THE TKA YEARS

September 2001
to June 2019

And as our kids grow up, music … and not just academics  … becomes a major interest of Rachel, Paul, Elizabeth and John! They all learned how to play the piano ... and develop another musical area as well Music ... and more music They have a lot of fun with it all! Their musical interests could also be quite serious. Here are Paul (cello) and Rachel (flute) in December of 2005 getting ready to perform for the Schuylkill Youth Symphony Elizabeth (violin) soon joins Paul on the Symphony … and John develops his own area of musical interest Soccer is also a major (very major!) interest of Paul’s.  In fact, he is one of the organizers of TKA's first soccer team (which does very, very well!). And Elizabeth and John take up the sport as well MAKING PENNSYLVANIA OUR PERMANENT HOME A deep housing makeover In accepting the position at TKA, it quickly became apparent that we needed to look beyond the small miner's home we were renting and find some place more permanent, able to better accommodate a family of six.  John and Paul were sharing a room, and Rachel and Elizabeth had a room together in what was merely the attic, having to sleep on air mattresses placed on the living-room floor in the summers when the attic became as hot as a furnace.  So, with a realtor in tow, we began the search, far and wide, in the area (the fall of 2003). Of course our finances were such – as the realtor well knew – that what she continued to show us was hardly any better than the place we were renting.  It was very discouraging, as we went from one unpleasant possibility to another. Finally I undertook to do some searching online myself, and found (January 2004) an old two-story farmhouse whose huge dairy farm had been subdivided as a large neighborhood with some quite nice new homes, probably built in the 1970s and 1980s.  So the farmhouse, built in 1890, stood out quite boldly in the neighborhood. I showed the listing to the realtor, and off we went.  Thanks to a large amount of money passed on to Gina and me by our mom – because of the sale of our Collinsville home, money that we had put into savings for just such an event – we could offer a huge down-payment and take on a 15-year mortgage, with monthly payments less than what we had been paying for our rental home.  So it was that we quickly closed the deal. But the farmhouse was in bad shape.  It had been cut up into some four apartments, which were in need of a deep makeover.  It also had a separate 2-story garage, rented by a builder who kept a lot of his tools and material there. When I brought my friend Bob and then Kathleen's brother John to look over our new purchase, they both agreed that I had lost my mind.  But I saw not what it was, but instead what it might become.  It had a beautiful bay window on the front facing the main street, a large porch facing the side street, and the apartment attached to the back part of the home being newer and needing only some paint, new floor covering, and some work in the kitchen and bathroom to get it ready to continue to serve as a rental home, helping to cover the costs of the deep upgrade that would be needed elsewhere in our new home.  And as far as that was concerned, I knew I could do nearly all that work myself. But what a surprise when we turned our attention that summer to the main house, and began our work on it.  When we went to strip the walls of layers of wall-paper, we were abruptly presented with the problem that the plaster beneath quickly turned to powder when brought to the light of day.  So all of that had to go, including the lathe strips beneath, so that we found ourselves back to the wall studs everywhere. We could thus stand at one end of the house and see through all the rooms to the back of the house. But this stripping of the walls actually allowed me to rebuild entirely the electrical system and plumbing needed to bring the home up to standard.  We took out the several kitchens and baths, took out a central staircase that had been put in place when the home was subdivided into three internal apartments, and relocated walls here and there, both upstairs and down.  And I installed a central fireplace with glass surround that opened to both our new living room and dining room.  And we built a very large and quite modern kitchen and breakfast area, as well as a number of new bathrooms. And the whole family pitched in to do the work.  Paul was a big help in installing the drywall to both our walls and high ceilings, as well as some of the electrical work. Kathleen and the girls were wood-trim strippers (we kept as much of the quite elegant antique wood-trim as possible), wall painters, etc.  John, however, was only seven at the time, and mostly just observed quietly the work being done on his new home. Finally, a year later, with Paul helping me sand and varnish the old wood floors, we were ready to move in, helped by numerous friends to fill the place with our furnishings.  We had a home of our own now. There was still work to be done.  The floors of the five bedrooms on the second floor needed to be sanded and varnished (the summer of 2007).  