Uncle Maynard

I wrote this poem September 28, 2000 in memory of my Great-Uncle Maynard, shortly after we lost him to cancer. A World War 2 veteran, he was honored by the navy at his burial with a 3-gun salute. He was a farmer in Montana for many years. This poem was printed in the program at his memorial.

I also mentioned him, though not by name, in my tribute to his dog Daisy the following year.

A lifetime of farming
A lifetime of joy and pain
A lifetime of gentleness and love
You made it through the Depression
You made it through the War
You made it through Y2K
You lived your life so well
You lived your life a child of God

Well done, Uncle Maynard!
You were an example to your family
An example to your friends
An example to all you met
I can almost hear God saying,
"Well done, My faithful son!"

What a relief to know your pain is gone!
I know you suffered so much
But I'm still sad that you are gone
I miss you, Uncle Maynard
I can't hold back my tears
There's a family here who misses you

But our sadness is tempered with joy
Joy to know we'll see you again
Joy to know you are healed
Joy to know your cancer is gone
Replaced by a dazzling robe
And a crown glittering with the jewels of Heaven

You are at peace
You are home
In the arms of our Great Father
Praising Him forevermore

Days of Yore: Photography

Photography has come a long way in my lifetime. The massive cameras that were on a tripod and required the photographer to go under a sheet (there's probably a better term for it) were before my time, but I have still seen a lot of change. Camera attachments (such as lenses) were often larger than they are today. We had to buy rolls of film to thread into the camera. (We used empty cylindrical film cartridge containers in the swimming unit in PE when we were learning to dive, and we had to retrieve them from the bottom of the pool.) 

Camera with negatives

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

There were several kinds of camera when I was younger, but most of them involved threading the film. After opening the camera and threading the film in, you had to close it, and it was very important not to open it again until the roll was done. Otherwise the film would be exposed to the light and the pictures would come out white, and depending on how exposed they were, sometimes blank. We called it overexposed. Different kinds of camera required different kinds of film. 35mm (millimeter) cameras needed to be threaded:

35mm film
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

110 cameras (I had one) were cheaper than 35mm, and the pictures weren't as good quality, but they did not require threading. Their film cartridges looked like this:

110 film
Photo by Anonymus60
CC BY-SA 3.0 license

Each roll of film had a set number of pictures on it. In the above pictures, the 35mm film has 36 pictures on it and the 110 film has 24. Once you had taken a picture, you usually had to advance the camera to the next picture, and a number on the camera indicated how many pictures remained on the roll. When taking pictures, there were a few things to consider: Rolls of film cost money. Getting the pictures developed cost money. Was this subject really something we wanted to pay to have a print made? How many pictures were left on the roll? If we ran out of film before the day or event or adventure was done, we couldn't take any more pictures! We had to think twice before taking a picture. Most cameras did not give the option to view the picture, so you wouldn't know how it turned out until days or weeks later when you took the finished roll to the store or other place where they developed pictures.

We generally left the developing to the professionals, who did it in a darkroom, so called because it had to be dark in there to avoid exposing the pictures. They generally had just enough light so people could see what they were doing.

Once we got the pictures back, they came in an envelope of prints and negatives (picture of negatives at the top of this post). The prints were the picture on glossy photo paper. The negatives were strips of film with the pictures in inverted colors. If we wanted more copies at a later date, we could take the negatives in and have them make prints from the negatives.

Then there was the Polaroid. This camera did not involve threading film or even taking it in to be developed. You put the stiff photo sheet in, snapped the picture, and the camera spat the sheet out. The glossy part was generally gray at first. We usually shook them back and forth a bit to speed up the process, but the picture on the sheet gradually came into focus. Like the 110 pictures, they were not as good quality as the 35mm, but they were nice if you needed the picture right away. Polaroid photos also had paper around the glossy part so you could handwrite a caption if you wanted.

They also came out with disposable cameras. These were sealed shut, and came with the film in them. Once you finished the roll, you would take the whole camera in to get it developed. You got pictures back with negatives, but the camera could not be reused.

Panoramic cameras were pretty nifty. The resultant pictures were about the same height as regular prints, but about double the width. In landscape orientation, it was the photographic equivalent of the widescreen format in movies (or in portrait orientation, tall and thin). When I went to France in 1999, I went with a panoramic camera and a couple disposable ones. I need to go back now that I can take better quality pictures and don't have to conserve film!

