Moving Back to Iowa

Moving is never a pleasant task.  In this case it was probably the most difficult move we’ve ever made.  We had been living in the same house in Shreveport for 11 years.  You accumulate a lot of stuff you don’t need.  Besides that we had a bunch of other stuff that we brought to Shreveport with us that we just couldn’t seem to let go. 

I even did the unthinkable. I started downsizing my library.   When I started preaching I had three books my father had given me.  I still had some of my college textbooks (It took years for me to part with my book on physiological hygiene, which I never consulted after college).  When I moved to Rosebud, I started buying a few books – sermon books mostly because I needed material. By the time I left Shreveport, I had accumulated quite a few books.  Preachers have books. 

I remember negotiating with a mover one time.  When I told him I was a preacher, he said, “You’ve probably got about a million books.”  That was a bit of an exaggeration, but my collection did go a good bit beyond Ann’s cookbooks. I had a lot of stuff that was nothing but junk.  I gave some of them away and took some others to the dumpster.  I still had an enormous number of books.  After I moved to Iowa, the library at ACU asked me to consider donating my books.  I think I sent them eleven boxes, but I still have six shelves of books in my church office, and two shelves of books at home.

After all the downsizing, we loaded out the largest bobtail truck that Penske rents, and still couldn’t get everything in it.

Gary came from Iowa, and one of his friends flew in from Las Vegas to drive the truck to Iowa.  Ruby and Rich flew in from Colorado and they drove us to Iowa. It was the end of an era for us, and we were two tired people when we got to Cedar Rapids.