The Moment I was born again. . . . .
A story you may have heard . . . .Dad towards the end of his life, got
religious in a different way than he had been. He had always been a pretty good
Catholic, but towards the end he got really evangelical. Dad had been convinced
it seems since I was little that I would be his one son who would be a priest .
.another story later . . .so he and I would discuss religion a lot. One night
that the dinner table, we had just finished prayers, and Dad asked if Jesus
Christ was my personal savior. I was in my early to mid-twenties. I said “No
Dad, Jesus didn’t come to save me, he came to save the world, not just me.” We
continued to argue, but he didn’t raise his voice, he just emphasized how
important a personal relationship with Jesus was and is.” I continued to talk
about general salvation, instead of discussing my personal salvation. Dad got
up from the table and walked back to his bedroom, and returned and sat down.
Dad sitting at the end of the table, I on his right, and Mom and his left, Dad
lifted up his .38 special pistol, cocked it and pointed at my head. He said, “
I am going to ask you one last time, do you accept Jesus Christ as your
personal savior.” I had never seen Mom’s
eyes so big, and her mouth open so big. I looked into Dad’s eyes, and saw a
seriousness and a coldness that told me this was not a joke. I spoke, “Yes Dad,
I accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior.” Dad uncocked the gun and got up
and went to his room to put the gun away. Mom looked at me, and said, “I think
I need to talk to the doctor about Dad’s medicine.” I was still upset and
trying not to shake, and was a little angry, I said, “Gee, Mom you think so !!”
We did make some changes to Dad’s meds, but he never spoke about that incident
again.
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The Holidays were important to Dad. He loved having everyone home for the
holidays. This is just a quick story about a Thanksgiving. . . One Thanksgiving when Paul and I were in
college we had to stay until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I think it
snowed that night, and so we decided to wait until the next morning to go home
to Stapleton. It was Thanksgiving Day. Figured if we had trouble at least it was in the daylight. We
left our apartment south of UNK, and headed west on highway 30. We hadn’t even
got to Bico’s and I know we had seen a number of cars almost wreck or spin off
the road. Just a little further we saw a pickup slide over in front of a plow
truck and just explode when it crashed into it. I don’t think anyone was
injured, but we decided the first chance we had we would turn around and go back
to the apartment. We found a side road to turn around on, but then slid into
the ditch. I pushed the pickup out while Paul fought to keep it on the road,
which was a sheet of ice. We finally made it back to our apartment and called
Mom and Dad and told them, we were staying in Kearney for Thanksgiving. Mom
sounded disappointed, but said alright, she was glad we were safe. We started watching a movie or football and
thinking about what we were going to eat, it had been probably been a couple of
hours since we called the folks. Suddenly there was a knock on the door, we
open the door, and there is Dad. He was shaking his head, “ I can’t believe any
of my boys, would be afraid of a little ice. O.K. get your gear dumb asses you
are going home for Thanksgiving.” Dad
drove us a ways and then stopped and made Paul drive, and told him how to drive
on the ice and snow. Then he later stopped and made me drive. I almost put us
in the ditch a couple of times. I wanted to laugh because I didn’t think his
advice made much sense. “Doug the reason you are having trouble is because you
are driving too damn slow, speed up. The faster you go, the more times your
tire is on the pavement.” We did get to Stapleton in one piece. The last of the
trip, Dad told us how much it meant to Mom having us home for Thanksgiving, but
when we got there, Mom still didn’t seem too happy about us being out on the
icy roads . .I think it may have meant more to Dad than Mom. . . .I still hate driving on ice, and make
Janice drive any time it gets slick. I never mastered the speed part of driving
on ice.
Another Dad story about the weather. It must have snowed about 8 to 10 inches Saturday night into Sunday morning at Stapleton one Sunday. I got up and was happy, and said "yay!! No Church ." Dad said, "Like Hell, there is church, we are going to Church, and it will probably take us a while, so lets get going. It did take a while, Paul, Dan and I, got out and pushed, and dug. I don't
know how many times we got stuck. "I told Dad, I doubted Father would even be there . .It was Father Straight Arrow . .and when we got there, he was there. The whole congregation included
us, and Jack Smith and his three kids. Father Straight Arrow's sermon was long and angry, and it was about how worthless we were as a community when a little snow would keep us from mass. Father John finally finished up and we had communion and mass ended and Father started in again
on people not making church . .And Dad was a bit tired of it. He said "son of a bitch Father, I don't know how many times the kids had to get out and dig to make it here today. But I would like to know, why in the hell you are yelling at us. We made to mass. You ought have saved that sermon for next week, and let everyone else have it. Jack Smith laughed and laughed, and anytime I saw him after that, he would bring up the time my Dad gave Father Straight Arrow hell . . . .
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A Christmas Story that comes to mind and some random Christmas memories . . . . .
One Christmas season I won't soon forget was an event that happened after Christmas. I don't remember what I got for presents that Christmas but this event was seared in my memories.
