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Chapter 2: Interstate 80 East
Parsonage
A
novel about life behind the scenes for an evangelical pastor's family: in the
church, the parsonage, the community.
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The Jeep Grand Cherokee
plodded through fifteen inches of powdery snow, all four wheels pulling steadily
like a team of matched draft horses. An I-80 sign was so obscured by the blizzard's
flaked fog, Jim couldn't see if it said east or west.
Not that it mattered.
He'd been following I-80 East since the junction with I-79, north of Pittsburgh.
When Jim left Ashtabula just after noon, the January sun had been warming the
Ohio farm country with enough intensity to whisper slyly of Spring. Now, with
the dash clock glowing 5:20, Spring seemed months away. While Jim had been on
I-79, about half way between Erie and the junction with I-80, the wind began
to howl from the northwest off the lake. That howling wind soon began to drive
billows of sandy snow pellets at blizzard intensity. At first he had considered
the storm to be of the lake-snow variety and had looked forward to driving out
of it. But the farther he traveled south along I-79 and then east along I-80,
the more fierce the storm became.
Jim had stopped at Clarion
for gas and a fast-food meal. Before he pulled out on I-80 again, he had shifted
into four-wheel drive. Now The Chief was breaking trail through ever-deepening
and unblemished snow. Jim chuckled to himself at the nickname the twins had
given the Grand Cherokee. They had trouble pronouncing Grand Cherokee. First
it had been GC. Now it was The Chief.
At times, Jim had a
hard time telling where the snow in the air ended and the snow on the highway
began. Thinking a little music might ease the sharp tension-pain at the base
of his skull, he began rummaging in the tape bin for Phil Driscoll. Jim played
a little trumpet himself and was partial to a brassy horn. He usually joined
the Sunday night volunteer orchestra during the congregational singing and offertory,
especially if he felt well prepared for the sermon.
But as the strains of
"Sing Hallelujah" were beginning to swell through the Chief's eight
speakers, Jim braked swiftly but carefully to a stop. He was off the main highway
and about twenty yards up an exit ramp. Apparently he had started to follow
a row of reflector-marked stakes up the ramp instead of staying on I-80. Jim
knew twenty yards is quite a distance in fifteen inches of snow, especially
after dark. His first instinct was to turn around and drive down to the highway,
but the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation plow hadn't passed that way
since the last storm. Drifts were beginning to form on both sides of the ramp
and Jim was afraid that even The Chief might get bogged down during the turn-around
maneuver. While he was considering his predicament, the wind shifted suddenly
and began coming from the northeast instead of the northwest. This change in
wind direction provided a little better rearward visibility and Jim decided
to back down the ramp. He put on his driving gloves, flipped up the hood of
his parka, and pressed the remote lift-gate button.
Carefully Jim crawled
back through the length of the vehicle to the lift gate, avoiding some toys
left behind by the twins and his own luggage. He pushed the gate up to its full-open
position and reached around to brush snow off each backup light lens. Satisfied
that he had achieved maximum visibility and illumination in the circumstances,
he began crawling back to the wheel. On his way, he released the catch on the
back of the middle seat and folded it down. After reaching the wheel, he chuckled
a little when he realized he'd left The Chief in gear with the brake off. The
Grand Cherokee hadn't moved an inch, even on the fairly steep grade of the ramp.
Jim hoped that wasn't a permanent state of affairs. He deliberately omitted
buckling his seat belt to have more freedom of movement but did turn the heater
fan on full blast and turned on the hazard flashers. He also released the right
bucket seat's recliner latch and pushed the back down as far as it would go.
With his right arm braced on the bucket's lowered back, he could turn his body
to the right and have a fairly good view of the ramp behind him, up which he
had carelessly driven.
Jim had intended to
back down in his own tracks but almost fifteen minutes of blowing snow had begun
to blur their edges and he really had to concentrate. Every five yards or so,
he crawled back to the open hatch and checked his position and direction carefully.
He didn't want to wander into a drift or slide into a ditch. As he approached
the edge of I-80, he instinctively checked to be sure nothing was coming before
backing out onto the highway. The last moving vehicle he had seen was a balloon-tired
4X4 in the west-bound lane. That had been thirty minutes ago and he didn't see
anything now. Quickly Jim restored The Chief to forward-motion mode and he was
under way again. Although the wind continued to blow out of the northeast, the
snow had stopped entirely during the backing maneuver. He rewound the Phil Driscoll
tape, which had been playing unheeded, and got The Chief under way again. Still
a lot of miles to travel before he reached Mechanicsburg.
