Until the end of her 92 years, “Dottie” has been known by all in her world as a compassionate, loving person whose arms, heart and home were always open. As a mother of 3, she cared for numerous foster children as well as many long-term guests who needed a “home” for a while. When her late husband, Joe Morgan became a chaplain in WW II, and later, when they lived here in a Navy town, she left the front door unlocked and blankets and pillows behind the couch so that service men on leave could slip in and sleep on the couch or on a cot or on the floor (depending on how many of them showed up on a given night) when they had no where else to go.
Dorothy Mae Pidd was born in Los Angeles, California on September 24, 1915. Her mother had been Mayme Nelson, born and raised on a farm in Clear Lake, Wisconsin. We don’t know how long Dorothy lived in Los Angeles, but we know it was at least two years because that’s how old Dorothy was when, in her earliest memory, she recalled falling off of a pier into the ocean. “I remember looking down into the swirling water, feeling dizzy, then the water coming up at me,” she recounted to her children. “My Mother didn’t see me fall. I would have perished if it hadn’t been for some anonymous young man on the beach who saw me topple in and raced out to save me,” she said. Perhaps that was why she always claimed to have a fear of water and of high places.
]]>Until the end of her 92 years, “Dottie” has been known by all in her world as a compassionate, loving person whose arms, heart and home were always open. As a mother of 3, she cared for numerous foster children as well as many long-term guests who needed a “home” for a while. When her late husband, Joe Morgan became a chaplain in WW II, and later, when they lived here in a Navy town, she left the front door unlocked and blankets and pillows behind the couch so that service men on leave could slip in and sleep on the couch or on a cot or on the floor (depending on how many of them showed up on a given night) when they had no where else to go.
Dorothy Mae Pidd was born in Los Angeles, California on September 24, 1915. Her mother had been Mayme Nelson, born and raised on a farm in Clear Lake, Wisconsin. We don’t know how long Dorothy lived in Los Angeles, but we know it was at least two years because that’s how old Dorothy was when, in her earliest memory, she recalled falling off of a pier into the ocean. “I remember looking down into the swirling water, feeling dizzy, then the water coming up at me,” she recounted to her children. “My Mother didn’t see me fall. I would have perished if it hadn’t been for some anonymous young man on the beach who saw me topple in and raced out to save me,” she said. Perhaps that was why she always claimed to have a fear of water and of high places.
It probably tells us something important about her to know that, though she could scarcely keep herself afloat and feared the water, she learned to water ski when in her early 40’s.
Dorothy was only nine when “Daddy Pidd” passed away. They had been living in Minneapolis. It was there that a great encampment of American Indians from various language groups took place one summer only two blocks from their home. She was able to wander about among them, stirring in her a fascination with American Indians that lasted her whole life.
Her sister, Helen and her brother, Donald had both come along, and now her widowed Mother and the kids ages 2 to 9 moved back to her grandfather’s farm in Clear Lake.
Once there, Dorothy learned about cows and chickens and geese and gardening, but not everything she needed to know about horses. She told her children years later that she made the mistake of walking behind a horse waving a stick in her hand and got kicked in the face. The hoof hit right under her nose, nearly severing her entire upper lip, and leaving a scar from cheek to cheek that provoked questions from her kids and grand kids, and the story, with its lessons about things you do and don’t do around horses.
Stories of her Clear Lake years included milking 8 cows each morning before school, at times ice skating two miles to school on the frozen water in the ditches next to the road, being faster at climbing trees than the boys, and loving animals – even horses.
By the time she was 13, Dorothy’s Mother had remarried a man named Swanson, and her baby sister, Darlene was born.
At the age of 17 she was enrolled as a senior in the high school academy at Olivet College (now Olivet Nazarene University), in Illinois. To help with her expenses, she got a job in the school cafeteria, where Joe Morgan, a college student, was to be her supervisor. He did NOT make a good first impression, she later reported. “In fact, I did not like him at all,” she is known to have said. Dottie has always been a charmer, but his charms apparently matched hers. They were engaged before the end of the school year and married in the summer of 1934.
She knew when she married Joe Morgan that he would be a Nazarene pastor and she a pastor’s wife. It was during the depths of the depression, which meant life as a pastor’s wife would be even tougher. There are interesting stories surrounding their first pastorate, starting a church in Malta, Ohio in 1935. While there, their first child, Frank, was born in 1936 just across the river in McConnelsville, Ohio.