One of the rooms off the living-room had been set aside to eventually (the summer of 2008) become a huge library, to hold my extensive book collection, and a massive desk (we called it "superdesk") which I built, with two computers and numerous file drawers.  And the kitchen still needed cabinet doors, which I took on as a special project (the summer of 2009), working from oak boards, cut, glued and molded into beautiful cabinet doors, a job I enjoyed greatly!  And the outside of the totally white house needed final painting, and the addition of dark green shutters and doors (also the summer of 2009).   In 2004-2005 we take on the project of  a new (old) farmhouse  in Schuylkill Haven (built in 1890) Getting things ready to move in (that Thanksgiving of 2005) And thus we are able to spend Christmas-2005 in our new home ... even though there is still a lot of work to be done Completing work on the second floor (summer of 2007) The house … as of the fall of 2007 Life at home ... as the house, adjoining apartment, and detached garage begin to take on their final shape Then in 2009 we undertake exterior finishing work ... and some work in the kitchen joining, molding, finishing and installing kitchen cabinet doors (2009).  I made the fancy trim piece over the entrance to the front porch ... and created the kitchen cabinet doors and drawer fronts, starting out with nothing more than oak planks (which I cut and molded into finished pieces). ... and the next spring laying out a patio and a vegetable garden (2010)   The house (August 2010)  Notice the saw-horses on the porch.  I’m building more cabinet doors. Another project finished up about that time was the library ... and "superdesk"! Finding a place in the area's religious community One of the absolute rules of interim pastoring is that you do not stay at the church you have just served once a permanent pastor has been called.  But we were now staying in the community itself (or at least nearby), and thus we would have to find a new church to call our own.  But there were no other Presbyterian churches within reasonable reach. As it turned out, the decision as to where we would henceforth be worshiping was not all that difficult, as I had become personally very close to Bill, the pastor who had started up nearby his own evangelical (and non-denominational) Lighthouse Church. Even my friend Bob and his wife Sue had just moved there themselves, and convinced me to lead a Wednesday night Bible study (the Gospel of John) at that church.  So it was quite easy. We simply became "members" of the Lighthouse Church. As far as my Presbyterian involvement (I was still listed as a member of the regional presbytery) things quickly faded away.  First of all, presbytery meetings were held in the afternoons, and I was teaching at TKA during that same time, thus unable to attend presbytery meetings. I did agree to do some Sunday pastoring for a Presbyterian church about an hour away in Hazleton, for about a year, 2005-2006, but preaching there only every-other week.  I was glad to help out.  But I kept my participation to this every-other-week basis in order not to become their interim pastor.  I was already fully involved in teaching at TKA! But beyond that, I found that I was distancing myself not only from the doings of the presbytery, but also even of the denomination itself.  I was not very happy with the "progressive" direction it was headed in, the denomination being unwilling to understand why that very direction was a big part of the reason for the loss of its former place, its traditional voice, in the life of the nation.  Anyway, I knew that what I understood to be the real dynamics driving the life of our people was not something that the "peace and social justice" warriors now directing the Presbyterian denomination wanted to have to answer to.  So, I simply dropped further activity with the denomination, the one that I was born in, schooled within, and served as pastor, during those many years. My heart and soul now belonged elsewhere.   I do some pastoring in Hazleton at the Presbyterian Church (2005-2006) – until they could finally call a full-time pastor.  But I preached only every other Sunday, as I did not want to become their "interim" pastor while I was going hard at it  at TKA. RELATING TO THE LARGER WORLD "Baby Bush" I developed the habit of referring to our newest President (2001-2009) as "Baby Bush" in contrast to his father, "Daddy Bush" (US President 1989-1993).  Actually I liked Daddy Bush very much.  But Baby Bush was a huge disappointment to me.  What bothered me was the way he let His Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld take over the hunt for Bin Laden.  That should have been the job of the CIA, who knew how to find local support in Afghanistan – and vital secret information needed to run the monster Bin Laden down.  I knew how vast the Hindu Kush mountains were, and sending American soldiers into those mountains looking for Bin Laden was a total waste of time.  Not only could Bin Laden easily hide in those hills, he was most likely to slip into nearby Pakistan if he stood in any obvious danger of discovery.  