Jessi was just finishing
her makeup when her mother appeared in the open doorway. She glanced at the
clock before making eye contact with her in the dresser mirror.
Debra studied the reflected
mother-daughter image and thought how much she looks like me. And yet, how different.
Both were about five five in their stocking feet. Jessi had long straight strawberry
blonde hair with bangs falling close to her eyebrows. Debra's hair was closer
to auburn and was cut short with lots of waves. Both were pretty, in the girl-next-door
sense, not the thin-and-flat fashion model sense. Jessi's nose was slightly
sloped and ended in what Jim jokingly called a ski jump. Debra's nose was a
little straighter and thinner.
Debra accepted Jessi's
brief glance in the mirror as permission to speak, knowing as any experienced
mother does there are times when an audience with a teenage daughter is something
to be sought cautiously and nurtured carefully. "Do you have a minute to
talk?"
"Not really. Kevin's
picking me up--" again a glance at the clock, "Kevin's picking me
up in ten minutes. Can't it wait?"
Debra prayed for calm.
"Yes. It can, but not too long. You know your Dad is driving down there
right now."
Jessi put down the eyeliner
and turned to her mother, sighing. "Yes, I know. Mechanicsburg. It sounds
so-- grimy. Nobody at school has even heard of it. Some dump, probably. And
the school's probably a dump, too."
Despite the tension,
Debra had to fight a smile. "The kids down there have never heard of Ashtabula
either," she said lightly. "But you know that a parsonage family has
to be ready to go where God calls. Ashtabula, Mechanicsburg, wherever."
"God may be calling
Dad to Mechanicsburg, and maybe you and the twins, but He sure isn't calling
me. Mom, you know how much the youth group at the church here means to me, and
we all go to high school together. I want to graduate with these kids next June,
not some bunch of greasy mechanics in Pennsylvania. Why would God want to mess
up my life now, when everything is going so--"
"Careful, Jessi,"
Debra said softly, continuing to pray in her spirit. "God made you and
He knows all about you. He doesn't want to mess up your life and never has."
Jessi's eyes fell and
Debra could see that her daughter was fighting tears and the resultant destruction
of her carefully applied makeup. Her heart ached with love for this beautiful
child God had placed in their home seventeen years ago this July twenty-fifth.
Sensitive but feisty. As faithful in her personal devotions as she was in her
nightly regimen of situps. Equally at home in conversation with peers and adults.
(What had her Aunt Jacki called her when she was two: the "thirty-year-old
midget"?)
"What's he going
down there for anyway," Jessi asked irritably. "I thought you guys
did all that before Christmas."
"You're right about
our going to Mechanicsburg the weekend of December twelfth. That was to meet
with the search committee. And, your Dad and I wanted to look at the church
and the parsonage, kind of get a feel for the situation there. Then we drove
around the community a little. Even went by the high school."
Jessi ignored the reference
to the school. "Well, wasn't that it? Didn't you decide then that we're
going to move to Mechanicsburg?"
"We didn't make
a final decision, and neither did the church. At that time the search committee
was still interviewing candidates. I thought you understood all that."
"Maybe I did. I
guess I've been blocking it out because I don't want to think about it. But
I still don't understand what this weekend's trip is all about."
"Monday your Dad
got a call from the chairman of the search committee, a man by the name of Miles
Abbott. He told your Dad he was their number one candidate and he asked permission
to present your Dad to the church board for a vote. Wednesday night, the board
voted unanimously to give your Dad a call to go to Mechanicsburg. Now they want
to have a question and answer session tomorrow afternoon for all the church
members. Then he's going to preach in both services Sunday morning and Sunday
evening. Then after the evening service there will be a congregational vote.
If two-thirds of the voting members say yes, he'll be officially called to pastor
the Wesley Evangelical Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania."
"And if he does
get that two-thirds vote, it's off to Mechanicsburg we go," Jessi said
not at all gaily.
"Not necessarily.
