James Christensen:  

Sometimes I feel like I have had several lifetimes, not one. There was the lifetime of me as little Eddie, a curly haired, freckle faced, red headed kid in southwest Missouri, playing with my brothers & cousins, hiding in the long grass, sleeping over on my grandparents' farms, fishing for perch with a cane pole & a can of worms, swimming in cold, clear creeks & rivers, pulling around my Radio Flyer, putting my hand prints in the wet concrete of the driveway & having great adventures. Then there was the lifetime of early school days. There's the very clear memory of my first day of school. Walking along a wide, long concrete footpath, the sun shining bright, holding my mother's hand, the red brick building looming up in front of me. I loved my first grade teacher, Mrs. Gum. So kind & loving. Her husband had been the principal of the school when my mother attended. Then there was the time of wandering in my middle childhood years. Six months here, a year there, in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, Iowa. Tagging along with my two brothers & mother as my father sought to find his niche. We even stayed 3 years in one town, Ord, Nebraska! Got my first & only parakeet in Ord. It lived for 10 years. It learned a pretty impressive vocabulary, too! Now, Nebraska, what can I say? Ever watch the Clint Eastwood movie, "Unforgiven?" At one point, the character, "English Bob," played by Richard Harris, remarks to the character, "Little Bill Daggett," played by Gene Hackman, "Little Bill, I thought you were dead." Little Bill replies, "Yeah, I thought I was too, until I found out I was in Nebraska." For me, that pretty much sums it up. The land of freezing blizzards, blistering summers & the autumn & spring bonuses of thunder storms, lightning strikes, hail & tornadoes. But, like every other place we had lived, we shook the dust from our feet & left Ord behind. The dogs barked. The caravan moved on. Middle childhood ended. High school years began. I evolved from being "Little Eddie" to just plain "Ed." I thought "Ed" was more grown up. More macho. In 9th grade, I desperately wanted to be more macho, as 14 year old boys do. A new lifetime began, & it began in Iowa. A year in Adel. Don't remember much about Adel, other than a freezing night camping on the river ice in the dead of winter. It had something to do with the Explorer Scouts & having an adventure with mates. Then came 7½ months in Minburn. For some reason, Minburn looms large in my memory. It was tiny. Sixty in the high school. Maybe 15 in my sophomore class. Good close friends. It was a full life for a 15 year old boy. Chasing around on my Schwinn bike with my friends. Learning to roller skate on the open concrete pad in the town center. Playing silly, fun games in the church youth group. Having sock hops in the school gym to the music of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard & Fats Domino. Playing clarinet in the school band. Playing basketball on the school team. Yearning for a girl friend, but not finding the right one & not knowing what to do with one, if found. Then came the call from Father to move to California. It was April 1957. Brother Paul had joined the USAF in Nov 1956. Father had gone to California to establish a beach head for us. The moving crew consisted of Mother, younger brother Dean & me. Mother drove brother Paul's ancient Ford sedan with courage & determination, through snow, slush & rain, dragging a badly designed & dangerously constructed home made trailer across the American continent. We made it, but the trailer didn't. It lost a wheel near the Painted Desert. Miraculously, the car was undamaged, & we carried on to California. Father's first words were, "Where's my trailer?" April 1957 was the beginning of my love affair with California. The sun shined with a brilliance that seemed unimaginable after the dull winter skies of Iowa. Humming birds buzzed past my bedroom window. California towhees flitted about on their daily errands. California poppies decorated the roadsides. I was introduced to artichokes & avocados and Ranch Dressing. The girls were tall, slim, tanned & blond. They looked like they were nieces of Doris Day. I dated one of them for a while. Sandy. But then she dumped me. All part of the rough & tumble of growing up. I would dump a girl or 2 myself later. I enrolled in Carpinteria Union High School (GO you Warriors!). Maybe the first week of school, the PE teacher had us don swim suits, run the half mile or so to the beach, dive into the freezing Pacific surf, run back to school & luxuriate in a steaming hot soapy shower. I loved it. The school had only 300 students, but what talent there was among the students & what wonderful teachers, too! Marjorie Holmes for English and French. King Feiock for math. Larry DeLong for science. And all under the able leadership of Denny Baylor. What a wonderful choice for a high school principal! "Young people need to be allowed to make their own mistakes," he said. How true. How else