William the Conqueror's castle in Falaise, France
Picture taken with my panoramic camera

When we got the pictures back, we either left them in the envelopes and took them out to look at them later, or we stored them in photo albums. Some albums had slots to put the pictures, and some had pages with transparent plastic over them. For those ones, you would peel back the transparent bit, put the pictures on the page, and put the plastic sheet back. It adhered to the page so the pictures wouldn't go anywhere, but was still easy to pull back to rearrange or add pictures (but you shouldn't do that too much because excessive unpeeling and re-peeling could make it less adhesive).

If you wanted to show pictures to a group, you could have slides made. They were small square representations of the picture (with the negative of that picture) that you could put in a slide projector. You arranged the pictures on the turntable on the projector in the order you wanted to show them, and then the light shone through the slide onto a screen. We used them a lot as missionaries when we travelled around to different churches in the US to report on our ministry in the Philippines.

A slide
Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

Another option for presentations was to print the picture on a transparency, the size and shape of a regular sheet of paper, but plastic and transparent. Transparencies could also accommodate text and anything else you wanted to put on them. We also used them in church to show the lyrics of worship songs and hymns on the big screen. To show them, we used an overhead projector, which had a flat table-like glass "stage" where you would put the transparency. The stage had light coming up from below it, which shone through the transparency, to the projector above, which in turn reflected and shone onto the screen. Another option, though not nearly as common, was the opaque projector. In that case, you could put a picture or book or whatever you wanted to project in the projector and it would be shown on the screen. Opaque projectors, as indicated in the title, did not require transparencies.

Digital cameras were pretty expensive at first. (The better quality ones still are.) They presented new benefits. No need for threading film, no risk of accidentally opening the camera too soon and exposing the film. Many (though not all) digital cameras gave the option of seeing how the picture turned out on a screen. You could still get prints made, but it was a different process than doing it from film. When shopping for digital cameras, we looked at the number of megapixels. More megapixels indicated better quality and more detail. Some digital cameras can also record video.

These days we have a lot more options than in the past. Overhead and opaque projectors are pretty much obsolete now, as we have PowerPoint and other computer programs and phone apps for presenting things digitally. Photoshop and similar programs offer more ways of editing pictures, improving the quality, combining multiple pictures into one, and more.  

I seem to be sensing a theme here, but as with previous subjects in this "Days of Yore" series, I don't generally use any of the above cameras. I use...you guessed it...my cell phone! Photo quality on cell phones has been steadily increasing, and since I love taking pictures, that's one thing I look for when buying one. Someday I hope to be able to afford a fancy digital camera to take even better quality pictures, but in the meantime, my phone takes impressive ones! As people continue to develop smart glasses, some of them also have the capability of taking pictures, though those are currently a bit controversial due to valid privacy concerns, and will need more development before I consider that seriously...but I'm excited about the possibilities!

Michael

I wrote this poem in May 1997 after attending the memorial service for 13-year-old Michael Morrison, who took a boat out May 3 of that year, and it likely capsized. As far as I know, his body was never found. I didn't know him personally and have not been able to find a picture of him for the purposes of this blog. The incident was in the news, and one of our local news anchors was at the service. The poem mentions memories that people shared at the memorial. It quotes Psalm 116:15, 55:22a and 1 Peter 5:7b. One of my favorite memories that people shared at the funeral (which the poem does not mention) was that most of his friends and classmates called him Seymour. His youth leader shared that he once asked Michael why they called him that, and he explained, "When I wear my glasses, I can see more." That's when I knew we could have been great friends.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

The funeral's done
The media's gone
And here we are, left behind
With the memory of a boy:
A man of God

They said you were so wonderful
You used to cheer them up
With the story of a pickle chasing you
You loved them with all your heart
And prayed for them - your friends.

And Michael, I wish that I had known you
Your love for God shone through in what you did
In life, you glorified God
And now, you're in His arms forevermore.

Your friends are sad
There's a great big hole
In your school and in your church
But there you are
In the arms of Christ!

You are so much better off
No more colds or flu
No hypothermia
Only God's amazing grace!
Heaven has gained an outstanding soul!

And Michael, I wish that I had known you
Your love for God shone through in what you did
In life, you glorified God
And now, you're in His arms forevermore.

"Precious in the sight of the Lord
Is the death of His saints."
I can't imagine how elated God must be
He has brought another child to His eternal home
To everlasting reward!

"Cast all your cares on the Lord
And He will sustain you."
"For He cares for you."
I know that God will bring
Your friends and family through their grief!

And Michael, I wish that I had known you
Your love for God shone through in what you did
In life, you glorified God
And now, you're in His arms forevermore.

I did not know you very well
But I have heard that you loved God
You loved everyone you saw
You prayed for all your friends
That they would meet the Lord.

We could have been great friends
I wish I'd known you more
And enjoyed your brotherly love
I look forward to meeting you
In the everlasting arms of Christ!

