When I Was a Camp Follower

As a young husband and father in my 30s, I turned to Jesus and became a Christian. For many years, one of the biggest encouragements I had was the music of artist Steve Camp. Well-known for his strong views that Christian musicians are called to make direct, uncompromising music that confronts the world with the message of the Scriptures, Camp was like an older brother to me, even though we never met.

From the sympathetic reflection of He's All You Need through the criticism of Living in Laodicea to the strident rhythm of Taking Heaven by Storm, Camp provided the soundtrack for a victorious Christian life.   His most resonant song, He Covers Me, was later made into a video with scenes from New York City on 9/11 (where his brother, Danny, was one of the rescuers) and was broadcast around the world.

Born to Christian parents in Wheaton (Illinois), Camp accepted the Lord at the age of five.  In college, he received intense working knowledge of Scripture and theology, mastering the Greek language, and becoming convinced of the truth of Orthodox historical Reformed theology in the tradition of John Owen.

Camp's singing career began when he played acoustic guitar and sang backups on Scott Wesley Brown's 1977 album, I'm Not Religious, I Just Love The Lord, one year before he went on his own. Subsequent close bonds with legendary Christian singer/songwriter Larry Norman and the late Keith Green helped Camp define his direction as an uncompromising Christian artist.

Camp's popularity now continues mostly in his Christian writing addressing current trends and matters of Reformed Theology. He started Audience One Ministries and a blog covering Christian music, biblical study, reformation, and revival.

The Stars Are Bright, Deep in the Heart of Illinois History...

There's no cell phone reception for almost anyone at Fort de Chartres, but that's okay with us. We are enjoying the full moon, quiet, and bright stars over the American Bottoms south of Columbia in Randolph County. This weekend is the 39th annual Rendezvous, an opportunity to recreate life in the 1750s (or 1780s, or 1820s) in what would some day be Illinois.

Fort de Chartres is the last of three eighteenth-century forts by that name erected near the Mississippi River by France's colonial government. From 1720 to 1763, French administration of the Illinois area was centered at the forts, built successively over a 40-year period on or near the same site. The stone fort, built in the 1750s and abandoned in 1771, has been partially reconstructed to provide a glimpse of life under the French regime by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

Rendezvous is a re-creation of the traditional French fur trapper’s holiday of the Eighteenth Century and is one of the oldest and largest events of its kind in the United States. Thanks to an invitation from our friends Jim & Carol Agne, we were able to enjoy buckskinners, militiamen, artisans, and entertainers as they celebrated how our forefathers lived life in the shadows of the great fortress known as Fort de Chartres.

This year was a particular joy since former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich had closed the fortress site in 2008--only to have new Governor Pat Quinn yield to the requests of thousands of Illinois citizens (and the dictates of common sense) and restore the historic site to operation. The weather was perfect this year--not too hot and not too cold--and we enjoyed our visit...maybe we will bring our grandkids next year...

The Song That Started It All (Maybe)

The first settlers of Monroe County, Illinois were pioneers from the territories of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware who arrived about 1783, but their settlements were scattered following bloody skirmishes with the natives. The settlers who came into this area between 1793 and1795 probably reasoned that this area was a favorable place to settle as the nearly 700-feet high rise between the Bottoms and the bluffs made the plateau safe from floods, protected from storms by a rise of hills on the north and east, and abundant with clear spring water.

The origin of the name "Columbia" for this place has been the subject of much discussion and conjecture among local residents. The name Columbia came into popularity at the close of the American Revolution with the sentiment that Columbus, the discoverer of America, should be memorialized. The first time the name Columbia appeared in legislation was the legislature act of the State of New York, giving the name to the Columbia University on May 1st, 1784.

During the American Revolution, a military chaplain named Timothy Dwight composed a song entitled "Columbia, Columbia to Glory Arise" which idealized the new republic as the symbol of liberty and patriotism:

Columbia! Columbia! to glory arise,
The queen of the world, and the child of the skies,
Thy genius commands thee, with raptures behold,
While ages on ages thy splendors unfold:
Thy reign is the last and the noblest of time,
Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime;
Let crimes of the east ne'er encrimson thy name,
Be freedom, and science, and virtue thy fame.

Columbia subsequently became a popular name. Since the early settlers of this area had fought in the Revolution, it is possible they heard the song and decided it was a patriotic and appropriate name for the town they founded: Columbia, Illinois.

A Memory in Only Six Words

I've been doing a lot of work recently with Twitter, a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Twitter message postings--called "tweets" in the jargon of the site--are limited to 140 characters.

As a former English major, of course, it hasn't taken me long to draw a comparison between "tweets" and haiku, a poetic form from Japanese culture. Haiku requires an author to "paint" a mental image in the reader's mind with only seventeen (17) syllables over just three (3) lines of poetry.

