I moved back to the city the first week of June when school was out and got married a week later. The following school year I would be teaching at a junior/senior high school where my new wife also worked as secretery to the principle. I was especially looking forward to this position because it was at a private Christian school where I would be free to express my love for Jesus along with my teaching.

I taught 3 band classes: beginning, jr. hi, and sr. hi. Plus the jr. hi choir and sr. hi choir. I combined the jr. and sr. hi bands to create their first marching band. They were green. 90% of them had never marched before. They practiced marching on the parking lot (which had been striped like a football field just for us) and played a variety of musical styles. I arranged some classic hymns as well as current contemporary Christian music hits for them to play along with the standard march music that other public school marching bands were playing. They did great and we had a ball.

I combined a selection of songs I had written and wrote a musical play called "One Who Cares" that the jr. hi choir performed. For the sr. hi choir, I wrote a play from C. S. Lewis' book, "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" from "The Chronicles Of Narnia." Interwoven through that was the music of 2nd Chapter Of Acts' "Roar Of Love". This album was a collection of songs written about the same book. The best part about creating these musicals was that I was able to create the accompaniment tracks myself - as I did at Lomega - only this time I would be using a better multi-track recorder.

The church where my wife and I attended was a pretty good sized church that had TV broadcasting capabilities. Their studio had to be portable so they had converted a semi trailer and put all the monitoring and recording equipment inside there. Also inside the large video studio was an 8 track audio recording set up. Since I was such an involved member of the church, they allowed me to use it to create instrumental tracks for my school performance groups.

During the Christmas break, while no one was using the school building, I set the 8 track recorder up in the school auditorium on the stage where the piano was. I had also set my drums up with microphones so they could be recorded there, too.

I would usually record the drums first. I would sing the song in my head and play the drum part as I recorded it on 4 of the 8 tracks. I would then listen to the drum part in the headphones and add the piano part on a fifth track. With the 2nd Chapter Of Acts' music, I recorded the album onto one of the tracks (that I could erase and reuse later), then played it back through headphones and played the drum part (matching the recorded drums on the album - beat for beat - for the entire musical). I then went back and played the piano part - matching the album's piano part as best I could. Keep in mind I had spent hours transcribing and rehearsing the music before I began recording so I wouldn't waste time making performance faux pas' once I set the "studio" up. By the time I'd recorded drums and piano for "One Who Cares" for the jr. high choir and "The Roar Of Love" for the sr. hi plus about 10 other songs I'd written or arranged for the choirs to do, I had about two solid hours of music. This took 3 days, working from around 11:00 am to 10:00 pm with a supper break at 5:00.

The next step was to move the 8 track back into the converted semi-trailer where there was a carpeted cubicle - about 6' x 6' - where I could record acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, auxiliary percussion, and synthesizer (which in 1981-82, was not very sophisticated but it was adequate). This was my little slice of heaven. Here I could work in quiet solitude and not worry about visitors or background noise. It was great being able to work at my own pace and pick my hours. I couldn't have had a better job if I had created it myself. While everyone was on vacation, I was playing in this little studio having the time of my life.

The experience of writing, arranging, and recording music tracks was the most enjoyable time I'd ever had. And when we put all that work together with the voices of the kids, it was wonderful. I remember thinking, 'I could do this for the rest of my life.' I'm only sorry that video cassette recorders had not been developed yet so I could have videos of all the performances.

I was no longer anxious to be the next Michael W. Smith. I was happy just being a teacher with a wife and a little apartment. It was my favorite year before meeting Tami. If I only had a child. That was all I lacked in my perfect little world and I was confident that it wouldn't be long before I would be guiding little fingers across the piano keys.

Good times always go by the fastest and before I knew it, the school year was over and it was time for the summer break. What a year! What a blessing! I was amazed at all God had been giving me. In the evenings I would sit on the grass outside our patio doors, look out across the little lake then up to the night sky and say, "Thank you, God, for my life."



Laying flat on my back, paralyzed from the shoulders down, staring up at the ceiling, I continued my prayer... "Did I not thank you enough, God? What did I miss? Where did I go wrong? I know I'm a sinner. Is that the reason? What happened to those wonderful plans? What do I do now with the talents you gave me?"

My prayer was interrupted by a nurse who came in to check my vitals and my IV. She didn't say a word. She just quietly did her work. In a few minutes she was gone and I was alone again wondering what had happened to my perfect life. In a while I would fall asleep hoping I would wake up in the morning in bed at home with my wife and find the last 12 hours had been just one long terrible nightmare.