And Michael, I'm glad that I will meet you
In the arms of our eternal God and King
On earth, you glorified God
Now you live in His loving arms forevermore.

Days of Yore: Video Recordings

When I was in elementary in the Philippines, we had a dedicated room for watching movies and documentaries. It was called the A/V Room, or Audiovisual Room. It had several devices depending on the equipment required for what we were watching. The big reel-to-reel projector involved large spools of film (like the ones in the picture below). It involved a certain amount of threading through the machine, and it was projected on a big screen. This was also how my grandparents did their home videos when my parents were young. I don't know how they were recorded as that was before my time, but they were still in use when I was little. While playing, the reel-to-reel made a fast-paced clicking noise (best way I can think of describing it) that you could hear the whole time. We were used to it, so it wasn't that disruptive. (It's actually a nostalgic sound for me.)

Photo by Alexander Vasilyev
Adobe Stock

The other device I remember in the A/V Room was the TV on a cart. I think it may have been on that (or there may have been a projector) that we watched in horror as the Challenger exploded in 1986. It was on that TV with a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) that we watched Back to the Future when I was in 4th grade during a sleepover that my teacher put on. We brought sleeping bags and slept on the floor.

Video cassettes, or VHS tapes (Video Home System), were similar in concept and shape to the audio cassettes, but were larger. For the most part, they were black, though they occasionally came in other colors. The film inside was very similar to the way the film in the smaller cassettes was rolled. They fit into a slot in the VCR, which was connected to a TV. Unlike their smaller cousin, they were not double-sided, so you had to rewind when you were done. Video rental stores (such as Blockbuster) often had stickers on their videos that said, "Be kind. Rewind." Failing to rewind would put a damper on watching it again, though the next user could rewind it themselves. But if you're on a schedule, it's a pain to have to wait a few minutes while the video rewinds to the beginning!

They also had Betamax cassettes (Beta for short). They were similar to VHS, but a bit smaller (though still larger than the audio cassettes). There was a special player for them. I believe our A/V room was equipped to play both kinds of video cassettes. They weren't nearly as popular as VHS, however, and went obsolete much sooner.

VHS and Beta each had their own version of the video camera. The camera made further adjustments as other formats were introduced.

Following the success of the CD in the audio format, the DVD (Digital Video Disc) was introduced. It looked almost identical to the CD, though slightly thicker and a bit more durable. Any DVD player can typically play CDs as well, but not vice versa (an audio device kind of defeats the purpose of watching a movie). Unlike videos, DVDs did not need to be rewound, and they also allowed for navigation so you could skip straight to your favorite scene, or watch extras, such as documentaries on the making of the movie, blooper reels, sing-a-longs if the movie had songs, audio commentary by the filmmakers and/or cast, and other fun stuff.

VHS and DVD were divided into regions around the world. Region 1 videos and DVDs could only play on US and Canadian players. Region 2 included the UK and other countries. I believe there were 5 regions if I remember right. When I was studying French and wanted to watch the French versions of movies on VHS, I ordered them from Amazon.ca (Canada), because France was in a different region and wouldn't play on our VCRs. When A.R. Rahman and Värttinä's musical of Lord of the Rings (not to be confused with Peter Jackson's movies) came out in London, I couldn't wait for it to come out in the US, so ordered the cast recording from Amazon.co.uk. The CD worked great, but the accompanying DVD with pictures from the production did not work in our DVD player. To watch that, I had to play it on my laptop, which had a DVD-ROM. DVD-ROM and certain region-free players could play any format.

Sometime in there, the LaserDisc was introduced. It was never as popular as its counterparts, and it didn't last very long. We watched The Abyss in high school on a LaserDisc, and that's the only movie I remember watching in that format. It looked like a giant CD, but was about the size and shape of a vinyl record.

The Blu-Ray followed the DVD. Again, it looked almost identical to the DVD, but had more space and more options for extras, as well as better picture quality. Again, the typical Blu-Ray player can play a DVD or CD, but once again, not vice versa. The Blu-Ray does not have regions like the video and DVD, so it can be played on any Blu-Ray player.

Meanwhile, as the internet picked up steam, websites like YouTube and Vimeo offered ways of watching online. Depending on the web connection, these options involved a lot of buffering at times, though that has been gradually getting better so it doesn't happen now as much as it used to. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and other social media sites have also added video-playing capability.

Netflix used to send DVDs that members could order and then mail back when they were done watching, similar to checking it out from a library. Due to the popularity of Netflix, among other factors, video stores like Blockbuster couldn't compete. There is now only one branch of Blockbuster left, in Oregon. As streaming from YouTube and other sites gained popularity, Netflix jumped on the bandwagon. Many studios have joined the fun, introducing their own streaming platforms, generally adding "Plus" or "Max" to their name. So now we have Disney+, AppleTV+, Paramount+, HBO Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and others. Some TV shows, such as The Chosen, have their own app.

