Forty Years Ago

It's time for a little nostalgia. I grew up in Plymouth, Michigan, which is just west of Detroit. In many ways, the Plymouth that I knew in the 1960s is quite similar to the City of Owatonna, Minnesota, where we have lived for the past twenty-three years. This is a current photo of Owatonna's Central Park:


Just to the north of Owatonna's Central Park is a bank building designed by Louis Sullivan. Folks from all over stop by to take photographs and check out the interior. It is an architectural masterpiece.



Compare Plymouth's Central Park with Owatonna's. They are strikingly similar. When I was a teenager in Plymouth, one of the big activities of the year was the Fall Festival, which was held on Labor Day Weekend, as I recall. There would be food and all kinds of gala activities over the weekend.


At any rate, I was a high school senior exactly forty years ago. Our high school building had been around for decades, and there had been renovation and modernization over the years. I remember my Latin teacher (yes, I took Latin in high school) describing how the building had burned in 1918 when SHE had been a student. Since I graduated in 1967, Plymouth has built three new high schools in conjunction with the nearby community of Canton. My old high school is now Plymouth Central Middle School. This is what my old high school looks like today:


During the spring of 1967, I enjoyed all of the perks of being a senior and making preparations for graduating in June. I remember two or three significant events in the midst of all the hoopla. One of the big decisions that I had to make was where I would go to college. I had applied to Schoolcraft Community College and to the University of Michigan. Schoolcraft had accepted me without any conditions, but the U of M accepted me conditionally. I suspect that my GPA in high school was not quite high enough for their standards.

Of course, my parents wanted me to consider going to a Christian college, and I was certainly open to that possibility. Since Dad and Mom had ties to Bob Jones University, we decided to make the trip down to Greenville. We visited campus during the week of Bible Conference. I stayed in the dorm and attended several of the services, and it was during that week that I heard Ian Paisley speak for the first time. I went by the Admissions Office and spoke with David Christ, who was in charge of Admissions. I thought it interesting that someone with that name was employed by BJU, but he and I have been friends for many years in spite of that fact. The rest, as they say, is history. I was accepted by BJU and of course returned to Greenville that fall as a freshman. I will write more on that experience in another post.

When I returned to Plymouth, I went on another trip, this time to New York City. I was in a high school class called International Relations, and one of the perks of that class was the opportunity to visit the United Nations. So the members of our class boarded the train in Ann Arbor and made our way overnight to Grand Central Station in New York City. We spent about four days in NYC, visiting the United Nations and seeing the sights. We visited the Statue of Liberty and Rockefeller Center, among other things. We also took the subway (at night, no less) down to Greenwich Village, which was most interesting. But our sojourn in NYC came to an end, and we soon made our trek back to Michigan.

As graduation approached, one more memorable event occurred. During our final exams, the Six Day War between the Israelis and the Arabs broke out. Since I had just been to the United Nations, I followed the proceedings with great interest. I was particularly impressed with the diplomacy of Abba Eban, Israel's foreign minister. It was finally time for graduation. The graduation ceremonies were held in those days at the PHS football field, and on June 16, 1967, I received my high school diploma. I was ready to conquer the world, but as I will discuss in future posts, my life's history took quite a few twists and turns during the next forty years.