I think it was either Christmas night, or the next night, I was in bed but woke up and decided to get a drink of water. I remembered on my way to the bathroom to get a drink, that we got bottles of pop for Christmas. Mine was half full, in the icebox down stairs, so I decided to go get a drink down stairs. Everyone was asleep or in bed. Maybe some of the older kids were just out somewhere because a lamp was on down in the front room. I went down to get my drink, but as I went by the dining room table i saw the bowl of nuts. Every year Santa brought nuts in all our stockings. We would usually put them all in a big bowl to share. I loved Brazil nuts (we called those nuts something different at the time), but they were hard to crack, so someone older would crack them for me. But I really, really wanted a Brazil nut. I decided i could do it myself. So I got the nut cracker and grabbed a Brazil nut, and tried to crack it, but it was really really hard to crack. I tried to apply more pressure, so I put the nut down between my legs and squeezed with all my might. The Brazil nut didn't break but somehow popped out of the nutcracker, being only in my underwear, the nutcracker caught the end of my pee thing, as I was squeezing as hard as I could. I felt or heard a pop, and enormous pain. I screamed and screamed and jumped around and around. It hurt so bad, I couldn't stop moving. Dad came running down the stairs along with everyone else. It seemed my screaming had woke the entire house. I was crying so bad, no one could understand me. Dad finally grabbed me, and asked me what was wrong . . .I told him I had cracked my pee thing . . Dad looked and then started laughing, everyone started laughing. Dad got some ice to put on it, and we went to bed. The next day, everything down in that area was black and blue, and it hurt. My pride as much as anything else. When Uncle Cliff and Aunt Grace came over, Dad made me take down my pants to show them. Cliff laughed and laughed and said he had heard of the Nutcracker Ballet, but never knew what it was about. Dad said my ballet was something to see. After that my taste for Brazil nuts sorta faded for a while. Decided walnuts were my new favorite . .
Memories
-there were these six or seven glass birds we would clip to the tree. each kid got to pick one out to clip. They were beautiful. I would crawl under the tree and just look up at the birds and all the lights.
-one year we pulled taffy, but Mom had forgotten to tell Dan and I to wash our hands. Our taffy was a batch of gray and black taffy. . .It stayed on the back porch, while all the other taffy got put inside.
-Mom's dog, Misty, an Irish Setter, did not like being left at home alone. When ever we went some place, that dog would go get stuff belonging to the last person to leave the home. On Christmas Eve we all piled into the car at the same time. I remember Mom commenting wondering whose stuff Misty would get. When we got back from Midnight Mass, Misty evidently couldn't decide who to blame and had just decided to blame everyone, as she tore down the Christmas tree and opened a number of presents. Dad was not a happy camper.
-we also had the angels and candles where you lit the candles and it would make the angels spin . .loved that.
-Grandpa and Grandma Jensen had a little tinsel tree, I would always help them put up. It didn't have any lights, just round Christmas ornaments.
-as a family we used to sing Carols, and Mom would play the piano. Mom and Dad even bought some music books, so everyone would have a copy of the lyrics . . . .
As I get older and older, and closer to the end of my life, than to the beginning, I realize there are hundreds if not thousands of family stories I should write down and pass on. So I have decided to try to pass some on.
Believe
Ethan was listening to a CD (Texas Tenors) this Christmas Season, and it had a song on it from the movie "Polar Express" entitled "Believe". For some reason it sparked this memory and story about Mom and her beliefs.
I, once again, had something physically wrong with me, and Dad was trying to talk me into allowing him to perform one of his wonderful cures. This time I was determined to stand my ground, and told him I thought I would go see Dr. Seng about whatever the problem was. I remember Dad sneered at me and said, "You know if Dr. Seng had gotten his way, you wouldn't even be here." Then more to himself, than to me, he said, he was sure proud of Mom standing up to Dr. Seng.
I asked Mom about it, and she said, "Oh, Dr. Seng, said I shouldn't get pregnant again after I had John." Then she started talking about Paul, and how the doctors thought he was twins, and how hard it had been on her. I said, "Then you had me, and Dan." Mom laughed and said yep, and Dr. Seng had told me it would probably kill me to have any more kids after Paul. I was a bit shocked, and confused, I said, "Mom, why would you do that?" "Risk your life like that?"
Mom gave me the look, the look that said, it is so disappointing and sad, you are such a dumb ass . .(I got that look lots by the way) and said, "It really is simple Doug, you either believe in God, or you don't." Well this answer was not satisfying to me, and I continue to pester her, and she added this. "Whatever happens in my life, I know Jesus Christ will never abandon me, He promised. But we can abandon Him, and it is like I said, it is simple, you either believe in God, or you don't."
Having battled the question why, for my child, my own health problems, and all the hard to accept events which happen in a life time, I have been blessed to have been able to lean on these two lessons from Mom. You either believe in God, or don't, and Jesus will never abandon me, as long as I don't abandon him. All I have to do is believe. . . .
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