For the Cullen Grandchildren

  LAST week we went to Grants Pass, OR to celebrate our Nation's 250 Birthday with all seven of my siblings and some of their children!  I am the oldest of eight children.  My parents are both alive.  Dad is 89 and mom is 83.  They are remarkably active despite cancer, strokes, TIAs, replaced knees, hips, and such.  They have joy, they have Jesus and as we left Reg gave dad a blessing and wept. The Lord revealed to Reg who dad's mighty spirit was and Reg was in awe to be in his presence. I am so grateful for my family and for this nation, both which have contributed greatly to the joy and growth I've had in my life. Both have provided the trials I need to become a stronger, better person. And soon we will all see each other as we really are and grateful and in awe to be in each others' presence. Reported for Reg by Heather

  One of my jobs on my Illinois Historic Sites Mission was scrubbing bird dung off the bricks. One early morning, the sun was just coming up, birds were chirping, and I was just scrubbing and I looked up and saw the statues of Joseph and Hyrum and thought of their great sacrifice. How faithful they had been since they were young. How they had suffered so much physical injustices and violence ...and thought, "What am I doing?". Then the Spirit audibly said, " Your offering is sufficient unto me."

Nanna’s house Part 1. My father’s mother, my paternal grandmother, was Nanna. Nanna’s true name was Irene Henrietta Zoeller born from solid German stock at Brooklyn New York City on April 6th 1900. When I would ask Nanna how old she consistently replied “I’m as old as the year.” (like Nanna was 54 in 1954 the year I was born). Nanna lived in a two storey wood frame suburban house at 16 McKinley Avenue in Hicksville, Nassau County, Long Island, New York. The home had a basement with a coal chute to receive coal deliveries used to feed the furnace for space heating. Hicksville, New York was founded by and named after Valentine Hicks (1782–1850), a Quaker businessman and son-in-law of Elias Hicks. Valentine was a key figure in the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and he established the village of Hicksville when the railroad arrived in 1837. Hicksville is adjacent to Levittown where I grew up. It was only after moving away from NY did I find that use of the term “Hicksville” meant a bo...

The Boat Lane Bombers were a gang in the sense that Spanky and Our Gang were a gang in the Little Rascals. The Bombers formed when I was in elementary school living on Boat Lane in Levittown, New York on Long Island. Levittown was specifically planned for GIs returning from WWII to give them an inexpensive avenue to home ownership. Every house on Boat Lane had multiple children. The next street over was Bucket Lane. All the kids from these two streets played together. Games such as football, baseball, stick ball, basketball, and more home-made games such as Ringolevio ( like capture the flag), kick the can, hide and seek,buck buck, and freeze tag. Sometimes groups of children from other streets wanted to compete with us. AND that is when we decided to name ourselves the "Boat Lane Bombers". One of the most grueling games between "street gangs" was called "Buck Buck". One gang would line up like a conga line and make a sort of long bridge with the...

It was a cold January of 1993 when I was baptized in Brannon Slough of the San Joaquin River near Concord, CA. Nathan Seable baptized me. However, he neglected to say, "Amen" at the end of the baptismal prayer. So I had to be reimmersed in the murkey water. It was a great feeling to be baptized and have a sense of newness and dedication providing new direction in my life. As the Seable family was giving me a ride home I was in a contemplative mood. I was thinking about what it means to take upon oneself the name of Jesus. As I turned my head and squinted in a Popeye like manner towards the sky I saw a mini rainbow, a floating prism against the blue sky. Like with Noah of the Old Testament, this rainbow symbolized the covenant I had embraced. I didn't mention this sighting to anyone as I was simply enjoying the sense that God knew me and was letting me know that He knew me.

I had just graduated with a master's degree and got my first job as an Environmental Engineer for Trihey and Associates. I was driving the company vehicle from Concord, CA through Yosemite to set up trasects in the streams of Lee Vining Creek and Rush Creek on the East Side of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. As I drove through the astoundingly beautiful scenic Yosemite I began to laugh with joy! I was being paid to drive through Yosemite National Park!!! Laughing gleefully I came around the corner of the winding two laned, narrow mountain road and saw a boulder the size of a very large microwave in front of me! I had some choices. I could swerve into the towering wall of stone on one side, I could vere off a 200 foot drop on the other side or I could go over the boulder and hope for the best. I plowed over the boulder! The truck rolled over it and the boulder lodged itself under the truck wrecking the differential gears on the back axle. I was flying... 45 mph with only...