College Books

These are the "survivors"of some 6 feet of shelf space that my college text books occupied. The only other is an Engineering Drawing book that I saved for Verlon. I pulled them all off the top shelves from my old office library. Elaine carried many of them up to the trunk of our car and we took them down to the "Books & Magazine" bin at the Recycle Center. It was all done without fan fair, remorse or pleasure. It was just something that needed to be done. I didn't get to college until later in life and after some 10 years of night and part-time study, finally received a BA in Business at the age of 42. I went on to get my MBA 3 years later. I was employed by the USDA Soil Conservation Service during the entire time. I had accumulated some 70 hours toward a Civil Engineering degree before being accepted into an Administrative Trainee position. It was apparent that my career advancement would be in management so the switch was very appropriate. I put-off taking the required 6-hours of American Literature until my final year thinking that it would be a real burden. As it turned out, partially due to a exceptional Professor, they were some of my most enjoyable classes. I have no idea how many hours I sat on a stool at the workbench in the basement of our house on Ridge Road in Arlington, VA reading these 2 volumes.

We brought all of the books back to Nebraska with us and these Literature books were some of the only ones that got pulled down off the shelf over the years. While I learned to further appreciate Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman and especially Emily Dickenson, it was some of the old Puritan Religious Thinkers that really got my attention. How could anyone ignore Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" when he said: "You hang by a slender Thread, with the Flames of divine Wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself". It all helped me to become a better Christian.