From the Malta church they went to Syracuse, Ohio. Then, in 1938, they went to Dunbar, West Virginia, a town near Charleston, where they pastored for five years. While in Dunbar, Jody and Judi were born. It was also while in Dunbar that Dorothy helped her husband start a new church in the all-black community just 8 miles away, Institute, West Virginia. Up to that point, there was not a single church in that town. Later, Institute, West Virginia became known all over the denomination as the sight of a Nazarene sponsored college.
Once the U. S. entered the Second World War, Dottie volunteered as a nurse’s aid in the hospital in Charleston to free up nurses for the war effort. It was something she could do, and she did it.
In 1943, her husband surprised everyone when he concluded that God was directing him to enter the Army Air Corps as a chaplain. Dorothy and her children went to stay with relatives in Ohio and then on to Boston, while her husband was in chaplain’s training at Harvard. Then it was on to his first assignment at Kern Field, just outside Salt Lake City, Utah.
No sooner had they found a place to live near the base when Dorothy called on her childhood experience on the farm. She bought a Jersey cow, known to produce 4 or 5 gallons of milk per day. She repaired a chicken coup and bought 125 chickens, which were soon producing many dozens of eggs per day. She would see to it that, even with wartime scarcity, her family and the soldier boys, who streamed in and out of the house, would have plenty of fresh milk and eggs. She also augmented the family income by selling what was left over.
In that summer of 1943 she canned over 800 quarts of food from her “Victory Garden” and what she could buy locally. She would see to it that the rationing of food would not be a problem in her home.
After three years in Denver, her husband was discharged from the service and accepted the pastorate here at San Diego First Church of the Nazarene in 1946. They pastored here for 19 years, leaving to pastor in Santa Cruz in 1965.
In 1976, and semi-retired, they returned to San Diego for good. In 1988, Joe Morgan passed away. Three years later, Dottie married the Reverend John Van Ryn, a friend of the family for about forty years, who had recently lost his wife. Seventeen months later, John Van Ryn left Dottie a widow again. But that was not to last long. Her friend and former neighbor, Frank Bullet convinced her to become his wife and she came to live on the horse ranch on which she lived the rest of her life.
After Frank Bullet passed on, Dottie was sure she would not marry again. But that was before she met Sammy Angotti. When the Apache Retreat Riding Club set up their operation on her ranch, they declared they could not get along without Sammy living in a mobile home on the ranch. It was not very long before a late-in-life romance blossomed between the two, and Dottie decided that neither could she get along without Sammy. They were married four and a half years ago. Along with being her sweetheart, Sammy also became her guardian angel, loving and caring for Dottie in an amazing way.
It is true, Dottie lost three husbands when they passed on. But Sammy Angotti was the only husband to lose Dottie. She entered God’s presence last Wednesday morning, May 21st.
In addition to leaving behind her beloved husband, Sammy, Dottie is also survived by her brother, Don Pidd of San Juan Baptista, California, and her sister, Darlene Kennedy, of El Cajon, neither of whom could be here today. She also leaves behind three children, six grandchildren and twelve great grand children. Nearly all of them, along with their spouses, are here to celebrate her life. We didn’t try to count nieces and grand nieces, nephews and grand nephews. But some of them are here today as well. Welcome! --- to all who are here sharing her memory.
]]>Yep, I confess, I'm no blogger. No urge to post stuff here all the time. No urge to create a following of people who read what is on my mind. No personal agenda to push. No professional status to promote. No compelling reason to do any of that. And frankly, no time to even try.
But what is here represents a small subset of some stuff I find interesting or important -- kinda my partial collection of thoughts, quotes, links, etc. My del.icio.us links actually are more current than anything else.
So there you have it. I'm no blogger.
]]>Yep, I confess, I'm no blogger. No urge to post stuff here all the time. No urge to create a following of people who read what is on my mind. No personal agenda to push. No professional status to promote. No compelling reason to do any of that. And frankly, no time to even try.
But what is here represents a small subset of some stuff I find interesting or important -- kinda my partial collection of thoughts, quotes, links, etc. My del.icio.us links actually are more current than anything else.