And there was no way we were going to send troops into Pakistan after him, short of nuclear war with our supposed ally Pakistan! But into Afghanistan our troops went, the purpose of which I could never understand. Bush had been so critical about Clinton's "nation-building"– which had been quite cautious – and yet Bush's nation-building (making Afghanistan a "democracy") seemed to be about the only possible purpose such a massive US military invasion of Afghanistan could possibly serve.  But I also knew enough about Afghanistan to know that Bush was way in over his head on this matter, as other European powers had discovered to their detriment in previous eras. But what really bothered me about Baby Bush was his obvious desire to bring down Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.  This made no sense at all, in even a more dangerous way.  Iraq was a powder keg of sectarian explosives (Sunni Arabs hating Shi'ite Arabs, with Sunni Kurds wanting out of the whole Iraqi deal, and our allies, the Turks fuming over the way American involvement would stir up big problems within Turkeys' own Kurdish population).  The only thing holding Iraq together (a post-World-War-One British creation) was Saddam Hussein himself.  Taking him out would throw the whole area into turmoil, leaving opportunities for all kinds of political mischief, rather than some idyllic "democracy" as the result.  Even Vice President Cheney himself had earlier confessed that we had not gone into Iraq itself after chasing Saddam out of Kuwait, because Iraq was a "quagmire," that is, a bottomless pit to sink into and lose everything.  But Baby Bush was determined to be the one to bring Saddam "to justice," and (in keeping with DC political, intellectual and moral standards) now Cheney stood strongly with Bush in this plunge into the same quagmire. I was upset, as Bush tried one excuse after another to justify his Saddam "takeout." And my students knew how upset I was.  So apparently were some of the parents. So Dan came to me to tell me to ease up.  He felt pretty much the same way I did over the matter.  But it was upsetting these parents because I seemed so "anti-American" in not supporting our President.  Anti-American?  I loved my country. I just wanted my country not to do something disastrously stupid.  But stupid it did. And there was not much I really could do about it!   Bush announces his "Bush Doctrine" ... punishing the Afghan Taliban for not giving up Bin Laden. But the CIA’s Tenet and the Pentagon’s Rumsfeld compete for command of the operation.  Rumsfeld wins … except that the military is not close to being ready for the task.  In this long delay, Bin Laden is able to go into hiding.  It will take the next ten years to find him. Then Bush decides to take on Iraq ... dump its dictator and "free" it for democracy! After maneuvering to try to get more international allies to join his crusade against Saddam Hussein (but few do), in March of the next year (2003) Bush is ready for his full assault on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.  We call what happens next to Iraq "Shock and Awe." We bomb … then invade with ground forces.  The Iraqis fight back … and Saddam Hussein goes into hiding. To me, what we are doing to an Iraq that is of no threat to us is pure evil ... an evil that, as all evils do, justifies itself according to some kind of high moral principle.  But few people – other than gullible Americans – bought Bush's moralizing.  It was all just too horrible to be justified.  And in the end, we stepped into Cheney's "quagmire." At the same time, Bush had "freed up" the American economy from long-standing economic rules (in part to cover the huge cost of his Iraqi war) in order to bring the American economy out of a slump.  But in doing so, he also fired up a horrible speculative fever in the housing market ... which in the end bankrupted a huge part of the world of high finance ... and private citizens as well. Obama's "change" When Baby Bush left office, with the American economy in near-melt-down status, I was hoping that the country would turn its leadership over to a proven patriot of the bravest kind, John McCain.  But I also realized that the Republican Party would take a huge hit because of the economic disaster Bush left behind.  And also, much was made by the Democrats of McCain's age, running for office at age 72.  But they couldn't find much dirt to hit him with (besides his age) so they went after his running mate, Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, whom they accused of being no more than a beauty-queen bimbo.  And with McCain so old, the Democrats made as much as possible about how dangerously close the country was to coming under the presidency of a beauty-queen bimbo if the McCain-Palin ticket were to win the election. However, my students and I attended a rally put on by both candidates, where from my point of view, they were both impressive in the way they addressed the major issues facing the country.  And we also attended a Clinton rally, in which only Hillary's husband Bill was present.  