As in my post on audio recordings, I now hardly use the other formats any more, as I can watch movies streaming on my cell phone and Kindle. It also streams to the TV.

Poema

I wrote this poem May 23, 2000 for my Spanish class in college. It's the only poem I've written in Spanish. The assignment was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' poem Instantes. (I highly recommend reading his poem. It's deep and thought-provoking. The link takes you to his poem in English and Spanish.) Like Borges, we were to start our poem "Si pudiera vivir nuevamente mi vida, / en la próxima..." (If I could live my life anew, / in the next...) and then personalize it. It was an exercise in the conditional tense. (I majored in French in college. One of the requirements of the major was to study a year of another European language. I decided Spanish would be the most useful.)

I also translated my poem into English so people who don't speak Spanish can read it.

Image from: Kraken images

Si pudiera vivir nuevamente mi vida,
en la próxima cantaría más.
Desempeñaría en más de comedias musicales.
Aprendería muchas lenguas y hablaría a todo el mundo en su lengua nativa.
Cantaría también en estas lenguas.
Pero más importantemente, cantaría y alabaría más a Dios.
Usaría mi voz más para glorificar el Señor Jesucristo.
Con todas las lenguas que conocería, proclamaría el evangelio a todo el mundo.
Tendría más confianza para proclamar Dios al mundo.
Cuando pecaría, me arrepentiría inmediatemente.
Sería más contento porque glorificaría más a Dios.

Translation:

If I could life my life anew,
in the next, I would sing more
I would act in more musicals.
I would learn many languages and I would talk to everyone in their native language.
I would also sing in these languages.
But more importantly, I would sing and praise God more.
I would use my voice more to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.
With all the languages I would know, I would proclaim the Gospel to everyone.
I would have more confidence to proclaim God to the world.
When I would sin, I would repent immediately.
I would be happier because I would glorify God more.

Days of Yore: Audio Recordings

Girl you know it's —
Girl you know it's —
Girl you know it's —

That was the beginning of the end for the popular band Milli Vanilli. As it would turn out, contrary to their claim in the song, it was NOT true. (I trust you read that last sentence in Morgan Freeman's voice.) We did not see the MTV broadcast where a hard drive issue caused the track to skip and repeat in the middle of the title phrase of the song "Girl You Know It's True," but it was big news in the Philippines, where we lived at the time. A technical glitch from a computer in 1989 exposed for the first time that the band was not singing, but was in fact lip syncing (though some had suspected it previous to that). As Rob Pilatus of the duo later remembered, it caused him to panic and he ran off the stage. He had to be coaxed into completing the concert. The irony of that happening on a song about how "you know it's true" is very interesting.

Though that example was due to a hard drive, the same thing happened with vinyl records sometimes when we would play them at home. The black vinyl disc would be playing the song "My Grandfather's Clock" until suddenly... "Ninety years without slumbering, tick tock — Ninety years without slumbering, tick tock — Ninety years without slumbering, tick tock — Ninety years without slumbering, tick tock —" That was when we knew we had to go move the needle because it was skipping due to a broken record. Records have been making a bit of a comeback in recent years, but they have not been nearly as popular as they were when I was young. When they were not skipping, they were great. They were double-sided, so once you reached the end of one side, you had to turn it over to listen to the rest.

Then there was the 8-track. It was a large rectangular cassette with a notch in the corner. We had an 8-track player in our car, and we would play music on long road trips. Ford began putting 8-track players in their cars in 1965, and music has been a regular feature in cars ever since.

8-track, cassette, record
Photo by Wynter, Adobe Stock

Once the 8-track started decreasing in popularity, the smaller cassette tape became more popular. Like records, they were double-sided and you had to flip them when one side ended to listen to the rest. Like 8-tracks, they had a long film on rollers inside the cassette. Sometimes the film would get tangled up in the tape recorder, and we had to untangle it and then roll it back into the cassette, using either our fingers or a pen or a pencil. Radios with tape recorders were also very handy for recording songs and other things on the radio so we could listen to them later. In the Philippines, they played "Good Morning" from the musicals Babes in Arms and Singin' in the Rain every morning at the same time, like clockwork. (I tried just now to find the specific arrangement they played, and didn't find it.) It always made us happy, so we recorded it. We recorded a bunch of the songs that they liked to play on the radio, such as "Put On a Happy Face" from Bye Bye Birdie, "Make Someone Happy" as sung by Jimmy Durante, and others. We could also record ourselves, speaking or singing into a microphone or into the tape recorder. After our car with the 8-track player, subsequent cars had cassette players. If you didn't play a cassette all the way through on both sides, it was necessary to rewind.

