A salute to our past
During the service on Sunday January 22, 2012, the O.F.s officially retired and passed on the ministry to the new group, The Honey Doers.
The origin of the O.F.s began in 1982 when Pastor Lundin called a meeting of retired men with the purpose of performing preventive maintenance on the church. Pastor Lundin set the stage by serving coffee and cookies and asking the three men in attendance if they ever had a dream?
They reached an agreement this would be a working group – no bible study – and then set their schedule: 8 - 9 a.m. – coffee and left over Sunday donuts over conversation to address the world problems and politics and set their work for the day. 9 a.m. to noon – carry out the work schedule
Slowly the group enlarged as more men retired and became familiar with this quiet group. The church staff remembers the job of replacing light bulbs in the sanctuary. In those days a 16 foot wooden orchard ladder was used. It took 3 men to carry it from the Great Hall into the Sanctuary and then set it up, one brave person to climb to the top while the others (6) sturdied the ladder. This created the saying: How may O.F.s does it take to change a light bulb? Today that ladder is gone, to be replaced by metal ladders and the possibility of a lift rental.
Now, the O.F.s live in our memories and we thank them for the devotion to CGS and the ministry they created. We have said good-bye to: Bob Heiderich, Don Vail, Harry Russell, Art Petersen, Paul Natwick, Eric Forstrom, Lew Guetschow, Ken Evans and Don Berg. Paul Kirchoff lives in Northern California, Dave Hargens and Barney Hazarian are still active at CGS.
The torch from this group has been passed on to Matthew Chun, Randy Presuhn, Jeff Heiderich (son of Bob) and Tom Stein (son-in law of Paul Kirchoff) and the newest recruit Dwayne Riley. We welcome these men as they carry on this ministry.
And yes, the Old F____s chose their name - it does not stand for the Old Fellows.
With much love,
Jean Jensen, in collaboration with Barney and Dave.