Shortly after I posted my observation on Facebook, my friend Morf Morford directed me to another venue for those of us who, inexplicably perhaps, long to test ourselves in the verbal arts: six-word memoirs. Hailed by some as "American haiku," six-word memoirs sprung from efforts of SMITH Magazine, which began asking readers for their short life stories in 2006.

I'm taking the challenge, and my results will be posted on Facebook. As we left this morning to visit some estate sales with my middle daughter and her husband, I posted: "Antiques, knick knacks, bargains--Estate Sale"!

Short of the Finish Line

My old friend Dave Hughes told me he had seen Gerry Lindgren at an event in Spokane a few years ago, and I was surprised.

Gerald ("Gerry") Paul Lindgren (born March 9, 1946) is widely recognized as having been the best high school long distance runner in the United States at the time, and perhaps the best ever. In 1964, in his senior year at John Rogers High School, Gerry ran 5000 meters in 13 minutes and 44 seconds, setting a U.S. high school record for the distance that would remain unbroken for 40 years, until Galen Rupp ran 13:37.91 on July 30, 2004. Among his other records he established that year was his time of 8:40.0 in an indoor 2-mile race that shattered the previous U.S. national high school mark. Over forty years later this remains the fastest U.S. schoolboy 2-mile time ever run indoors (and the third fastest time indoors or outdoors).

On July 25, 1964, Gerry outran two seasoned Russian runners, Leonid Ivanov and Anatoly Dutov, to win the 10,000 meter event in the US-USSR Track Meet in Los Angeles. In the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, he finished ninth in the 10,000 meters behind gold medalist Billy Mills after having sprained an ankle during training. Gerry had previously beaten Mills in the Olympic Trials that year. Mills later said that a healthy Gerry would have won gold. Four years later, Gerry tried to make the 1968 Olympic team but finished 5th in the 10,000 meters and 4th in the 5,000 meters in the Olympic Trials at Echo Summit, just missing the team at both distances. Gerry also competed against Mills in the 1965 AAU Nationals meet, where they raced the 6 mile. Mills won with a diving lean, while both were timed in 27:11.6, a new World Record shared by Mills and Gerry.

Gerry attended Washington State University in Pullman, where he majored in political science and minored in Russian language. While at Washington State, Gerry won 11 NCAA Championships (his only loss at an NCAA championship was to Jim Ryun in the 1968 indoor 2-mile race.) He was one of only two people to ever defeat Steve Prefontaine in an NCAA Championship. (Gerry won the 1969 NCAA Cross Country Championship in which 1968 NCAA champion Mike Ryan finished second and Prefontaine third.) He competed sporadically after graduating from college but without any notable success.

I met Gerry in 1970 when he was back at Rogers working as a motivational speaker. He had a strong influence upon my friends and I at that time. In the summer of 1970, both he and I took part in a fun run that was the precursor to the Lilac Bloomsday Run. We idolized him as an athlete and a person, but he was always distant and somewhat moody.

Later, Gerry moved to the Seattle area where he started a chain of sports stores called The Stinky Foot. In 1980, to his family's utter shock, he left a note in his home kitchen saying "get a divorce, sell the business" and abandoned his wife and children.

Today, Gerry lives in Honolulu, where he continues to run regularly and is active in the Hawaii running community. He coached the University of Hawaii's women's track and field team 2005-2007. He still has no contact with the family he deserted.

I remain fond of Gerry to this day, but sad to observe that--despite his outstanding athletic achievements--his race seems to have fallen short of the finish line.

A (Virtual) Trip Through Spain

My wife, Anne, and I love travel, especially international travel. Our income being what it is, much of the travel we do is only in our dreams...

Today Anne handed me an article from the Lindenwood Legacy, their student publication, in which Andrew Tessmer describes his whirlwind trip with other students across the Iberian Peninsula and across the Mediterranean to Morocco. She asked me to plan an itinerary for us using his trip as a template.

The trip begins in Madrid. The capital of Spain since 1562, Madrid is located at the geographic center of the Iberian Peninsula. Because of its central location and high altitude, its climate is characterized by warm dry summers and cool winters. Madrid is a city of great monuments and cultural attractions, including a medieval center dating back to the Habsburg Empire and the Prado Museum, but Madrid is also a lively metropolis of nearly 3 million people, offering many pubs, cafes, discotheques and nightclubs open late into the night.

Next, the trip takes us to the Alcázar, a castle near Segovia. Originally a fortress, the Alcázar has also been a royal palace, the site of Philip II's wedding to his fourth wife, Anne of Austria, and more recently a military academy. In the upper part of the city, the oldest foundations have been identified as Roman. At the top of its look-out tower, visitors can see far across the entire peninsula.

