1960s

Seek the Lord while he may be found…

Isaiah 55:1-9

As I grew up, the 60s came and I put a link in explaining
that period of time much better than I could.
Dad was stationed in Barstow, California as manager of the
PX and they bought a new home.
We all enjoyed desert living and us kids loved going
out into the desert to explore the fossil beds,
lava beds, and Calico ghost town.
Dad would take us out to shoot his 22 rifle at cans and
such too.
We had a little VW bug and we'd go
looking for Indian paintings, fossils and semi-precious
stones, we had a calico cat named Rose Bud,
a English bulldog named
Sgt. Smedley ( we called him Sarge) and a desert tortoise
who lived in our backyard and dug a big hole to live in.
It was a very happy time for our family but darkness came too.
Dad's assistant manager was killed by a coworker who was angry
about being chewed out at work....that was bad enough but the worse
was yet to come
my good friend had a lot of problems with her mother...poor little
Susie was a tiny girl, slight of build, with blond hair...her dad was a
long distance truck driver and her mom took in laundry for
extra money...her mom was very hard on her, Susie had a older
brother who still lived at home. Her mom would beat her and she
would come to school with bruises and black eyes..then
one day she didn't come to school at all.....she and her mother
went missing....the sheriff's department went looking for them
and they eventually found Susie's body buried in the
desert.
The sheriff went to their house, searched the property and found
the mother buried in their backyard and the older son gone. He
was eventually found and the whole story came out....the mother
had gone into Susies room while she was sleeping and killed her
by stabbing her with a knife
...she then drove out into the desert
and buried her. The brother wondered where his sister was, was told
she was staying with a friend...the next night, he woke up to find
his mother over his bed with the same knife, there was a fight and
he killed his mother in self defense...being a kid, he panicked
and buried her in the backyard and took off with the family car.
His dad came back and found his son in jail and his family gone.
to make a long story short...the boy was released. He and his dad
moved away and I don't know what happened after that...
I will always remember Susie as a sweet good girl who was lots of fun
but always sad. They figured the mother was mentally ill for
for some time.
All of these occurrences came at a time when I really started
the search for meaning......the quest that we each go through
in life to find out who we are and why we are here.
I knew I believed in God.....He had been part of my life
since I was little but I wanted to know Him....I felt
an alone empty feeling inside that needed to be filled but
I didn't know how....in church, in Sunday school, I asked
but didn't get a satisfactory answer...and I wanted answers.
I wanted answers NOW.