Bon Fet

A couple nights ago I started going through the nearly 1,000 messages in my inbox and cleaning out my e-mail. As I started with the oldest I quickly came upon a couple things my dad had forwarded and then came to an e-mail my mom sent, which she had found when she was going through dads computer a couple months after he'd passed away, of tidbits my dad had written about himself. Anyway, might be needless to say that I was immediately in tears. Miss him so much!
On today, his birthday, I wanted to share that e-mail to honor him and give you a little peek into why I love and miss him so much...

1. One of my collagraph prints, titled “The East Window,” was on display at the Smithsonian in Washing DC for a week during the early 70,s and is now part of the permanent collection of the McKnight Fine Arts Center.

2. As a kid growing up we never went to movies and we had no television. My parents got their first TV after I left for college.

3. I was born in Hollywood, California.

4. I went to college for 8 years and have two college degrees and no BA or BS to show for it — only a BRE and BFA from Grace University and Wichita State University.

5. I lived in Cali, Colombia, South America for eight months working as a graphic designer in the Charles Chapman Publication Center.

6. I never watch MSM (Mainstream Media).

7. In 1988 I was a delegate to the Missouri Republican Convention in St Louis.

8. I grew up on a farm and learned to drive a stick-shift before I knew there was anything else.

9. I have survived two car accidents where the cars were totaled. In one I landed upside down in a dry creek and the only way out was though the broken back window. The only thing that hurt was the tops of my thighs — that happened when I disconnected my seatbelt and I dropped from my hanging position and my legs hit the steering wheel.

10. The first four years of my elementary education took place in a one-room school house. It was a mile-and-a-half walk.

11. I was never taught phonics in school. I was taught the new, progressive, “whole word” or “look-say” method. 

12. I was in high school walking past the drinking fountain when I heard the announcement that President Kennedy had been assassinated.

13. It was in a creek on my grandfather’s farm that I learned to swim — naked.

14. As a small child I would often stray from the house and set my mother in a panic many times. One time she found me a half-mile down our country road on my tricycle. When she asked me where I was going, I told her, Grandma’s house (it was only 30 miles away).


15. I graduated from Berean Academy (high school) in Elbing, Kansas #23 in a class of 32 — nope, not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

16. My first car was a 1950 Pontiac coupe. My dad bought it for $50.00 and then spent $100.00 on four new tires.

17. I was on both the year book and paper staff while attending Berean and Grace. 

18. Was able to pay my school bills at Wichita State when I applied for and was awarded the paid position of Art Editor of the yearbook. Gloria Watson was the editor and we published the year book under budget — so the next year the board of publications slashed our budget — figuring we had way too much money to spend and were just wasting it!

19. I have been to New York City, Washington D.C. and the San Diego zoo twice. 

20. In the forth grade my mother taught a weekly Child Evangelism Good News Bible club in the public school I attended. No one protested. Imagine!

21. I took piano lessons in grade school, high school and college and no, I still can’t play worth a hoot.

22. Children truly are a blessing from the Lord and I have come to appreciate what a blessing big families are. Becky and I have both lost a parent and a sibling. I only have my mother and one brother left in my immediate family, Becky has a father, brother and three sisters.

23. I believe Catholics are more pro-life than “evangelicals” because actions speak louder than words. Think about it.

24. I am so glad that Becky agreed to home-school our children. It was not her idea. May her children rise up and call her blessed (Proverbs 31:28). 

25. I know 9-11 was an inside job. And I applaud Mark Cahill, author and Summit Ministries instructor, for his courage as one of the featured speakers in standing up at the November 6, 2004 Worldview Weekend in Kansas City and speaking the truth about what happened that day.