From ancient residence to modern means of transportation, the trip now takes place via the Talgo, a high-speed train. At speeds up to 200 mph, the trip reaches the Costa del Sol on the Mediterranean. Our trip lingers in the town of Malaga, which has more to offer than just seaside and sunshine! It was founded by the Phoenicians, and was of great importance in the Moorish epoch, and so highly interesting historical remains are left in the town itself as well as in the surrounding province.

Next, the trip we imagine boards a high-speed ferry from Algeciras to Ceuta in North Africa via Acciona Trasmediterránea. The fast ferry takes approximately 40 minutes to make the crossing.

Ceuta is an enclave in mainland Morocco, administered by the Cádiz Province. It is one of two remaining fragments of long-established Spanish presence in North Africa.

Sounds like a fascinating, pleasant trip. Maybe one day we will make it in reality!

A Sweet Read About the Cold War

As may be evident from earlier posts, I love narrative history, and I read part or all of as many as 100 books each year. So it's saying something to reveal that my favorite book of all those I read in 2008 was The Candy Bombers.

Three years after the end of World War II, the American occupation of Germany was failing. The Germans were becoming less--not more--attracted to democracy. Communism was on the march, overthrowing one government after another. Faith in America was at a low ebb. Then, intent on furthering its domination of Europe, the Soviet Union cut off all land and sea access to West Berlin, prepared to starve one of the largest cities in the world into submission unless the Americans abandoned it. Soviet forces hugely outnumbered those of the Allies.

The choices before the western allies seemed to be limited to just three:

1. Abandon the city to the Russians;
2. Allow the Berliners (our recent enemies) to starve; or
3. Start World War III.

Andrei Cherny’s book is a gripping, suspenseful story about how the United States struggled to help the citizens of West Berlin survive Soviet tyranny. Cherny succeeds in making the harrowing days of 1948-49 in Berlin come alive through an exhaustive, often absorbing and lucid account.

For those who were born subsequent the end of the Cold War, it may be hard to appreciate that the period was every bit as tense as the days after 9/11. In response to terror, Harry Truman, Gail Halvorsen and the other characters in this book defined how a great nation could act as a benevolent world power standing up for freedom. Cherny has produced a book that lives up to what many consider to have been the American moment in history.

This book should be required reading for every American citizen.

Graham Crackers & Flight

As a boy in the early 1960s, my Saturday morning routine was to get up, fill a bowl with graham crackers (crumbled, naturally) covered with milk, then sit down in front of the television set to watch the kids' shows.

My all-time favorite show was Fireball XL-5. Set in the year 2063, this series charted the interplanetary adventures of a spacecraft and its crew: handsome pilot Steve Zodiac, glamorous space doctor Venus, a math genius and a robot. It was filmed using a "new" process called "Supermarionation"--which was a faux scientific name for using puppets. While this may seem a little silly today, in the 1960s (at least for a kid) it made for a gripping program--so much so that I did not remember (until reviewing the show recently on YouTube) that it was filmed in black & white.

My flights of fancy were not limited to space. Another favorite show of the time was Sky King, the adventures of Arizona rancher and aircraft pilot Schuyler "Sky" King. Although it had strong cowboy elements, King always captured criminals and even spies or found lost hikers using his plane.

Looking back, I would add the following footnotes to my Saturday morning experience:

I'll bet my parents were very glad that I made my own "breakfast" and kept quiet for a couple extra hours on Saturday morning;

Fireball XL-5 was made in 1962 by the husband and wife team of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who later used real people in the production of arguably one of the best sci-fi shows of all time: Space 1999;

Sky King apparently was based on a real-life person: Jack Cones, the Flying Constable of Twenty nine Palms during the 1930s.

Welcome to 2009--especially since most of us had such a miserable 2008! Like most everyone else, I have spent the past few days reviewing the old and reflecting on what's ahead, resulting in the following few resolutions:

Stay the Course

This blog has been rather badly neglected for some time now, and I intend to keep it more current in the coming year. I need to take more to heart the rubric I've been sharing with all of the local business owners and managers I advise: "Stay the course!" 2008 has been a shake-up in all our lives, but especially in mine, and I intend to develop more consistency in good habits--from using the WaterPik to charting our finances to praying--in 2009

For Auld Lang Syne, My Friends

We have quite a few good friends we've made over the years, many of whom (especially now) live in other parts of the country. I'm making it a commitment this year to get back in touch and/or keep in touch throughout 2009. I've already been using LinkedIn partially to this purpose, and I have recently opened a Facebook account to that end, as well.