1st Post "THE PAST IS MYSELF"

INTRODUCTION “THE PAST IS MYSELF”

"The Future is nothing,

But the past is myself,

My own history,

The seed of my present thoughts, the mould of my present disposition"

...Robert Louis Stevenson, Essays of the Road

During the weekend of September 16 & 17, 2005, my High School Graduating Class celebrated a fifty year class reunion.

This reunion was the first experience most of the class had shared together since our graduation in June, 1955.

Only two years prior to the reunion did I have any contact or knowledge of my classmates. Somehow, in some mysterious way, my name was found among the archives of a half century ago and contact was made with me. I did not attend the reunion.

Late summer, 1950, I arrived in “Chicago Land” to attend a private school operating under the auspices of the Dutch or Christian Reformed Church, a devout, straight line, hard nose, no nonsense Calvinistic Religious Group.

My fellow students had been raised in this environment since birth; no television, no movies, no dancing, no anything, except Church Sponsored Events.

I was an outsider from the beginning, “Not Dutch“; all my peers were parented by one or both parents being Dutch, born in the United States or immigrated from Holland. In their culture I was the proverbial square peg trying to fit in a round hole.

Scot-Irish Descent, raised in the hinterlands of Tennessee, unaccustomed to the ways of a great metropolis; this was me, and then as now, “The Past is Myself”.

The curricula, tutelage and overall environment were conducive to receiving a first class education. I have always given credit to the education I received in Chicago Christian High School as the foundation and basis for any achievements I have accomplished in the working world of America. And for all I have received, I am thankful.

I was never satisfied “just seeing the mountain”, I had to climb it, look over the top, peer into the other side and experience all that was happening in the world of forbidden enjoyments. I was not restrained by religious dogma or deep family ties from experiencing the offerings of a setting in the vein of Chicago. Chicago was mine for the asking and when I was not in school or working, I explored the bowels of the city and I “pretty much” saw it all.

My parents had removed me from Chicago in the spring of 1941and planted me in Tennessee; in my twelfth year they again “dug me up” by the roots and transplanted me in the soil of Chicago.

Throughout my pliable and opinion posturing years, Chicago had her way with me. During my five years in residence, I saw more, did more, experienced more and lived more than my colleagues, who since birth, had been deprived of the offerings available to them. “ Victims of the darkness and shadows of organized religion.”

After the fiftieth reunion, those of our generation who were computer literate, began exchanging E-Mails with short biographical sketches of how life had revealed itself to them from graduation until now.

Receiving my first E-Mail from a classmate:

______________________________________________________________________________ Hi.. just returned home last night after a long week of visiting friends and relatives in the Chicago area, it's good to be home. It was really great seeing all the people I went through high school with and but it was especially great to see John Hollender alive and well. I'm thankful that he didn't drop dead in 1955 or 1965. As soon as I returned home I checked my graduation Crusader to check what he wrote, .. both he and Jim DeWitt wrote some pretty tacky stuff but not near as crude as what I wrote in his... anyway, Long Live John Hollender.


Looking back on Friday and Saturday nights, there just wasn't enough time to really reconnect with the people that haven't seen each other in 50 years. I felt like a flat rock being skipped over a pond, touching base momentarily with one person before eagerly greeting another.

My smile muscles were getting fatigued, it was great fun, but I would like to know in a little more detail what peoples lives have been like since high school graduation. Maybe circulating e-mails with anyone willing to participate will help us learn about each other and satisfy our desire to keep in touch.

I'm addressing this e-mail to everyone who included their e-mail address in the reunion booklet that was distributed Saturday evening. You can copy all the names in your address book and make it easy to touch base with the whole class (at least the ones that are wired).

Here is a brief outline of the highlights in my life since June 1955. The first 10 years included a year of looking for myself while doing casual labor, a 4 year hitch in the Navy (air branch) followed by another year of looking for myself while employed at several different jobs, then finding myself by earning a 4 year Engineering Degree while working and being married with one son.

I graduated college 10 years to the day after graduating CCHS. The next 30 years were spent working for Douglas Aircraft (2 years) in Long Beach Calif. and Boeing (28 years) in Seattle where our second son was born.

I accepted a "golden handshake" (retired) in 1995. I traveled extensively for Boeing as a Customer Support Representative and as an Aircraft Accident Investigator. The countries in the Pacific Rim, India, and Central American were my beat.

My wife, Marion, earned a RN degree after the kids started grade school and had a career managing a plastic surgeons office and later in medical sales. Our oldest son died suddenly of cardiac arrest in 1994.

