Here is where something needs to be said about Dad. Ninety years old and still going strong is a real milestone for any man in this day and age. Specially when you consider he survived combat in Europe where men died right beside and all around him, made his living in the timber industry as an old growth fir and redwood logger and survived a heart attack when he was in his early 40's. Logging in those years was the most dangerous profession in the world. He used to tell my brother and me that “loggers were rough and tough and hard to bluff and the women were darn glad of it.” That became the Johnston Family Motto. Looking back on my brother's and my life, I'd have to say that pretty much sums it all up too. It was all about respect.
That's only part of Dad's story though. As the story goes when he was three years old, his father and mother were living in a remote logging camp back up in the mountains in the state of Washington. It was winter when his father, for some reason, had to travel to Portland, Oregon and leave him and his mother home alone. She apparently was sick with pneumonia. When his father returned he found him all alone with his dead mother. They believe he survived with her for three freezing days. The year would be 1923.
Soon after that his father left him with his mother's parents in Oregon. They raised him until he was 10 years old when his father, who had remarried decided, according to Dad, he would make a good farmhand on their dairy. His father had remarried and the new family included an “a typical” stepmother, two half-sisters and one half-brother. Since he was the bastard of the bunch he was bunked out with his grandfather (his dad's father) in the milk house. In all Dad was essentially raised by his grandparents. When his new stepmother tried to raise him as a Catholic, however, his mother's parents drew the line and said no. In the end they prevailed too. That experience, he said, soured him on all religions.
After the war Dad was considered and respected in the business community as an honest, decent and hardworking man. That is what I grew up believing too. He was independent and a self-starter. He came home after the war very disillusioned by the lies the American government was telling everyone what had happened in Germany at the end of the war, when he knew the truth to be different. He said because of what the government was doing, basically a sell-out, good men lost their lives for nothing. He believed that if he survived the war he would be in a position to strike out on his own, go into business for himself and raise his family, so he prepared for that eventuality. In the interim his father and father-in-law had other plans. Ultimately, they both made him and my mother promises and offered him opportunities to work with them, and at the same time, own and run his own business. Both lied. In the end he moved to Southern Humboldt County, California and bought 40 acres of brushy hillside, built a nice home and ran his own logging and trucking business during all my growing up years. Building a new home was a family project, so we all worked. No time for after school activities, no television or other time-consuming affairs. In the evenings, when Dad wasn't working on the house he would read to everyone whatever book he was interested in at the time. It was at that time I became acquainted with the Bible. Which was unusual for Dad because he was extremely anti-religious and neither Dad nor Mom attended any local church group.
My mother's grandmother was a member of the first small group of people, 12 I believe, beginning at the turn of the century, in Eureka known as International Bible Students. The people that sold Dad the property were also Bible Students and knew my great-grandmother. In time they convinced Dad to read some of their literature and begin studying the Bible with them. This became a weekly family event. For our part, my brother and I were given a scripture or two every week to memorize. We had to state the location, where it could be found in the Bible, and recite the text word for word. Over the course of study I memorized many Bible scriptures. I still remember the first two as they had the most to do with setting my priorities in life. In time the group of Bible Students grew and other families began coming together to study the Bible from Garberville, Redway, Salmon Creek and Weott. When the group grew large enough to warrant a meeting hall to accommodate all the new students, one was eventually found between Redway and Garberville, CA. By this time a congregation was formed and associated with the National Bible Students. Up until then Dad, who was oldest male Bible Student, conducted or directed the Bible study group. As I remember the group had grown to 40 or 50 by this time. Before this, we occasionally we would travel to Eureka to attend a weekend meeting. That is when my public speaking began. One of the weekly meetings was a school to prepare members for their duties as a Bible Student; to adequately preach and teach what they learned. For new speakers, the assignment was a 10 or 12 minute Bible reading with a short introduction and conclusion. There were twice to three times the people at those meetings in Eureka. That was tough for a ten year old looking out at all those faces and trying to remember what you were supposed to say and pronounce all those tough words. When it came to the Bible Students, our family all started out together. In time Dad become the presiding Congregation Minister in Southern Humboldt soon after the group affiliated with the world-wide organization and determined that if my brother and I wanted to pursue that ministry full time the family would support us. For me, my life's course was set.
During our growing up years Dad often spoke to my brother and me about his father and his father-in-law. He told us how both men, who were dairymen and farmers had enticed him and my mother to come live in homes they provided and work for them at a good wage as a way to be deferred from the war only to pay them nothing, provide no housing and then tell him if he quit he would be drafted. In the end when he objected, his father-in-law set it up so he was drafted anyway. Dad always said he believed his father-in-law secretly hoped he would get killed in the war. He also said, there were a few times he almost got his wish. Dad would occasionally tell my brother and me that he would never do to us what was done to him.
What did I learn about the “Greatest Generation”? Later on in life as a consequence of my ministry I met another member of this so-called “Greatest Generation” who later became my father-in-law. He like my Dad was a combat World War II veteran. He had landed on the beaches of Normandy in the second wave, got to land on the backs of dead men, was awarded a Bronze Star and a couple of purple hearts among other medals. Both men survived the war only to come home to become casualties of another war. Over the course of years, I knew and worked with many war veterans. It was a common understanding that those that survived the war, unless physically injured or handicapped, came back normal people, “no worse for the wear.” Time revealed that none of them were normal. While it may have looked like most of them picked up life where they left off, they all had lost some if not all their humanity.
It didn't take long for their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives and girlfriends to put their manhood to the test. Dad was mustered out of the Army at Sacramento, CA. My grandfather had a ranch in Covelo, CA and my Mom lived nearby. I remember it was in the winter and the road out to the main highway was not very good, but Mom made it. After a couple of days they came home and as I remember, Dad was not happy at all with what he encountered. He was faced with working for his father-in-law again and it did not take him long to put it right to Dad. He had gotten away with all the money Dad had sent home and his car was up on block with no tires. His father-in-law was using them. Tires were rationed in those years. As a soldier's wife, Mom could get tires, gas and other things when no one else could.
What I learned about this “Greatest Generation” is that, to a man, they were all neutered or emasculated. They were all compromised souls. In every family it was the wife that wore the pants. Most of the time these wives considered there husbands worthless. That same consideration passed on the their children. How do you get anything of value from a worthless, gutless, weak and spineless man? In time nothing had any value. Nothing except one thing, Momma getting her way. This was demonstrated in the Johnston Family by what I called the “Hay-Shocking Event.” It turned Dad's life around and he was never the same again.
Hay-shocking event: ...
Gary.
