I was born on a farm in the Lebanon, Pennsylvania area on March 19, 1948.
At age three my parents moved to the Harrisonburg, Virginia area so dad
could attend college. We lived in the country amidst the plain folk similar
to the Amish and spent a good deal of time at a camp nestled far into
the mountains west of Harrisonburg where my mother's parents grew up.
Thus my love for the mountains and the simple way of life developed. At
age ten or eleven we moved back to Pennsylvania in the Annville area on
a farm my parents purchased where we raised cattle and crops.
The old alma mater is Annville-Cleona and after school I soon married a young lady from Lebanon and purchased a home in Annville where we had a son and daughter. Life took its course and twelve years later I was to suffer a divorce which was the worst heartache I ever knew. This event brought me to my knees and so positioned me directly before my Maker to whom I owe everything.
I was single for four years and then met a fine lady from Lebanon. We married forty-seven days later after our first time out. We were and are deeply in love but love is never easy. It takes work. Two years later we had a daughter. A few years later we designed and physically built a house in the mountains with our own hands near Grantville, Pennsylvania where we presently reside and with God's help will continue. We live a simple life. We heat our home by cutting and splitting wood for heat. We have no furnace. We have no television. I use several antique tractors to grade the dirt lane and keep it usable. We have a small barn we built that houses various animals which we enjoy.
Throughout all of the above I have worked in various vocations. They include auto mechanic, truck driver (over the road tractor trailer driver and tow truck driver), and candy manufacturer worker. In the factory I worked as a production worker, mechanic, supervisor, cross-trained in engineering, set up systems, work order scheduler/pm analyst and managed several maintenance systems. I have worked in both small business and large corporate facilities and know their ways.
Along with all of the above I remember as a teenager I hoped or longed for various things to happen in my life. Some of those things were as follows: Get married, have children, build my own house, excel in my vocation, own/drive a race car, travel to Europe, write a book, etc. These are only a few. I noted these simply to say that it occurred to me one day (somewhere in the age of fifty to fifty-five) while I sat pondering all the things that I had ever dreamed of had come to me and been a part of my life. I realized instantly that even while I was going through life unawares that God was fulfilling my dreams. There is no possible way that I could have made happen all that has happened in my life. God is my everything. My Maker has given me life as he has to all but He helped me realize that it was He who gave me the dreams and then fulfilled them in, with and for me.
My final prayer and request to all or any that read this is that you purpose in your heart to know God, to understand Him and His principles and love Him with all that is within you. If you do this you will see God keep you, protect you, bless you, feed you, help you, love you and perform anything that you might desire that is honest and upright through time. My previous fifty-five years are experience and proof to me that God works for every man in every way and ways that we do not know. My family and friends and enemies, love God with all your heart. He is our life and all there is. Let us love Him by learning what His Son has done so we know Him! Amen? Amen!