A Nostalgic Trip Back

The festivities were part of the world’s largest and best-known parade, the annual "Rose Parade" of Pasadena, on New Year’s Day.

Having lived right on or immediately adjacent to the parade route from the early 1950's until 1978, Shirley and I had seen many Rose parades. Yet, each one seems more breathtaking; more spectacular than the last. The skydivers represented the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard, and landed just after the official float and Rose Parade band marched by, playing "I’m Proud To Be An American" over huge loudspeakers. It was a thrilling moment!

It had been three years since we had seen the parade. We were privileged to be visiting my wife’s sister and brother-in-law, Molly and David Antion, in their lovely home, which is directly across the street from the home Shirley and I designed and had built in 1968, and in which we had lived for almost eleven years.

Nostalgia is a pleasant and sometimes not so pleasant sickness. It has its warm, wonderful recollections, and its terrible sorrows and sense of loss; of what could have been. I speak of my first visit to the Ambassador College campus in over 22 and ½ years on Friday, December 29^th. I enjoy taking walks in the morning, and in the brisk, sunshiny mornings in Pasadena, with the temperature around the mid 50's, headed for the mid 70's each day, I decided to walk onto the campus, entering at the iron gate just south of my parent’s former home. I had to stop and gaze at the upstairs bedroom windows on the southwestern side; the room where I had been kneeling by my mother’s bedside while I watched the light go out of her eyes, and realized she had died — the windows next to it where my father had died some eighteen years later.

I traversed the campus from south to north; walked by all the buildings; looked in many windows; stopped to remember the rushing stream, and how we had big rainbow trout in it so many years before.

All the buildings save the Hall of Administration were vacant. The gilt words on the concrete surrounding the central fountain in the "Loma D. Armstrong Academic Center" were chipped and cracked. The paint was peeling in great sections from the Library building. There were large cracks in the plaster walls inside.

I was saddened when I came to the entry into the lower gardens below the Library building (across the street from the little house in which Shirley and I had lived when our second and third sons were born — it was "Terrace Drive" then — long since closed, and the Student Center and Track built where the street had been). Why saddened? There had been a new section of walkway put in back in about 1948, and my father had thought to put some footprints and signatures in it. My dad and my brother put their footprints in it, along with some of the first students, and the date. That section was gone — the other sections around it were obviously of an age; much older than the newer section with all the footprints. Someone had decided they needed to be taken out, I guess.

After my walk that morning, and after talking to God about all I was experiencing, I returned to the Antion home to tell my wife I wanted her to accompany me on Sabbath morning, so we could tour the grounds together.

The Antions joined us, and we took a leisurely stroll through the campus again the next morning. This time, a man in the college security department met us while we were in the formal gardens of Ambassador Hall. He knew Dr. Antion, and vice-versa; was very cordial and pleasant.

When we arrived in front of the Hall of Administration, I rang security from the outside telephone — my mind cannot help but go back to the fact that it was I who decided to put in place a "security department" so long ago, when we had experienced several incidents of trespassing, and a couple of forced entries — a man answered, and I told him who I was, and asked if we could gain access to the building.

In only minutes, a gentleman arrived in a car, and graciously called his superiors to ask permission for us to enter. It was granted, and we spent a little time looking at some of the memorabilia; of special interest to me was the "railroad" type watch presented to my father from King Leopold of Belgium — a watch which had an iron case, which the king had commissioned to be made from cannon balls dating back to the first world war. I remembered how proud my father was of the watch the first time he showed it to me.

On impulse, I asked if it might be possible to look into my old office, on the northeastern corner of the top floor. Another telephone call, and it was granted. The five of us went up in the elevator, and were admitted to the executive suite I had helped design.

One difference I noticed was that glass partitions now closed off the open reception area and there were Christmas decorations there.

Before we entered my former office, I mentioned to the others that my father had given me a wonderful bronze of two fighting stags — how one was clearly lancing the other in the chest with his antlers — how it had stood on a pedestal in the foyer to my office. Sure enough, it was still there!

But the office had little resemblance to the one I remembered. Gone was the magnificent Albert Bierstadt Swiss landscape from the wall. A bookcase had been built directly behind the desk, obliterating the view of the city skyline I had so long enjoyed in the years I worked there.

We thanked our host warmly, and worked our way back to the south. As we walked, we saw a few people exiting the auditorium. Dr. Antion informed me that the Worldwide Church was now conducting two services each weekend; one on the Sabbath for those who still believed in keeping the Sabbath, and one on Sunday, for those of a different persuasion. Later, I was sent several color pictures of the Christmas decorations inside the "House for God" my father had built, right beneath the pink onyx wall in the lobby with it’s gold letters of dedication "to the Great God."

Not wishing to be recognized, we continued off the campus, and returned to the Antion’s home. My wife said, "Ted, I imagine word will be all over the place that you were on the campus." I doubted it, but, in less than an hour, the Antion’s phone rang, and a man asked to see me! We were just about to sit down to lunch, and so Molly asked him to call back, which he did. I returned his call later — we had a very nice chat. Like so many others over the years, he let me know that there are many in the Worldwide Church who do not "go along with all the doctrinal changes," but who remain, saying they should "let God work it out."

