DISCERNING SON. Prov. 28:7a NIV

In the early sixties I was approached by some business men from Minneapolis to run for sheriff of Ottawa county. The only thing I knew about the sheriff's department was when I was in high school one night some of us kids were racing around the town square at Delphos. It was gravel at that time and you could slide around the corners so that was tempting. They had a night watchman that mainly checked the store doors and tried to keep the peace. He had no gun, just a long flashlight that he carried. That night he went in the pool hall and called the Sheriff so they came to Delphos and told us to report to the jail in Minneapolis. We all drove to the jail then they took us in to the booking room and lectured us on the danger of racing in town and then told us to go home.

I didn't know any thing about running for an elective office. The men that asked me to run carried a petition for voters to sign, that way it wouldn't cost me 10 % of my salary and they also said they would take care of the advertising. There was a bunch of high school kids that said they would back me in this campaign. They had a lot of energy, sometimes too much. They were putting up posters for me but when they would see one of the current Sheriff's posters they would take it down and put up one of mine. The Sheriff caught them tearing down his sign so he put a stop to that. There were ads in the paper for me that I never read until the paper came out. It was a fun time because you wouldn't know what the High school kids would come up with to support the election.

When the election day drew closer I thought 'why did I ever tell those men I would run for sheriff?'. I didn't want to be sheriff. The day of election came. We went to the newspaper office where they had a large board out front with all the candidates on it and we watched as they put the votes from each precinct on it. As the night went on you could see it was close. After all the votes were in there was one vote difference between us, he had one vote more than I had. Some people wanted to recount but I was relived so said no recount. That was my first to run for a office in our county.