At this point Hillary had already been defeated by Obama in the race for the Democratic Party nomination, and the event was more a celebration of "Clintonness" than any presentation of the major issues of the campaign. As far as Obama went, I could not make out much about the man, except that he rode big his "Blackness" (despite being raised by a White mother and White grandparents), and that he intended to "change" America.  I was a bit nervous that Obama's goal was to bring the country back to the days of the late 1960s, when race became a very divisive issue, even violently so.  But I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this matter. But little by little his program of "change" saddened me.  He really wanted to bring Middle America down because of all of its failings.  He rightly understood the Supreme Court (not Congress) to be the most pivotal institution in getting his changes in place. When he appointed two unmarried and childless women – one of them also Hispanic and the other Jewish – to the Supreme Court, I knew Middle America was in for trouble. Then too, Obama couldn't stay out of local tragedies, first the shooting of a Black youth in Florida, which Obama went before the public announcing that if he himself had a son, he would have been like the Black youth killed in this struggle with a White (actually mixed race himself) in a neighborhood-watch event.  And later, he would go full force against a White cop in Ferguson Missouri, when the cop shot a Black youth, Obama doing so, well before the facts in the matter were fully assembled.  This event in turn birthed the Black Lives Matter Movement, which got full support from Obama, and his Attorney General, Eric Holder – who Obama sent to Ferguson to make sure that the final verdict on the matter went against the White cop.  But the actual facts ultimately supported the cop, to the grand disappointment of Holder, who could not resist issuing deep criticism of the (White) racism that underlay the whole mess. And so it was that America was back in the business of issuing racist accusations across American society, something that the country definitely did not need.  But it seemed to serve some strong, but very narrow, political interests quite well, as racism (and for that matter nationalism, religious sectarianism, tribalism and now even sexism) always does.  But serving such narrow political interests is always guaranteed to undercut the larger social order, disastrously so. I was also saddened that Obama had America back trying to export its democratic idealism abroad, especially in the Middle East – when the "Arab Spring" of 2011 broke out, and country after country went through the disruptions of mob uprisings (the mob hysteria even spread to Greece, Italy, and ultimately even Great Britain). Obama sent air support to the heavy European involvement in the takedown of Libyan dictator Gaddafi, which threw that country into deep civil war.  This would turn around and bite us a year later when our American ambassador to a post-Gaddafi Libya and two other American officials were killed in the very region that we had been supporting, in the largely anti-Gaddafi East (Cyrenaica) versus the largely pro-Gaddafi West (Tripolitania).  Ironic, not to mention tragic. And Obama did everything he could to take down Syrian president Assad, not only helping to throw that country into ever-deeper civil war (several million people forced to flee the country) but giving Russia and Iran the excuse to come big into Syria to make themselves very useful to Assad, and find a new position of political influence right there on the shores of the Mediterranean!  Wow!  That was a big political loss for America. And Obama came close to doing the same in Egypt, after the overthrow of Egyptian dictator Mubarak, with Obama's enthusiastic support of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, Morsi, when he narrowly won new Egyptian elections as the country's president, and then immediately issued an arrest warrant for his largely Secular opponent (who had to flee the country)!  The election was so divisive, and Morsi so dictatorial, that this in turn threw the country into even deeper disorder, until the Egyptian military finally stepped in and restored order in the country ... to the great disapproval of Obama! But America really had little say in what was going on in Egypt at this point. And I was unhappy with Obama's non-response to China's building a military base in the South China Sea, just offshore from the Philippines, in order to enforce its claim that this vital waterway was actually Chinese territory.  No, all the rest of the world, and the many countries surrounding the South China Sea knew it to be "high seas," belonging to no one.  And Obama also loudly claimed this point, but did nothing to put military muscle behind that claim.  Building our own military base somewhere near the Chinese base would have been what I would have done, though no one was asking me what to do on the matter! Overall, in the same way that Bush left America hurting deeply both economically (the meltdown) and diplomatically (Afghanistan and Iraq) I felt the same hurt for America in what Obama left behind morally and spiritually (as well as diplomatically) in departing from office after serving eight years as president.  