Your Dad has to answer that call with a yes or a no of his own. If he answer
is yes, then it's off to Mechanicsburg. If the answer is no, we stay right here
in Ashtabula."
"Why did he even
want to consider moving in the first place, and how in the world did they even
hear about him down there in Mechanicsburg?"
"He wants to be
in the center of God's will. He wants to spend his life and his talents doing
exactly what God wants him to do, when and where God wants him to do it. As
far as how they heard about him, a couple people from the search committee down
there visited our church here back in September and heard your Dad preach. I
guess they liked what they heard so Miles Abbott called your Dad and asked us
to go down and visit. And we did."
The door bell chimed
two notes.
"That's Kevin,
Mom. We're going to meet everybody at the church and then go bowling. See you
about ten." Jessi grabbed her jeans jacket, blew Debra a kiss, and hurried
down to answer the door.
The storm had passed,
for the moment at least.
Debra turned out the
light and walked slowly down the steps. She, too, had a storm in her heart,
but she didn't have the teenage luxury of instant venting which Jessi enjoyed.
After all, who can a pastor's wife confide in, other than her husband, of course,
when it comes to changing churches? And she had to be cautious with Jim because
he had his own set of doubts about moving to a church with a combined Sunday
morning attendance of 3,000 adults. Debra knew he was ready at the personal
and professional level. Twenty-five years in the ministry, with that rare combination
of skilled Bible student, informative teacher, and powerful preacher. Even with
his doubts about whether a move to Mechanicsburg would be in the center of God's
will, Debra knew Jim was ready. But was she?
The front door banged
open and the twins came charging in, flinging their knapsacks on the hall floor
as they raced out to the kitchen like Mosby's rangers on a foraging expedition.
Debra followed in their wake, picking up mittens and caps as she went. "You
kids have fun over at the Meyers'? she asked, intercepting the milk carton on
its way to Ben's mouth.
"Yeah,' said Ben,
"but Donnie Meyers gets to drink out of his milk carton. How come I can't?"
"Because it's really
gross!" said Shelly with a major emphasis on the "gross". "Use
a glass like sillivized people."
Ben loved that. "'Sillivized
people'? Mom, did you hear that? Shelly says we're all supposed to act like
sillivized people." With that, he fell to the floor in a paroxysm of exaggerated
laughter, rolling from side to side and kicking his heels on the floor.
Debra took down the
wooden yard stick from its hook beside the cupboard and whipped it hard and
flat on the bare table top. The result was a crack like a pistol shot. Instantly
Ben was on his feet, all laughter gone. Debra had to fight laughter herself.
"Ben, you're going
to do four things and you're going to do them now. First, you will apologize
to your sister for making fun of her." Debra waited while he mumbled a
perfunctory "I'm sorry, Shelly". "Second, you will explain to
Shelly what the correct word should have been." Ben did that, too. "Third,
you'll gather up all your stuff, yours and Shelly's, and put it where it belongs.
Here are the caps and mittens. You do the rest." Ben's lower lip was swelling
into a full pout of self-pity but Debra was unrelenting. "And fourth, you
will get a soap pad and basin and scrub off those black marks you just made
on the linoleum with your heels."
"Aw, Mom! That's
not fair. I didn't make ALL these black marks," and he pointed with his
toe to show the marks which were not his responsibility." Debra paused
in the act of hanging up the yard stick, freezing it in mid-air on the way to
its hook.
Ben started to say something
but changed his mind and went about the business of putting his and Shelly's
outer clothes away.
Debra had trouble remembering
what caused the ruckus in the first place. Oh, yes. Ben drinking out of the
milk carton. She shook her head. Kids!
Debra had written the
teacher a note with permission for the twins to go home on the bus with the
Meyers kids so they could play a couple hours, with Mrs. Meyers bringing them
home in time for dinner. The Meyers kids were twins, too, a boy and a girl.
Both sets of twins were in the first grade together at Ashtabula Elementary
School and they were close friends. Although the Meyers family attended Synagogue,
that hadn't kept the kids apart. In fact, Ben was always begging to go with
Donnie and Bonnie Meyers to, as he called it, "Jewish church".