Our four grandkids are a very big part of our lives. We are members of a large Presbyterian Church where my wife attends regularly and I attend occasionally.

If you find yourself in this part of the country, give us a call we could share a restaurant meal and/or we could drive you around and show you some local sights. Note: Alaska Cruise ships now leave from Seattle and that's a great cruise.

I have a couple of good jpeg pictures taken Saturday night, ... if you're interested let me know. I saw a few other people with digital cameras so maybe we can swap them over the internet.

Best WishesElm (aka "Dutch") Huizinga

(NOTE FROM THIS BLOG WRITER: DURING MY 8TH GRADE AND HIGH SCHOOL YEARS, DUTCH HUIZINGA WAS, IN MY OWN MIND, MY BEST OF HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS).

______________________________________________________________________________I Then immediately I received an E-Mail from another of my former classmates.
______________________________________________________________________________

Hi, Former Classmates,What a fabulous time I had at our reunion last weekend!!

I think there was a lot of LOVE in the room, both evenings- for me, anyway. I hope you felt the same.

I am amazed that only 27 of our classmates have email! I find the internet to be so useful, and email such a great way to communicate.During the sharing time, I felt like I was back at good old CCHS.

The years seemed to melt away. And. I had a lot of fun directing such a wonderful choir! I am trying a group email address for the first time, so I don't know if this will reach you or not. Perhaps someone will respond to let me know that you received this.Love,Elsbeth Jean (Beth) (Postema ) Weidenaar

P.S.I began using the name Elsbeth after my father died. I never liked the name, but after he passed away, it became very special to me, because he had named me. It is an unusual name, as you may have noticed, but he learned of the name from his boss on the Rock Island Railroad. My husband met someone with this name in Switzerland, but I have never met anyone with the name of Elsbeth.. I use it on legal documents, on programs when I perform, on bank accounts, etc. Some of my professors in college called me Elsbeth also, which caught me by surprise at times.

______________________________________________________________________________

This writer devoted a great deal of time in deliberation, forethought and consideration before allowing any thoughts to be conveyed via E-Mail to my former classmates. However, once I sent the first “installment” certain individuals were requesting I send more information about my life and what I had experienced over the past half century span of life.

"Since I began the E-mailing to my former classmates, I have received numerous contacts to cease and desist with further clutter in their mailboxes. Since that time, I have removed many names from my address book, so as not to disturb their sanctimonious life. Nothing much has changed since those days when I was incarcerated in Chicago Christian High School, as a round peg trying to fit into a square hole"

The previous paragraph being said, I will continue:

The one “bio” continued to grow until events and experiences of my past began to be shared with individuals who requested the information and stories of the Yellow Creek Valley. I was becoming another “Joel Chandler Harris” with my own “Uncle Remus”.

Presently, “The Past Is Myself” , is incomplete; harboring sixteen chapters of events surrounding the writer’s life with inserted photographs, the book is basically a copy of E-Mails transmitted through requests of former classmates. Also of immense importance is the following message:

Information concerning my ancestry, being conveyed to my readers, is strictly “word of mouth” and passed down from past generations. I have not substantiated nor researched for factual information anything herein written concerning my ancestor’s involvement in military conflicts or other stories which I have not personally witnessed.

All I am doing in these writings is passing along historical data that I personally heard vocalized by members of the family. I have tried to be as accurate as possible, however, the reader knows exactly what I know, any errors in the relation of the stories and happenings prior to 1942 / 1943 are because of erroneous information this writer has heard or “overheard”.

For some reason, beyond my ability to understand, I was never directly given any historical information, concerning either the Adams or McClurkan side of my lineage.

Toward the end of the Twentieth Century I began to know people who were related

to me as second and third cousins, who heretofore, I never realized were of any blood line linked to mine.

After my grandmother’s death, all her personal property, real estate, and historical relics of the family, suddenly vanished. No member of the family contacted me or asked me if I wanted or was willing to purchase, anything belonging to the old cripple woman, who, when I was a child, was the only light in my life; the person who taught me gently of right and wrong, good and evil and what to do and not to do.

Many artifacts and relics dating back into the eighteenth century were commonplace in my childhood. I touched them, felt them, gazed upon them, but, I never owned them and they are now long lost to me.

The beginnings of these writing deal mostly with my relationships on the maternal (Adams) side of my parentage. During my childhood, social intercourse with my paternal (McClurkan) family was almost non existent, however stories of them will be written in future addendums.