January 2000 I started to get chest pains , a surgeon looked in my arteries , determined that I had
a condition called vasospasm and he would not sign a return to work form , my employer could not
take me back to work . I put my house up for sale while I still had equity. it took two years to get
disability even though three doctors said that I could not work. I was poor but Jacob and I were
getting along well.
After meeting Betty Borak I began walking around town with a group that walked every night, I
met Peggy Guoin on one of these walks on January 20th 2000, as bitter and distrustful and afraid of
trusting people especially women , Peggy and I became friends. Peggy came over to my house and
brought her trumpet and played her horn while I was putting finishing touches on John 10:9. and I
felt very blessed. Peggy is a research librarian in Port Huron , with 5 children from a husband who
died in a car accident in 1996. I finished John 10:9 and it hung in the free methodist church in
Memphis Mi. . I started a new painting called “ I am the light” John 8:12 , this painting shows a group
of people on a mountain plateau . In the valley is a small city based on Memphis Mi. . On the other
side of the valley is a mountain with the sun either rising or setting , the sun is the head of Jesus with
the body in the rocks, rays of light came off of the hands of Jesus , one of the people on the plateau
looks a lot like me heading the wrong way but the light of Christ touched me anyway. during this
painting we were busy rebuilding two houses , traveling and collecting rocks and building Peggy’s
garden after all she is a master gardener.
In 2002 we were Married and in 2004 Peggy bought a second house which we rebuild with out of
pocket money. In the middle of this rebuild I had back surgery , it was found that the back was
broken in 1976 and over the years it would re-break and repair itself until finally their was enough
calcium built up to make the break apparent.. I had been to many hospitals over the years and was
told that it was just muscle spasms.
Later in 2004 I was asked to paint something for the children at The Memphis library and a mural
covered the whole back side of the library with childrens favorites like “ Jay Jay the jet plain” . “
Thomas the train” ,” Bob the builder” , “ three little pigs” , “ old lady in the shoe”, “ cat in the hat”,
Curious George”., and a few others on the bottom ,
In the triangle at the top are library shelves with people standing at the ends of the shelves with
the sayings that they are famous for saying like Einstein said “ God does not play dice in the middle
is a blackboard with the words : learn to love to learn” that is my saying others may have come up
with it but I am not aware of anyone else saying it so I claim it as my own. I was asked to paint the
police station and painted a rendition of Memphis as it appeared in 1906 with a 2006 police car
appearing to come out of the building, there is a rendition of the “ Clegg-mobile “ which was the first
self propelled vehicle in Michigan and was built in Memphis in 1885/6.
page 9