As Debra put a small
turkey breast in the oven, she watched lovingly as Ben worked on the black marks
and Shelly worked at the table with her crayons. The twins were dark where she
and Jessi were fair, taking after Jim. Their heads were covered with black curls
just like Jim's. All three had dark brown eyes and long lashes. And all three
had dimples. Debra and Jessi often said they wished they could swipe the dimples
from Jim and Ben. Only girls needed dimples.
Debra saw that Ben had
finished his chores. "How would you kids like to ride over to the church
with me for a few minutes?"
"Aw, Mom! I just
got done putting all that stuff away. Do we hafta?"
Shelly had a different
problem. "Will the car be warm?" She hated to ride in a car in the
winter time which hadn't been warmed up first.
In answer to Ben's question,
she said, "Yes, you hafta." In answer to Shelly's question, she said,
"I'm going out to warm up the Eagle right now. When I toot, you come out.
"Oh, and kids, you can both sit in the front with me." The twins liked
being belted together into the 89 Eagle's right front bucket seat, even though
Shelly squealed when the automatic shoulder harness wrapped around her when
the door closed.
Debra pulled on her
own jacket and walked out through the breezeway to the garage. She started the
Eagle and while it warmed up, she walked down the driveway and then turned and
looked back at the parsonage.
She loved this old house.
Twenty-five years ago, when they had moved to Ashtabula fresh out of Calvary
Theological Seminary in Columbus, this had been the only house the real estate
agent had shown them. At the time, the Ashtabula Community Church was less than
a year old and meeting in a grange hall. Debra smiled nostalgically as she remembered
the bare wooden floors, the out-of-tune rinky-tink piano with the broken ivories,
the folding wooden chairs, the permanent smell of kerosene, and of course the
drafty yet smelly outhouses. That old building had yielded to the law of eminent
domain when Interstate 90 came through. But no power on earth could cancel the
spiritual victories which had been claimed there.
When the real estate
agent first showed them this old farm house which was thought to be about a
hundred years old back then, it was love at first sight for Debra. A large church
in Cincinnati was helping to plant the new church in Ashtabula and had agreed
to subsidize the new pastor's salary. However, this subsidy did not include
rental costs for a parsonage. So Debra decided to use an inheritance from her
grandmother which was in the form of a $10,000 CD. It covered the down payment
and then some. So the brand new pastor and his wife began life as the proud
owners of a 100-year-old parsonage. When the church was on its feet financially
and able to pay a living salary, they began to fix it up with carpeting throughout,
modern kitchen and baths, and a study for Jim. Now the house, freshly painted
and comfortably renovated, was all theirs, free and clear. Although they had
an instant buyer with the Church Board willing to buy it for a new pastor, it
would be heart-rending to leave it.
The Eagle was warmed
up and Debra tooted for the twins, who came running out with parkas unzipped.
They drove the two miles to the church. She parked at the front walk and then
paused to look at the bulletin board. It was headed:
Ashtabula Community
Church
James Alan Hogan, Pastor
The twins were anxious
to get inside and run down to their Sunday school classroom so they could write
on the chalk board. Debra wanted to linger a while outside so she gave Ben the
key.
"Leave it in the lock, Ben," she instructed. The bulletin board was
the only thing left from the original grange hall-turned-church. The two metal
pipes had been replaced by a brick escarpment but the bulletin board was the
same, including the black-on-white metal letters which hung in slots behind
the glass door. She remembered the Mechanicsburg church had a modern sign made
of translucent plastic with internal illumination. Wouldn't be the same.
Debra entered the church
and stuck her head in the first-grade Sunday school room. Both children were
filling the board with games of tic-tac-toe and hangman. Then she walked back
to the vestibule and stood in the doorway of the sanctuary. She loved to absorb
that special feeling known only in empty churches, that unique silence which
spoke soundlessly of God's mighty power on earth through His Holy Spirit. She
stepped to the head usher's station and flipped two switches. Now the vestibule
lights were off and the only illumination was the backlit stained glass window
above and behind the choir loft: Warner Sallman's "Christ in the Garden".
Slowly she walked down the center aisle, just as she had envisioned Jessi might
do some time in the future. The sanctuary, which had been dedicated twenty years
ago, could seat 500 comfortably. Each pew she passed triggered memories of some
segment of the congregation. Many victories, a few defeats, all the people precious.