Not only had America further weakened its position internationally, the country itself was once again bitterly divided across not only racial lines but now also across unbending ideological lines as well.   Wanting to see America get back on course What America needed badly at that point was healing, not more ideological divisiveness.  That's why I so much wanted to see someone like the famous surgeon Ben Carson take the American presidency.  Although he was even more "Black" by birth than Obama, in his go at life, he had become entirely Middle American in spirit, living well-above the crude racial divisions that were now tearing at the country. Having Carson as our American president would have served greatly in inspiring the country to rise once again to some kind of grander social purpose, and sense of unity. Dr. Carson was a wonderful example to put before all Americans of traditional American "rags to riches" development through hard work (rather than just standing around complaining about how unfair life was).  He was self-taught, demonstrating an ability to take on most any challenge and going at it wisely.  He was an outstanding team player.  And he was deeply and most authentically Christian. America needed someone like Carson to get the nation back on track politically, socially, morally and spiritually.  Otherwise the county was in danger of going further down this road not only of ideological hostility, but also that of social class, race, and even sexual and generational hostilities – the very things that self-serving politicians love to exploit for personal gain,1 but also the very things that destroy social unity – and thus a society's ability to achieve and sustain greatness. But in the 2016 Republican Presidential Debates, Carson was given little attention, because Trump kept swinging the TV cameras back to himself with his loud comments and running attacks and insults aimed at his competitors.  I was deeply saddened that, in the end, this was the basis on which the Republican Party made its choice of candidates. I must say that after this, I found myself rather removed from what was further unfolding at the political heart of my beloved America.  I was tired of listening to self-serving political "Reason" loudly proclaimed by this or that group. My prayers for Divine rescue My heart was breaking for the country I loved dearly.  It seemed to me that, since the beginning of the 21st century, we had gone so far down the very destructive "silly road," that short of divine intervention by God himself (another Great Awakening), America would no longer be able to self-correct in its social plunge downwards. And thus it became my daily prayer (and my beloved family's prayer) that God would intervene, and bring Middle America back on course, the one that was set out four centuries ago by the Puritans who came to America to make this new social venture one of setting up a City on a Hill, a Christ-like Light to the Nations. And it was ultimately why I made the decision finally to take on the task of telling just that story, in my three-volume history of America – The Covenant Nation, A Christian Perspective. 1Cheap-shot White racist politics employed by Southern politicians in the 1950s and 1960s served no good purpose to the poor Whites that these politicians were seeking votes from.  It only gave poor Whites an excuse to accept their status, because of the supposedly impassable social barriers placed in front of them by the so-called "Black Threat."  But the same holds true today when "Progressive" politicians also play the same race card – except now against Whites – in an effort to broaden their political base within the Black community.  Such appeal to Black racism is guaranteed to be no more of an aid to poor-Black development than Black-baiting was to poor-White development in the previous century. THE HODGES MOVE ON FROM TKA Ultimately … time arrives for the younger Hodges to finish out at TKA.  The first to graduate is Rachel (2007).  She will head on that fall to Penn State (main campus). And Paul graduates TKA two years later (2009)  ... and then that fall heads off to Temple University in Philadelphia. Then two years after that is Elizabeth’s graduation in 2011 ... who that fall then heads off to Lafayette College in Easton. And John graduates in 2016 … and heads off to Indiana University of Pennsylvania  … but transfers after a semester to Penn State Asked what the graduates had learned at TKA, instead of a gushy tribute to all they had learned from the wonderful teachers, etc. ... that had typically been the response as they went down the line of graduating seniors ... John’s answer was one word:  "perseverance." Everyone laughed.  They understood well what John had been put through! But ultimately, with the holding of TKA graduation exercises in June of 2019, it's my turn to move on from TKA ... to devote myself fulltime to writing Go on to the next section:  Our Kids' Place in the Hodges Dynamic! Miles H. Hodges