There were several different kinds of players to play cassettes. They were much more mobile than previous kinds of recordings. Boomboxes often had tape recorders. There were simple tape recorders that only played (and recorded) cassettes. Many radios accommodated them, as did cars. They even made Walkmen, which were small tape recorders you could carry with you and connect headphones. Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy has one. The Walkman was very handy as you could carry it in your pocket (provided your pocket was big enough), and some had a clip so you could clip it to your belt.

Record, cassette, 8-track, CD, not to scale
(Note: They did not typically have smiley faces) 😀
Drawing by Steven Sauke, June 2022

In the 90s, we were introduced to a new kind of recording: the CD (compact disc). It looked a bit like a record, but was smaller and fit in a slot rather than setting it on the player like a record, though some CD players do allow you to place it on there, similar to a record, but then it retracts into the player to play the music. Also where the typical record is black (though they did come in other colors occasionally), the typical CD is silver and shiny. They are still relatively common today, though not nearly as common as they were in the 90s and early 2000s. Recent cars have had CD players rather than cassette players. 

Everything that could play a cassette eventually adapted to be able to play CDs. The Walkman turned into the Discman. The Discman was similarly handy, though harder to fit in my pocket because CDs are bigger in diameter than the cassette, albeit much thinner. Recording things on CDs was more complicated than doing it on cassettes, however.

As the early 2000s moved on, the iPod and Zune (and other brands of MP3 players) came out. iPod lasted longer than Zune, but they were pretty cool. I had a Zune for a while. Much smaller than your average Walkman, they had the music stored in them in MP3 format, which you could upload to it. They similarly had headphones attached.

These days, I hardly use any of those any more. I have music on my cell phone and computer, and can easily download it from Amazon and elsewhere and play it on any of my devices (computer, cell phone, Kindle). I have SiriusXM (and a CD player) in my car. Recordings have come a long way over the years.

The Parents of the Savior

Today is Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent. Many Christians take this time to give something up as they prepare for Holy Week and Easter. I don't always do that, but I respect people who do. I think it is important to consider what Christ went through for us. I wrote this poem October 4, 2004, as I reflected on these things, and in particular, how it may have been for Mary and Joseph. The poem was also inspired by the songs "Mary, Did You Know?" by Mark Lowry, "Child of the Manger, Child of the Cross" by Craig Courtney, and "One Quiet Moment" by Bob Kauflin. These songs got me thinking more about how events throughout the Bible were connected.

Image by R. Gino Santa Maria
Adobe Stock

In a humble stable,
A young mother held her newborn baby in her arms
Did the joyful coos make her think
Of the same mouth speaking the stars into place?
Did she realize that the same lips
Spoke to Moses on the mountain
And did she know that one day
They would beg the Father to forgive His enemies?

In a foreign land,
A young couple taught their child how to walk
Did the crawling, toddling legs
Make them think of the same legs
Walking with Adam and Eve in the paradise of the garden?
Did they remember that those legs crushed the Tower of Babel
And that one day those ankles would be pierced
With long, cruel nails?

In a small village,
A father taught his son the art of carpentry
Did those little hands make him think
Of the same hands writing on tablets of stone
And on the wall of a palace?
Did he remember that those hands
Sprinkled manna over a desert
And that one day those wrists would be impaled
With nails bigger than the ones He was hammering into the wood?

Did they know that the back that dazzled Moses
Would one day be ruthlessly beaten
And forced to bear a heavy and slivery cross?
Did they realize that the breath that breathed life into Adam
And blew the waters of the Red Sea apart
Would one day breathe, "It is finished!" and slowly, painfully cease?

***

On a skull-shaped hill,
A mother watched her son die on a cross
She heard Him entrust her to the care of a friend
Did she know what she and her son's friend
Would find three days later?
Did she know that burial spices would be useless
And that her son would refuse to stay dead?

As she agonized over the suffering of her beloved son,
Did she know that the face so mangled and torn
Would so soon be glowing with life?
Did she know that those hands, dripping with blood,
Would so soon be raised in victory?

Did she realize that the love that saved the children of Israel

    The love that gave Jonah another chance
    The love that fed five thousand
    And brought the dead back to life --
Did she realize that that love led Him to pour out His wrath on Himself
To save her very soul?

Did she know that His death would be the shortest-lived death
And that by it He conquered death and sin
Once and for all?