is one going to learn the consequences of one's choices, which is, after all, the basis for responsible living & personal development. I worked for pocket money as a kitchen hand at the Pine Haven Cafe, owned & operated by Ed and Emma Paluch. Ed called me "Red." "Red, you do a good, careful job, but you've got to learn to move faster!" The story of my life! I earned enough money to buy a Vespa motor scooter. It was great for whizzing around the foothills & commuting to school. I could fill the fuel tank for 50 cents. I lived only 28 months in Carpinteria, but it was one of the most important 28 months in my life. My parents stayed on for another 42 years. Father's ashes rest in the little cemetery on the edge of Carpinteria, in view of the gorgeous foothills. So, my time at Carpinteria came to an end. The lifetime of high school was finished. "Free at last," I remember saying to myself after graduation. "Free at last." It took a while to sink in. I had dreams that summer of unfinished school assignments & deadlines for exams. But eventually they faded away. A new life began. University life. It was off to UC Berkeley (GO you Bears!) in the autumn of 1959. I hitched a ride with my best high school friend, Allen Cox, also on his way to Berkeley. There I was, a very little duck in a very big pond (enrolments of 17,000). UC Berkeley. The (not so) little red school house. I loved it. I was never a radical or revolutionary. But I loved to hear the likes of Mike Tigar, in all of his eloquence, hold forth at lunch time at Sather Gate, drawing comparisons between the views of Clark Kerr (the university president) & Mussolini. I loved my professors & instructors. Robert Heizer in anthropology. Walter Cannon in history. Margaret Webb in English. Mlle Dufrenoy in French. "Du courage, monsieur. A haut voix!" I met my first wife at UC Berkeley. Of course, she looked like a niece of Doris Day's. Blond, bright, vivacious, loads of fun. She had a name that sounded like an alias. Joan Smith. And a twin, Jean. Huntington Beach girls. Our first date was Haloween 1959. A night boat cruise in San Francisco Bay. We married between our junior & senior years. When I was awarded my BA (history & French), I didn't want to leave Berkeley. But inevitably I had to move on. I had to stop studying about life and enter it. Stop looking at the ocean, take a deep breath, jump in and swim with the sharks. So, a new lifetime began. The life of marriage, kids & work. Our 1st child, Jolene, was born in NYC in the summer of 1964. We were in training for the Teachers for East Africa (TEA) project. We lived near Morningside Heights & the lower end of Harlem. During our short tenure, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at a church in Morningside Heights one Sunday morning. I had chosen the career of a high school teacher. It was a natural choice. I loved school, study & learning. I was good at it. My first appointment was in Kenya in connection with TEA. It was exciting times. Just after independence. Under the leadership of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta ("Flaming Spear"). Great expectations for economic development, extension of democratic government, improvements in public health. And a huge demand for primary, secondary and tertiary education. It was so satisfying to be & feel part of that process and to provide services which people so desperately needed & craved. And what a beautiful place! Elegant & handsome people. Towering snow capped volcanic peaks. Vast stretches of savannah filled with elephants & predatory beasts & their prey. An enormous rift valley with chains of lakes covered in blankets of pink flamingos. I taught at 2 schools. Kabaa & Machakos. It was quite a trek to Kabaa Boys School. North 20 miles from Nairobi to Thika on the tarmac. Then east 35 miles on the gravel & dirt. Then another 5 miles across the deep volcanic dust, down the rocky escarpment, across the Athi River via a low water bridge, up the hill & along the jacaranda bordered entry to the hill top, where the school sat in quiet isolation. A boarding high school serving the local Kamba population. A school founded by the Holy Ghost Fathers & staffed by a brotherhood of dedicated Irish priests. Fathers Liam Fitzharris, Paddy O'Shea, James McGann, Sean O'Shaughnessy. Keirn Corrigan. And there we were, with another young American couple, Tom & PoChan Boysen. We instantly became steadfast friends. After Kabaa came Machakos Boys School. A state administered school of 500 students in a substantial provincial center. Under the able leadership of Ismael Omondi ("Call me Ismael!") A man who went on to do great things in higher education in Kenya. Machakos was located on the tarmac! No volcanic dust or low water bridges to negotiate. Only 40 miles from Nairobi. Our 2nd daughter, Kim, was born while we worked at Machakos. The dash to Nairobi in the early hours of the morning for her birth was pretty amazing. Giraffes wandered across the highway in the mist as we sped through th...Expand for more