cbs

In my lifetime I've done a wide variety of things, as summarized below. (Jack of all trades, master of none? Perhaps.) An activity Kay and I have enjoyed in recent years has been conducting weddings. This involves several activities that I really enjoy: meeting with young couples, helping them with plans for their weddings, occasionally helping them grapple with issues affecting their long-term happiness and success, and (last but not least) officiating at weddings.

But more recently, a concern for improving the schools has grown more important. See Project Opportunity below.

Though I've always been interested in writing, most of my writing seems to be on hold at the moment. I've pretty much shelved my research into Historical Jesus issues. After stumbling onto the powerful and compelling work of English theologian Michael Goulder, I ended up completely re-working my two study-guides on the gospels of Mark and Matthew. I feel that, because of Goulder's insights, the history of the gospels now makes sense to me -- though there will always be unanswered (and unanswerable) questions.

A recurrent interest has always been genealogy, and now -- perhaps as an escape from anything serious -- I'm working steadily at building a Sanford database, with information on as many Sanfords as possible from colonial times to the present. (At last count it contained about 17,000 names of Sanfords and other relatives.)

In the early '60s, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bangkok, Thailand (so there's a draft of a book about that -- with pictures). I'm hoping Kay and I can visit Thailand in the next few years, and then perhaps I can put together a "Thailand -- Then and Now" book.

I've been an English teacher. I could write a very non-mainstream book about grammar (and perhaps will) -- but would you really want to read it? Perhaps I could do something more solid and just as interesting as the best seller, "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves."

In the late '60s, I spent four years as a counselor in a low-income junior high school. No writing has come out of that experience, but it has undoubtedly shaped many of my attitudes. Now I'm coming full circle, realizing that that program, called "Project Opportunity," had a powerful impact on its participants, and that its learnings need to be updated and applied in schools today. And if I don't make it happen, it probably won't. See below.

I've designed, set up, run, and evaluated job-training programs.

I've run a home-repair business -- done carpentry, painting, plumbing -- put on roofs -- finally established working with windows, particularly old window units with sash-weights and puttied-in glass, as an uncontested area of expertise. (I was working with windows before I ever saw a computer.)

For over a decade I taught groups of senior citizens how to tell their stories so that grandchildren -- and others -- will want to read them. This experience led to the book Tell Your Story.

I've managed an apartment building for low-income elderly (and now, seven years later, my wife and I still go back there weekly to visit many of the tenants).

I'm an amateur Biblical scholar, specializing in Historical Jesus Studies. (Who was Jesus really, and what did he really teach?) This has led to several books (now available for purchase). Information

I've led Course in Miracles study groups.

I've dealt with the challenges of being a mature single (hence the book about relationships).

The experience of co-managing (with my then wife) an apartment building for low-income elderly led me a decade of homeowner-association management, from which I recently retired

I continue to be interested in languages. In junior high I took French and Latin. In college and grad school I took lots of German, which eventually led to an exchange year in Hamburg -- and fluency (lost and regained several times over the decades). Background in several languages led to my selection for Peace Corps service in Bangkok (on the theory that Thai is extremely difficult and best learned by those already fluent in several languages). Prior to a vacation in Italy a few years back, I learned enough Italian to read signs and newspapers, and even to write notes in Italian to the non-English-speaking nuns who ran the convent where we stayed -- but a long way from enough to engage in conversation. And now in preparation for a trip to Hungary, I spent almost a year working on mastering Hungarian grammar and amassed a large Hungarian vocabulary -- but again remained a long way from conversational ability. And there was a pay-off: After a week in Budapest (during which I enjoyed being able to read signs, get on the right subway train, and generally know pretty much where I was), we were preparing to take a bus to western Hungary to visit a former roommate. We went to the bus station the day before, I walked up to the ticket counter, and said in my best Hungarian (which I had rehearsed for hours before): "I would like two tickets for the 9:30 bus tomorrow to Veszprem." And the ticket-seller gave me the tickets and took my money, without laughing or switching to English. It just goes to show what a mere year of concentrated study will do for you.

Kay and I have both become ordained and now work with couples to plan the wedding service they want. We perform 25-30 weddings a year, and have done about 200 over the last half-dozen years. A book on weddings and wedding ceremonies may be in the offing.

In 2008, I met with a number of the "kids" who were participants in Project Opportunity in the '60s. ("Kids"! They're now in their 50s, far older than I was when I was their counselor!) They were unanimous in their emphatic declaration that Project Opportunity had changed their lives -- and their lives are testimony to the truth of that: they are solidly middle-class, with solid jobs, with an investmernt in their community, involved in communtiy affairs, with kids who are doing well in school. Reconnecting with them, I realized that the lessons of Project Opportunity desperately need to be applied to today's schools, with their 30% non-graduation rates. To that end, I've gotten involved with youth programs in the Durham area, and I'm now on the board of a high-school mentoring program called Movement of Youth (you can google it). I'm hoping to get one or more grants that will fund a revival of Project Opportunity in a Durham school. (And tomorrow -- the world!) Please read the brochure I've put together