That magnificent head is lifted on high
Crowned with glory and honor and splendor!
All hail the omnipotent King
Who was willing to give up His life and so conquer death
That we may reign forever as His beloved children!

Days of Yore: Computers

Many of us have heard about how our parents walked 5 miles to and from school, in blowing snow, uphill both ways...and they enjoyed it! Did they? I don't know, as I wasn't born yet, but they did teach me to be honest, so maybe? I know I did not. (That may be partly because most of my childhood was in the Philippines, just north of the equator, where they don't get snow due to the tropical heat. I ran 5 miles to school in pelting rain, uphill both ways, slipping and sliding all the way, arriving at school and home muddy and drenched to the bone, and I enjoyed it! My homework was so waterlogged that my dog ate it. OK, maybe that didn't happen, though occasionally some of the rain-related details came close to the truth.)

Another thing we often hear is "Kids today will never know the struggle..." I hope to go through a few things that have changed over the years in the next few blogs (between poems). I feel like "Days of Yore" may be exaggerating a bit, but I was going to call it "Before the Internet" and then realized some of the things I might want to include were when the internet was young.

Photo by Boffy b
CC BY-SA 3.0 license

We got our first computer in the Philippines in 1988. Once we turned it on, we had to know the codes to get around. (It's been so long that I had to look it up just now because I've forgotten a lot.) We didn't have Windows yet, so we had to learn a lot to navigate MS-DOS.

C:\> kljadh
Bad command or file name
C:\> cd games
C:\games>

Once we turned on our computer, we had to navigate to the program we needed. The <dir> command came in handy when we couldn't remember the specific file name that we needed to open. Our IBM computer at home informed us there was a "Bad command or file name" when it wasn't happy with what we told it. Our Apple computers at school preferred the term "Syntax error" instead.

When I was working on a paper for school, I would open WordPerfect and type it up. We didn't have font choices at first, and when they were introduced, a different font was indicated by a different text color on the screen. We had to print the document to see what the fonts looked like. I remember coming back to the US in 1991 and being amazed with the new-fangled computers that actually showed on the screen what the fonts looked like!

When we wanted to print, we used our dot-matrix printers. Sheets of paper were attached to each other with perforations. We strung the papers into the printer with strips of paper on either side of the sheet with holes down the side so it could go into the rollers in the printer. The printer made loud noises as it printed. Once we were done printing, we would tear the last sheet off the ream on the perforated line, and then tear each page apart. We then tore the sides off the page, which also had perforations for that purpose.

When friends came over, they would sometimes bring their large floppy disks (so called because they were, well, floppy) with games on them. We would insert it in the disk drive (the computer above has two such disk drives) to play games. We didn't have them on the computer, just on the floppy disks, so we had to have the disk if we wanted to play the game. I loved to play Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Digger (also called Dig-Dug), Tetris, Pac-Man, Mario Bros, and more. (Side note: Seeing some of this on Stranger Things in more recent years brought back memories.)

As technology moved forward, the floppy disks got smaller and rigid. However, as we learned at BCTI, they were still floppy if you opened the outer case (not advisable if you're planning to continue using them, but a great way to destroy them if you needed to make sure to eliminate sensitive data on them).

When turning the computer off, there were several ways. The "proper" way was to type "quit" in the DOS prompt. (I learned the word "acquit" because I accidentally typed "aquit" and thought it was funny, so I asked my parents what "aquit" meant. But as I was asking them verbally, they didn't hear the way I spelled it, so they told me the definition of "acquit." I was surprised it was actually a word!)

If necessary, you could do "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" to turn the computer off. Now that only opens a screen with choices to lock your computer, open the Task Manager, or other options. In an emergency (such as the Blue Screen of Death or the diabolical cascading error messages, see below), it was sometimes necessary to hold down the power button until the computer turned off.

There were several errors that got annoying. "Bad command or file name" was one. "Syntax error" was another. But with those, you just had to retype the command correctly. You never wanted to see the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), which was when the entire screen turned blue and had text explaining that the computer would be turning off now (but in a lot more words), whether you liked it or not. But as computers continued to advance, nothing struck more panic and the idea of diabolic laughter coming out of the computer (not literally, but nearly) as this, which was the stuff of horror movies and nightmares:

Picture found here

An error message would pop up and start jumping pell-mell around the screen, leaving a long trail going everywhere. It was a bit reminiscent of a leprechaun gleefully jumping all over the room and causing mischief, mayhem and destruction of everything in its path. It moved too fast for me to try to click the button as I chased it around the screen.

