NCUHS 1970 50th Class Reunion

(I graduated from North Country Union  High School Newport, Vermont 50 years ago this June. The following is a letter to my old classmates. In March I called my old school to see if a 50th reunion was planned and the school secretary told me that due to lack of interest the reunion committee had been discontinued some time ago. “People don’t seem to care about their 40th and 50th reunions so much these days”.)

Growing Up in Vermont

Growing up in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s was an exhilarating experience! Being born only six years post World War II, I found that life in America was a special privilege. We had been ushered into the greatest generation imaginable! In reality rural Vermont of the North East Kingdom was my home but America of the 50’s was booming and moving. Moving fast away from old traditional values.

I remember this at the young age of five years old. The hard life of my parents in the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s was a memory of the past. Prosperity and an easier life had dawned in America! For little children like me really didn’t have to work as hard as our parents had. I could look at Disney comic books and be stimulated in my mind, developing creative abilities. One day I day saw Mickey Mouse reaching for a jar of pickles high on a shelf. The role model mouse stepped up on a stool, reaching high as he lost his balance. Down tumbled my hero banging his head on the stool. Immediately stars and planets swirled around Mickey’s head. He seemed to be unhurt and a cosmic light show encircled him. I quickly concluded that what happens in comic books happens in real life as well! So out to the garage I went hammer in hand and found my Father under our car where he was repairing the muffler. I drew near to him and, as hard as a 5 yr. old could, hit him on the head. “Do you see stars Daddy? Where are the stars Daddy?” Father looked at me and said, “There are no stars son but you need to learn a lesson!” I ran inside where I found my Mother’s skirt at the kitchen sink. Father came in and his lesson was thwarted by my Mother and Dr. Spock. No spanking and no lesson learned. The lessons would come later at a much higher cost as compared to a sore bottom. Father had learned life to be one where you work, I would most always try to escape that school.

I didn’t really understand the meaning of life. To me it centered around what pleased me, such as the Easter-egg hunt, Christmas toys galore, and record albums! As good Catholics growing up in Vermont our life revolved around the big holidays. Television, even as a farming family led us to the chocolate bunnies and sugar-coated marshmallow chicks of Easter. It didn’t have anything to do with a Savior being willing to bear the pain of my guilt by taking my place in death. Knowing that there would be consequences to wrong and selfish choices was not formed in my vocabulary.

Life went on. Our middle-class farming home and town friends were a haven of happiness when all was well. Our neighbors and friends all enjoyed the luxury of being “all set” in middle-class America with a steady income from the milk check and the many other things my hard working Father did. Unlike the fathers of most of my peers mine only finished the 3rd grade. His home province was Quebec and it was a common thing to have one’s children work the farm with them when they were as young as 10 years old. My Father had character.

The stirring of the 70s with its “free spirit” hippie movement, and then on to the yuppie culture, made America the best place to live and grow up ever! We had the benefit of materialism, freedom from communistic control, and the security of living in such a fortified country that could win two wars at the same. Walter Cronkite of CBS News would come and visit with us every night after we finished our barn chores. Walter would show us graphically all that was happening in Viet Nam and then calmly say, “And that the way it is!” Life was turning out to not be so good! Time went on and we healed a little bit after the riots and assassinations. Little did any of us think that anything that is happening now throughout the entire planet, such as a pandemic, would ever befall us. And little did any of us think that we could have been deluded by an evil force desiring to take all us to death.

The Bible says very clearly that the whole world does live under the sway of the Evil One, and his sway causes us to live for ourselves, predominately focusing on our own satisfaction and pleasures. These feelings of satisfaction led me to enjoy “full throttle” whatever I could in life. His sway over my life deluded me into thinking I could pursue my own desires and never have to face the cost or the consequences.

And consequences were coming for our generation, not just eternally, but in the here-and-now. From pollution of our rivers and air to the overuse of all our resources, dependence on pharmaceuticals, crowded city conditions with rampant crime — the toll of selfishness was starting to leave its mark on planet Earth.

So now the question hangs in the air: “Was it us as human beings with our material desires and our full-throttle consumption that has brought all of this on?” How could we possibly answer the question with the word, “No”? We’ve all participated in the bounty, enjoying what’s been given to us by God, but who was ever going to stand up and say, “I recklessly centered this abundance around my own selfish desires.” But I had to ask myself, “How did I personally participate in this, such that I would have guilt? Doesn’t it take a mass accumulation of people to produce such an impact? So where do I fit into it?”

I had to take accountability for my own actions as a human being living here on Earth. Earth is man’s “testing ground” — the time given to us to determine how to live our lives, how to treat our fellow man, and how to judge our selfish desires and hurtful thoughts. After all, as long as we’re alive we have a chance to turn our lives around and possibly find mercy at the Judgment, right? Because there is a judgment coming for us. It says in the Bible that it is appointed for all men to die once and then comes the judgment.
I had to face the fact that I deserved judgment for how selfishly I had lived my life. Once I realized that, I desperately wanted a way to make amends, to turn around and live a different life, a way that wouldn’t compel me to live for myself again.

I was given that opportunity by becoming part of a people who had made this decision decades before this current world crisis came upon them — to live a self-sacrificing life with other believers, just as in Acts 2:44-45,

All who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

We are constantly meeting the needs of others, having been forgiven of our sins by the very Savior who was like a myth to me at eight years old. We are now able to forgive each other because we’ve been forgiven. He really did die to take away our guilt for the hurtful ways and thoughts that left us condemned and miserable.

Before the flood in Noah’s day, it was recorded that the thoughts of man were continually evil. The world was almost wiped out by the flood, but eight were spared because they feared God. But those who fear God in these days are rare.

I live in a place where, together with my friends, we have the freedom to live for God and lay down our lives daily for each other. We can also get to the root of how, when, and why we make selfish choices. It is true freedom — freedom that ushers us into an eternal home with our Savior and others who have chosen this path. The only way out of selfishness is to live for others, but first we had to be set free from the guilt of not living this way. Now we have hope, life, and peace as we daily lay down our lives for one another.

With the “shelter in place” mandate upon us all, it reminds us of the time several thousand years ago when the Israelites had to stay in their houses if they wanted to avoid the plague of death. Those who obeyed the instructions were the ones God protected. So now is a good time for us all to consider how we are living our lives. By taking accountability for our choices we can make a way for God to deliver us.

If you are one who can identify with what I am saying here, come and see what we have found. You’ll find true friends and a way out of the cycle of sin and self.

Melevav (Jim Bergeron Class of 1970 NCUHS, Newport, Vermont)