The pastor's wife sank
to her knees at the altar and buried her face in her arms, shoulders shaking
in silent sobs. After a long while she raised her tear-wet face and looked at
the famous artist's depiction of her Savior praying in the Garden of Gethsemane
the night before He was executed, His face raised to His Heavenly Father. Doctor
Luke said He had sweat blood that night, not because He was afraid of the physical
pain He was facing, not because He was afraid to die, but because He had an
innate dread of bearing the guilt of the believers' sins on the cross at nine
o'clock the next morning.
Again Debra buried her
head in her arms and prayed specifically for Jim. Heavenly Father, please help
Jim this weekend. Help him say the right things in the right way tomorrow afternoon
at the meeting. Fill him with the power of the Holy Spirit Sunday in the services.
And when the people vote, may your will be done. And if Jim is still on the
road right now, cause your Holy Angels to surround The Chief and keep them both
safe. I claim your promise that Holy Angels will watch over us as we travel,
so we don't stub our toes. Protect him from his own mistakes and from the mistakes
of others on the highway with him. And keep The Chief mechanically sound.
"Thank you, Father,
for your great Plan of Salvation which took your Son, Jesus Christ, to the cross
so He could pay the ultimate, once-and-for-all sin sacrifice for our sins. And
thank you for the Holy Spirit who is in the world today to guide us, and direct
us, and protect us from unseen evil. May the Holy Spirit begin to work in the
hearts and minds of each of those three thousand people who will hear Jim preach
this Sunday. Prepare them for what Jim will say to them in his sermons. In the
name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen."
Phil Driscoll cycled
and again Jim enjoyed "Sing Hallelujah", singing along in his imitation
of Phil's Joe Cocker-style voice which always made the twins laugh and Jessi
wince. The wind was gone, the snow had stopped, and the cruise control was set
at forty as The Chief hummed along on packed snow. Several miles back as Jim
had crossed the Centre County line, he was surprised by two plowed lanes. Later
he had passed a brace of Walter Snowfighters dressing the berm. "Thank
you, Jesus" he said not at all casually. Then just as he leaned down to
shift The Chief back into two-wheel drive, a heavy sound stepped all over Phil
and harsh illumination filled every cubic inch of the wagon's interior. The
sound was a little like E. Power Biggs pressing a ten-note chord on his concert
pipe organ with all the stops open. Jim resisted a strong impulse to hit the
brakes, even though he was totally confused and more than slightly frightened.
He did throttle back, though, and the horn blasted again, this time accompanied
by the staccato roar of the twin straight pipes of a powerful V-8 engine. A
third horn blast caused Jim to glance left and there sat a Dodge Ram 4X4 pickup
with tires taller than The Chief's hood. The truck's body was sitting on a twenty-inch
lift kit. Looking up, he understood the horn blasts and the intense light. The
Ram's roof was adorned with air horns and a row of KC floodlights.
When Jim looked left
again, the Ram's passenger window was down and a red-and-black plaid arm was
scribing a circular invitation to drag. Jim slowed more and still the arm circled
"let's drag". Again Jim slowed until he could read the white letters
on the balloon tires beside him. And then the Ram began crowding right, inch
by inch. Jim kept yielding right until The Chief's right tires were clipping
the base of the five-foot wall of snow left behind by the Walter Snowfighters.
Jim hated to come to
a complete stop in this desolate area, already knowing the type of people with
whom he was dealing. Suddenly he heard the sound no driver ever wants to hear
behind him. Again he heard it, and then a third time. All around him, the snow
was turning pink as a red light flashed in his mirror. This time the siren whoops
were music in Jim's ears.
An amplified voice drawled
"Yield, Ram, and pull over." The Ram's driver responded by flooring
the accelerator and flipping on the roof-mounted KCs. With a thunderous roar
of exhaust the Ram tore out, its huge tires churning up billows of fine snow.
The police car fishtailed wildly but stayed right on the Ram's tail. The last
Jim saw of either of them was a winking red light on the distant horizon.
Thank you, Father, for
your Holy Angels--and thank you for the Pennsylvania State Police, Jim prayed
aloud. Then he pressed RWD to hear "Sing Hallelujah" all over again.
Debra collected the
twins, turned out the church lights, got back in the Eagle, and drove slowly
home to the parsonage.
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