In 8th grade, we started learning about a new concept called the information superhighway. At first I pictured a literal paved highway across the US with circuits running through it, where people could exchange information. That turned out not to be the case. It is now called the internet. Our first modems used the phone lines. We could connect to the internet, but we couldn't use phones at the same time. (This was an issue for some customers when I had an IT job helping with tax preparation software a few years later.) As the modems connected to the internet, they made very loud dialing noises and then a loud staticky noise. I'm glad that has gone away since then.

On the whole, I loved computers. But they had some quirks that I am thankful have been worked out over the years.

My grandpa and I had a running good-natured argument about what was better: computers or typewriters. He used his typewriter, and couldn't see the point of computers. I insisted that computers were better. Someone tried giving him a computer once, and it just sat there and collected dust while he used his typewriter. One time our power went out and I called him to ask if I could borrow his typewriter. He laughed for several minutes. Another time he commented he had seen a typewriter exactly like his in a museum. He didn't get an e-mail address until the last couple years of his life, and I helped monitor it. Toward the end, he commented that he wished he had learned more about computers sooner, as he was starting to see the benefits more.

Unknown

When I visited Normandy, France in 1999, we spent a day going to several beaches where the Allied Forces landed on D-Day, June 6, 1944. That day in 1999 we visited Omaha Beach, Pointe du Hoc and Arromanches. Omaha Beach was featured in Saving Private Ryan (which we would watch a few days later). Pointe du Hoc is at the top of cliffs (pictures at the bottom of this post), and Allied Forces were able to scale the cliffs under the cover of fog and defeat the Germans waiting at the top. There are iconic pictures of the artificial port at Arromanches used for getting heavy equipment off the boats, which is still there.

The American Cemetery at Omaha Beach had row upon row of crosses and Stars of David. It was very solemn, beautiful and moving. For me, the most moving crosses read:

HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY

A COMRADE IN ARMS

KNOWN BUT TO GOD

I wrote this poem January 18, 2006 after attending a David Harsh concert where he sang a song on the same subject. It made me think back to my visit to Omaha Beach where I saw these crosses.

Photo by Mika167
CC BY-SA 3.0 license

A white cross stands in a cemetery
In a land far away
A lasting monument to an unknown soldier
Known but to God

What happened to this unknown soldier?
God alone saw him pierced by countless bullets
Tossed by bombs and grenades
Shattered by shrapnel exploding all around

A family waited and worried at home
Counting the days until their daddy
Would step off the airplane
And run into their welcoming embrace

Did they get a knock on the door
And learn that he was MIA?
Did they wait happily on the tarmac
For their daddy, who would never step off the plane?

Did they know a cross would mark
The place where his shattered remains lay?
A beloved husband and daddy
Ever in a land far away

A young wife wondered and prayed
What became of the love of her life?
The children worried and cried
Would they ever see their daddy's beaming face?

A wife never again got to kiss her husband's lips
A son never got to wrestle with his dad
And a daughter never got to dance in her daddy's loving gaze
He wasn't there to see his son graduate
Couldn't give his daughter away

His grandchildren never got to sit on the lap
Of the grandpa they never knew
Hearing stories of long ago
When he was their age

A young man kneels before a white marble cross
Moved to tears by the inscription to the unknown soldier.
Who lies beneath this cross in honored glory?
Could it be the bones of the grandfather he never knew?

The answer is known but to God.

Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach

The cliffs of Pointe du Hoc

Craters at Pointe du Hoc created
by massive cannonballs

Pointe du Hoc

Memories of Dad

My dad was an amazing person. It's been more than a year now since we lost him, but it still just isn't the same without him. I often wish I could ask him things or tell him things. I want to share my blog with him, particularly since I've been blogging more regularly lately, but I can't. I can only imagine all the comments he would have posted, as he was great at commenting on blog posts that he read. I'm more thankful than ever for the incredible father I had.

Following are some memories from several people, family and friends, that I read at his memorial service. His brother Norm Sauke passed away from dementia and other health issues October 31, 2021, and my dad passed away December 2 of that year, following a stroke. Losing two brothers (or in my case, my uncle and my dad) so close to each other was a huge blow for our family.

I made this graphic to use at my dad's memorial.

Erv Sauke (his brother, my uncle)

Ron was a gift to everyone. He was a great brother and son to his family. He was a great big brother. As a child, he was always busy doing something and into a lot of things. All my brothers were special to me. Losing Norm and Ron within one year's time was a shock to me and still is. I was glad to know they both gave their hearts and lives to my Jesus and I will be able to see them again in heaven. I will miss Ron a lot. So pray for his family and me when you can. Sorry for not being here, my wife and I are under the weather. Ron, I will always love you.