I talked with him for some time about that concept — especially in regard to the first century, and the rise of the great false church. It was a friendly talk, and I was very glad he called.

From the private, and sometimes emotional experience of my Friday walk to the repeat visit on the Sabbath was very good for me. As I told David Antion, "Now, I have ‘closure."

This term is used commonly when families have lost loved ones, as everyone knows. I did not really reach that point on Friday, but following our Sabbath visit, I had.

There is no need to go in to all the memories — for they are in the hundreds, and each one of them triggers several more: the huge rubber tree that was the site of my brother’s wedding; the baptismal pool in the lower gardens where my father baptized me and my wife; and where I had baptized David Antion; the latticed portico where I had stood with so many of the faculty in so many commencement exercises, several of which I had delivered; the tempietto, where I had spoken many times, and where I sang with the Ambassador College Chorale on the day I received my bachelor’s degree in 1956; the lawn, where my two teen-age buddies I had known since the 1^st grade, Ron and Don Coakes and I had scalped the weeds and raked it level, and planted new grass; the lawn below the library building where we slept in sleeping bags in the late summer of 1947, working on the grounds during the day. Then there was the moment when I told Dave, Molly, and Shirley about the concrete driveway which now covers the space behind the old garage (later, the office building, and still later, the Library annex) — the driveway which covers the bones of a 68 pound, 7-foot long thresher shark I caught in Long Beach bay, and buried there when it was only a dirt path, back in 1949 when I was home on leave from the Navy.

I spoke of the rocks outside the library where, in my senior year, I was the only student in my advanced Spanish class, and Dr. Ben Rea and I would take our text books outside and study in the sun; of the field days on the old track; of the basketball courts, now covered with lawn, which had been between "Mayfair" and the Library. I remembered the classroom where I had been teaching that day in 1963 when a student burst in and said "President Kennedy has been shot!" How we rushed to "Annie Mann’s" apartment in Mayfair — the closest TV set — to see what had happened. How I looked out over the city from my office atop the Library building when Walter Cronkite said, "Ladies and Gentleman, the President is dead. Ladies and Gentlemen, our National Anthem." How I had wept, and then in only a few minutes, went down to the 2^nd floor to the radio studio and ad-libbed a radio program, which was replayed twice by popular demand, for no price, on WLAC in Nashville.

Thirty one years of one’s lifetime is a fair slice of it. And, with the exception of those four years in the Navy, and even then a visit now and then, I had been on and around that campus from the day my father found the original building back in 1946.

I was thankful for the ‘closure’ I experienced. I think it will be a little easier for me now, when all those magnificent buildings come down to make way for high-rise condominiums.

On New Year’s day, we were once again invited to Mr. Bob Ellsworth’s apartment across from the campus for the parade. He has been a gracious host for many years for dozens of old friends and acquaintances. It was good to meet some dear friends from the past again, and some new people we had not known.

It was good to have a very handsome young gentleman stop Shirley and me on the stairs as we were on our way up to the third floor, and introduce himself. I did not know who he was until he began speaking, and told me his name. Jim Meredith! I had not seen him since he was a very young boy! I was immediately aware of his striking resemblance to his mother, the late Margie (McNair) Meredith. I enjoyed very much meeting his lovely wife and their precious little daughter. Jimmy asked me about the time when he had fallen in our pool in our back yard at 252 South Orange Grove. I doubt that I would have remembered the incident!

We laughed about it; he had toddled into the pool when his dad, Rod Meredith, and his mom, Margie, were over at our house for a back yard barbecue. I was still in a suit from the office, so, seeing the little toddler sinking, I simply stepped into the pool (he had fallen into the deep end), grabbed him, and hauled him out into the arms of his mother! My wife reminded me how my wallet had been in my pocket, and I had to spread out all the cards to dry!

Jim is now a mature young man — a contractor who builds homes and other buildings.

Just as we were leaving, his brother Mike arrived! We had only a moment to shake hands and exchange greetings. It was truly good to see them both, and I asked them to pass on my warmest personal regards to their father.

The parade this year was breathtakingly spectacular, as usual — yet, we spent more time visiting than watching it! The military overtones are always present, as I mentioned above, and of course the U.S. Marine Corps marching band is always a highlight.

But aside from all the personal nostalgia and seeing old friends, there was always the very bad news coming from the Middle East, and of course all the second-guessing about the George W. Bush election.

I will be covering the latest events in the ongoing attempts by outgoing President Clinton to clinch a peace deal before he leaves office as things develop.

Check out our various news links about Germany attempting to become the most powerful nation in the EU; about the rise of Nazism, and the screams of outrage from the far right in Israel following the assassination of Rabbi Kahane’s son and daughter-in-law, in which five of their children were injured. Now, sentiment is high in Israel for a massive march against the Mosques atop the temple mount!

More in the next "Word From."  Garner Ted Armstrong