So there you have it. I'm no blogger.
]]>Over at netvibes.com they offer a little portlet through which you can subscribe to different calendars offered in iCal format.
Google Calendars offers the ability to subscribe to external calendars in addition to those of other google users.
Outlook can handle individual iCal files, but using an extension called Remote Calendars I read about over at Wikipedia's article on iCalendar, you can subscribe to calendar feeds as well.
]]>Over at netvibes.com they offer a little portlet through which you can subscribe to different calendars offered in iCal format.
Google Calendars offers the ability to subscribe to external calendars in addition to those of other google users.
Outlook can handle individual iCal files, but using an extension called Remote Calendars I read about over at Wikipedia's article on iCalendar, you can subscribe to calendar feeds as well.
So to try this out, I am making a normal page (I will link to it here in a moment) into an "event" in Drupal, and then offering my iCal feed on my home page, or at least that is what I'm trying to do right now....
]]>The relative size of each colored box reveals the strength of a particular personality trait. Hover the mouse to see each trait, or click on the name of my type to read a profile or to take the test yourself...
]]>The relative size of each colored box reveals the strength of a particular personality trait. Hover the mouse to see each trait, or click on the name of my type to read a profile or to take the test yourself...
]]>Gotta try this with the kids!
]]>Gotta try this with the kids!
]]>Does evil exist?
The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied, "Yes, he did!"
]]>Does evil exist?
The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied, "Yes, he did!"
"God created everything? The professor asked.
"Yes sir", the student replied.
The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are then God is evil". The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?"
"Of course", replied the professor.
The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"
"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question.
The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."
The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"
The professor responded, "Of course it does."
The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."
Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"
Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."
To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."
The professor sat down.
The student in the story offers a good pair of analogies for the Christian theology of good and evil: the pain we attribute to dark and cold is better defined as the effect of the lack of light or energy. I also appreciate how these analogies make it easier to see that "evil" entities are not originating power of their own but are merely mis-directing energy already available to them. What makes it evil is that it is out of alignment with God and good. But these thoughts are only comforting to those of us who believe already.
In the interest of avoiding the same error as the professor, it is also useful to observe that the student is not actually proving anything. He is simply offering a rational perspective that undermines the professor's assumption that evil has an existence of its own. To my knowledge, and despite the fact that I believe in the Jesus Christ's claims of diety, there exists no external, scientifically repeatable proof either for or against God's existence and goodness, no matter how much people may long for proof. Even the best logically supported systems of thought rely on some portion of un-provable trust -- trust in God and/or trust in the people who have passed along the stories about God and/or trust in the people whose disbelief we find appealing. The best we can expect from logic is to remove false logic and return the focus back to the question only our spirits can answer: whom will we trust?
]]>BEN STEIN: Here at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart. I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are.
(Footage of People magazine; Us magazine)
STEIN: I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I'm buying my dog biscuits. I still don't know. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are. They don't know who Nick and Jessica are, either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they've broken up? Why are they so darned important?
(Footage of People magazine)
STEIN: I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I don't care at all about Tom Cruise's baby.
(Vintage footage of congressional hearing)
STEIN: Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I'm a subversive? Maybe. But I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young? Hm, not so bad.
Next confession: I am a Jew and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish, and it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautifully lit-up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees.
]]>BEN STEIN: Here at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart. I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are.
(Footage of People magazine; Us magazine)
STEIN: I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I'm buying my dog biscuits. I still don't know. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are. They don't know who Nick and Jessica are, either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they've broken up? Why are they so darned important?
(Footage of People magazine)
STEIN: I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I don't care at all about Tom Cruise's baby.
(Vintage footage of congressional hearing)
STEIN: Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I'm a subversive? Maybe. But I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young? Hm, not so bad.
Next confession: I am a Jew and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish, and it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautifully lit-up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees.
(Footage of Christmas trees)
STEIN: I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are — Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they're slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. I shows that we're all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year.
It doesn't bother me one bit that there's a manger scene on display at a key intersection at my beach house in Malibu.
(Footage of manger scene; menorah)
STEIN: If people want a creche, fine. The menorah a few hundred yards away is fine, too. I do not like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way. Where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and aren't allowed to worship God as we understand him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we used to know went to.
]]>