Erv

Linda Sauke (his wife, my mom)

Ron had a great sense of humor. He was so good with children and was an outstanding teacher! He loved his students, and they loved him! They also thought it was great fun to play tricks on him! One year when he was teaching middle school in the Philippines, the kids started putting salt in his coffee when he wasn't looking. After several days of enduring this, Ron arranged a plan with the school nurse to get even with them!

When all was ready, one day during class a student messenger came to the door with a "note from the nurse," listing several students she needed to see immediately. In response to their confused expressions, he reassured them that it was probably just a simple tracheotomy. (The students on the list, of course, were the main offenders.) They nervously headed to the nurse's office on the other side of campus.

The students were even more alarmed when they arrived and saw that the nurse had prepared a humongous syringe, along with a scalpel and several other pieces of scary medical equipment to use on them! The nurse explained to them the procedures that would take place ... and watched as their horror grew!

When she could see it was enough, she calmly added, "Of course, the other option is that you could stop putting salt in Mr. Sauke's coffee!"

The students ran back to the middle school building, and Ron's class could hear them yelling all across the campus!

But they never put salt in Ron's coffee again!

Steven Sauke (his son, me)

My dad studied Spanish in school and thereafter had a tendency to apply the rules of Spanish to any foreign language that he read. One time he preached an entire sermon on "Prisceeya and Aqueeya."

One of their first priorities upon moving to Hong Kong was to study the language. The first time he gave his testimony in Cantonese, it was at a large gathering of youth. When he told about meeting his wife, everybody burst out laughing! He was very confused. After sitting down, the pastor leaned over to him and said, "That was great, right down the part where you ate your wife!" It turns out that the word for "to meet" is 識 (sic, high tone) but "to eat" is 食 (sic, low tone). He pronounced it correctly, but ended up saying something completely different because he used the wrong tone!

One of my earliest memories is being at church and walking through a sea of legs because I was so small. I found my dad and gave him a big hug around the leg. I looked up fondly and discovered it was not my dad.

As we got older, he made an effort to spend time with us, wrestle and play with us, and encourage our interests, even if we were not the softball team he once dreamed of raising. We watched videos of musicals and other movies as a family. We also attended various theatrical productions of plays, musicals, ballets and more. He put up with us listening (and singing along) to cast recordings of musicals all the time and even got to know some of them because he knew that we liked them. For Tim's 30th birthday he took us to see The Phantom of the Opera. For my 40th birthday he took us to see Come from Away. Some of the best father-son times were watching adventure movies with him, such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Master and Commander, Pirates of the Caribbean, and others. Once he joined the church choir, we taught him some basic skills of reading music. He studied it so intensely that it got so he could identify a note on the staff much quicker than I could. There is still a sticky note on his desk that has two staves with treble and bass clefs and the notes labeled for each clef.

My favorite April Fool's joke we played on him involved Lord of the Rings. My mom doesn't like the violence, so she hasn't watched it with us. But she does enjoy old time comedies. One time while my dad was at a meeting, my mom and I were watching I Love Lucy. As soon as we heard the garage door, we jumped up and changed the DVD to Return of the King, and I hastily fast forwarded as far as I could get in the movie. We were in the middle of the climactic battle when he entered the house. My mom was watching intently as if she was enjoying it. My dad was so excited and proud of me and he came and gave me a hug and then he went in the other room to put his stuff away. He was hoping to watch the rest of it with us, but when he got back in the room a couple minutes later, we were watching I Love Lucy again.

One way he encouraged me was to tell me regularly that I missed my calling in life. It was a different calling every time he said it. When we were younger he taught us the basics of massaging as he gave amazing massages. When I would give him a massage he thought I should be a chiropractor. When I would correct his grammar, spelling or punctuation, he thought I should be an English teacher. He was great at giving compliments and making people feel special.

Dave and Oksana Elsinger (missionaries to Ukraine who worked with my dad)

Oksana and I will remember Ron as a friend and co-laborer in the ministry to kids with disabilities in Ukraine. We remember how Ron and Linda were a great help when they served on a ministry trip with us to Lutsk and Kyiv, Ukraine several years ago. Ron was a big help and he and Linda never complained about the less-than-ideal traveling conditions we experienced. We are thankful for Ron's example of a joyful and humble servant of the Lord!

Sharon Limb (missionary to Mongolia who worked with my parents - this was a comment on my tribute to my dad shortly after losing him)

To the Sauke Family, I am saddened to hear of Ron's passing but happy for him to be well and in heaven. He was such a gracious man with a warm and welcoming smile. I was just gazing at your parent's picture on my refrigerator photo wall and thinking that I need to be in contact with Linda. Thank you for the family history and tribute. I will be praying for your family.

If you would like to watch his memorial, we streamed it so people around the world could attend virtually: