Leading Lines Lesson /  by Dave Hileman

One of the stalwart pieces of advice the photographers give is to find leading lines. Try and find something that will draw the viewers eye toward the point of the photo you want them to focus on. I think I finally found them. This is the Saint Peter Catholic Church as seen from the pedestrian / railroad bridge over the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry, WV.

Valor /  by Dave Hileman

A little thought about virtue today but one of the more important to many people 150 years ago. Duty, honor, respect, and valor all played a part in the short, sharp battle of New Market in May of 1864. The Union was moving down the valley from Winchester and the South had little with which to stop the Northern army. So 250 Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA were called out at 1 AM and marched over three days about 80 miles in the rain. The cadets ranged from 15 to 19 years of age. They were held in reserve at first but, reluctantly, they wee added to the Confederate line and moved into battle. They formed a few hundred feet from where this photo is taken and in the charge, diverted to both sides of the farm house. Then across a muddy field where many lost their shoes in the thick mud, and into the Union line. The Union retreated from the field and the Cadets even captured a cannon. They took 20% casualties and were honored at a fete in Richmond.

Weary but... /  by Dave Hileman

It is dark and the trailer is on the edge of a hill in a parking lot of an apple farm. It is very dark, it is cold out, it is windy and I am warm and comfortable. But very tired. Sleep is still spotty and insufficient for the day. But possibly improving? Not sure, but not worse.

Rusty and Janet and I left the church parking lot about 9:30, it took me a while to compose myself leaving the cemetery. We drove the beautiful route 231 and enjoyed a brief walk in the village of Sperryville. Then over the Blue Ridge to Luray. I first visited the caverns with Cindy when she was in college. We have been back one or two times but maybe 40 years ago for the last visit. It was ok, nice paved walking surface, no garish lights like I remember and some impressive formations. The on to the New Market Civil War battlefield park that involved the cadets of VMI in 1864. The movie in the VC was well done. We will go back in the morning as we ran out of time for the tour. We found our way to the Host site and then, after dinner, I took them to see Eastern Mennonite University when both Geof and I graduated, he in math, me with an MA in Congregational Leadership. And finally some ice cream at Kleins.

Good day over all. I made no major mistakes in the trailer, got a shower, fixed lunch and dinner and made coffee. Let’s see if we can do two in a row.

Reflection Pond

Headed Out Solo this Morning /  by Dave Hileman

I’ve not traveled with the trailer much without Cindy, of course, I’ve not done much of anything without Cindy. And I leave this morning for a few days of travel. Thankfully with good friends. Not sure how travel will be alone. We had well divided the chores and responsibilities of every trip. She did most of the detailed planning, she handled the food, the inside trailer stuff, I did the driving, the outside, and other tasks “as assigned.” We had such a small space that everything was carefully stored and a delicate dance took place inside the trailer. Who moved where when, who did dishes while the other did X or Y, all to make the most use of our time and space. Feels lonely and empty in here now. I struggle with the food a bit and have less confidence in what I am doing. I am less confident about handling the food requirements in a safe and useful fashion, backing into tight camping slots with no one guiding, putting the right thing in the right place and much more. I am confident I can work it out eventually, I am confident that I have great friends to travel with , to visit, who are open to a coffee or a meal and absolutely confident that God blesses effort and can make a way for the most inept camper ever. So off on this short, hopefully, instructive, safe, fun and restful jaunt. You cannot see the end of the journey so you plan, start and follow the road to adventure.

Cynthia Ann Jackson Hileman 1950 - 2023 /  by Dave Hileman

The Evening Prayer of St. Augustine, composed by Ola Gjeil

Watch, O Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, 

And give Your angels charge over those who sleep.

Tend Your sick ones, O Lord Jesus Christ.

Rest Your weary ones.

Bless Your dying ones.

Soothe Your suffering ones.

Pity Your afflicted ones.

Shield Your joyous ones, and all for Your love's sake. 

Amen.

Friends - Family - Faith /  by Dave Hileman

These three were the theme around which other things revolved in Cindy's life.

She never had a lot of friends at any one time, but she was loyal and loving and supportive and engaged with each and every one of the friends she made across decades: from Middle School, from Hood College, from Atlantic City, from Martinsville, from Johnson University, from Knoxville, from Madisonville, from Barboursville, From Williamsburg, from Raleigh. Some are scattered from where she first met them, some she saw regularly others occasionally or just notes. Others have passed on and, perhaps, she is catching up with them now. People she admired, respected, prayed for, thought about and loved. She treasured her friendships.

Her family was her joy. She missed her mother but was blessed by Aunt B. She loved spending time with her cousins and on special occasions, like a birthday or a summer picnic she could spend time with her brother and his wife, Ward and Bonnie, whom she adored and wanted her life modeled on theirs. Geof arrived my senior year of college and he was a delight - even though she and I both thought the hospital was a bit negligent handing over a baby to us. Gregg joined us while we lived in Barboursville. He always surprised us. But Cindy gave herself to them and their needs her priority. She was proud of each son and their families. Then there were grandchildren and, well, everyone and everything faded a bit or a lot. Kellen, Addie and Ellary Bea are and were the greatest joy she ever experienced. We went to ballet, dance, swim, band concerts, spelling b, more swim meets, Odyssey - its not that far to Iowa or Michigan, more swim meets, Christmas Eve dinners, a few trips and as many birthdays as were possible. She glowed when she talked about them, and she did so often.

The foundation of her life and the pinnacle of her time here was faith in Jesus Christ, love for the Church and study of the Scripture. Every morning she sat with coffee and read and prayed. Many times in the course of a year she engaged in more formal study, like Precept (which she also taught) or less formal home studies, or Sunday School. She served in every church that she was a part of and many that she was not. She served through Waypoint aiding new churches especially. She delighted in their outreach. Her faith was a key in my own conversion, a crucial one. If she said she would pray for you, your name went on her list and she prayed for you. She was a faithful servant and I am confident she has now a glorious future.

Friends - a representative photo:)

Family

"How, then, shall we live?" from Luke 22 /  by Dave Hileman

I had a rough day yesterday, it is now evening and I am not happy with what I wrote. It does not begin to convey Cindy’s character, her determination or her work ethic. Most people when they retire find time for leisure activities - and she did, obviously you don’t keep the same schedule when you are traveling for months at a time. But Cindy got up, took care of herself and then devotions and prayer - every day, traveling or home. We took a walk, every day. If we were home she was on her feet working on the house, the laundry, the meals or projects until 8 or 9 everyday always busy. The following I wrote yesterday morning.

When Cindy graduated from Hood College she still needed additional graduate work and an internship to complete her dietitian certification. We did not have an immediate plan for that but knew there were solid options in Western Pennsylvania. However that is not where we ended up. I lost my job running a fabric - custom drapery store when the steel industry cratered. We ended up in Martinsville, Virginia. Turns out God’s plan was better than our plan. Cindy was hired at the local bank, me with JCPenney a second time. Trips to the Blue Ridge Mountains were frequent. But more crucially, the Holland family and many others enriched our lives with dinners, stories of the rural south, and scriptures lived out. We went to church, a new experience for me, we met at homes for weekly Bible study and together our faith grew.

After four years we left so I could return to college at Johnson Bible College in Knoxville, TN. Cindy taught me how to study. She rose at 4AM because she was in charge of breakfast for 200 students. She also made the decision, with her application to University of Tennessee already completed, that she did not want to further her schooling. She told me that she promised Aunt B she would finish college and she did, when she just wanted to work in an office somewhere.

Cindy was a very disciplined person - and a meticulous worker at everything she did. Whether it was taking care of herself, her house, baking, or her devotions everything was done to the best of her ability. The attention to detail she had also enabled her to consistently excel in meals and baking: rolls, bread, cookies and more, to my delight.

She was the unofficial secretary for me before she was the actual one in Williamsburg. My spelling errors ceased because she proofed what I wrote. The calendar was always up-to-date. When she was the financial administrator for VEF, Waypoint, she accounted for every dime, even if it took two hours to find it. Just like she did at the bank in Martinsville. Getting ready for a four-month trip, she had all the places we needed to stay, the best hikes to take, the restaurant we should not miss and everything prepared well before we left. She wrote a detailed account of every day on the road. What did we do on July 9th on our trip in 2019, it is there right after the 8th.

In June she and I planned our fall trip. It was carefully done and we were anxious to see another 15 parks. I may take that trip some day -every note is saved.

Ready for the holidays

Joy of accomplishment

Life Changes - We are Forged by those Changes /  by Dave Hileman

Cindy lost both her parents in 1958, she was eight years old. It was a traumatic experience for a vulnerable young girl. Her father had lung cancer, possibly because of his work early in life as a coal miner in Western Pennsylvania. He had been ill a while and the cancer was progressing, so he had to retire from his pastorate in the Methodist Church. They moved to Natrona Heights over Christmas of 1957 to be near her mother’s family for help as he was not expected to live long. In the late spring or perhaps early summer of 58 her mother became ill and unable to care for her husband so he went to WV to live with his son, Cindy’s half brother. After about a five week illness, her mother died of cancer. (Eerily mirroring Cindy’s short illness.) A few weeks later, her father died. These events left lasting issues for Cindy.

Her beloved Aunt B moved into Cindy’s family apartment and began to care for and raise her niece. I could write a book about Aunt B but since this is about Cindy will just touch here and there about her. She was an amazing woman and I am much better having known her. Bernice Sherrieb was an unmarried school teacher who began her teaching career in a one room school hired at the age of 17. She was unable to tell anyone until she turned 18 and it became legal for the superintendent to hire her. She later earned a teaching degree paid for by the school system because she was willing to undertake that teaching assignment that no one else wanted. It was a three mile walk each way and had eight grade levels. She was in her later 50s when Cindy and she began to live together. She quickly became Aunt B to scores of people, including many of her spinster school teacher friends. In the early 1900’s female teachers were not permitted to be married and many never did marry.

So Cindy now had a different atmosphere in life: her aunts, uncle, cousins, her family in WV and many retired or nearly retired teachers helped to forge her character. As did the ministers Aunt B “adopted” and the many friends in the church they attended faithfully. Faith, family, character, moral values, self-discipline, service to others and education permeated her life and these standards never wavered. Cindy’s character, kindness and internal joy were part of the attraction to me, many of the things I longed for but did not know how to achieve. On those long talks on the stairs to her second floor apartment (see yesterday’s post) we bonded in the common dreams we shared for a preferred future and so deeply over loss. Her parents, my father died when we were young and that is but one example of God using something negative in life and making good come from it. Our relationship was definitely shifting.

Aunt B with her ever present purse and matching dress

A younger Aunt B when she came to live with Cindy, I think that is cousin, Marsha

Geof and Aunt B, Bert is the baby Jesus in this little play.

Gregg with Aunt B

A Little Background - insert your favorite 60's music /  by Dave Hileman

I first met Cindy because my cousin, her best friend, invited me to a party Cindy held on Valentines Day in 1964. I know the date because she had the new album, Meet the Beetles, playing non-stop on the turntable and everyone was singing “I want to hold your hand.” I would turn 16 that summer, she just turned 14. Cindy had a boyfriend at the party but I took notice of her immediately and I really did want to hold her hand. I got my drivers license that fall but did not get a car until late winter. Insurance had to be paid first. So with the guy from Valentines Day long gone, I asked Cindy to a dance in the spring. And I could drive - big deal. We went to the dance, a few blocks from her house and then to get a burger after. I walked her to her door and she kissed me. Life changed that evening. I was enamored. She was beautiful. She was not flighty nor silly, she was sure of herself and so fun to be around. She had a good sense of humor or at least liked my jokes which is, of course, the same thing. Cindy valued family, took responsibilities seriously and was a very disciplined person. Qualities I admired and ones I desired but lacked. But she was leaving for Atlantic City where she spent the summers working at the YWCA along with her Aunt B. So it was only letters and phone calls - after 11 if you are old enough to understand why you get it - until school started for my senior year, her junior. We lived about 9 miles apart but that spring I had started working at a place just a mile or two from her house. Several times a week - it was too late to go out as I got off about 11), we would sit on her steps and talk. Long talks about dreams and reality. I was falling deeply in love with her. I remember taking her to see The Graduate at a unique theater in Shadyside (Pittsburgh’s answer to Haight Ashbury in 1967) and we ate in a small Italian restaurant. We felt very sophisticated.  We went somewhere almost every week, to a park, a concert, a movie, dinner, downtown Pittsburgh or just long rides to get a donut or an ice cream. The longer the ride the better. I took her more than one time to get a donut at a place almost 60 miles away just so we could be together. Plus gas was 33 cents. Once she packed a lunch and we drove in my pristine 1950 Chevy deluxe convertible with the top down on old route 30 from Pittsburgh to Gettysburg for a picnie and back that evening. After she graduated high school, I was dabbling in college, she left for Atlantic City, then off to Hood College in Frederick, MD. I visited her in AC and once she was in college, almost every two weeks I would travel to Frederick from Pittsburgh. We had great weekends exploring DC and Lancaster, the Virginia and Maryland countryside and Baltimore. We were engaged in the fall of her junior year and married on May 8, 1971, the weekend before she graduated.

Cindy in one of the 21 cars I owned in less than 5 years. Economic tip: buying cars from a junk yard is not a long term strategy.

Thoughts /  by Dave Hileman

I plan this week to share some thoughts and reflections about Cindy. Starting next Monday I will be back to regular posting (with an occasional look back - you don’t just close the door on a nearly 60 year relationship).

This week I want to celebrate Cindy: her faith, her love, her respect, her work, her joy and her delight in children and grandchildren. It will not be comprehensive; at times these words may not be comprehendible. She was the joy of my life, the first girl I kissed, the last girl I kissed and the only one in between. She filled my life in ways I am unfolding in my grief and the void is real. My family and friends are doing their best to help fill that gap, I deeply appreciate it. God is a promise that feels, right now, like a promise not meant for me, yet I know better. In time I trust that I will find even deeper faith and strength. I already feel sustained by prayers. As the week builds for me, my family and many friends to the memorial service on Saturday I seek only to honor her.

Cynthia Ann Jackson Hileman 1950 - 2023 /  by Dave Hileman

Cindy was diagnosed with lung cancer on August 21st. All the subsequent tests proved the cancer was extensive. She was released from the hospital on September 1st to be cared for at home. Additional testing by her oncologist left us with no options for treatment. She was re-admitted to the hospital 18th of September with many new issues. Cindy passed away early on Thursday morning.

This post will remain up until Sunday the first of October. I will write more personally later but for now I am including her obituary below:

Cynthia Ann Jackson Hileman, 73, recently of Raleigh NC, passed away on Thursday, September 21, 2023. She was born on January 7, 1950, in Mount Pleasant, PA, to the late Rev. Robert William Jackson and Jean Sherrieb Jackson. After her parents’ deaths in 1958, she was raised by her Aunt B, Bernice Sherrieb in the Natrona Heights community near Pittsburgh.

She graduated from Hood College in 1971 with a BS in Foods and Nutrition. Cindy was married to Dave Hileman in 1971 and over their 52 years together they lived in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, forging deep friendships at every stop. Most recently, Cindy worked as the financial administrator for Waypoint Church Partners. Since retiring, they have traveled over 130,000 miles together visiting 357 National Park sites in all 50 states.

In addition to Dave, Cindy is survived by her sons and their wives, Geof (Laura), of Raleigh NC, and Gregg (Jessica), of Toano VA, and her grandchildren, Kellen and fiancee Lauren Gebbie, Addie, and Ellary Bea. She also had two step-grandchildren, Brooke and Melanie of New York.

The burial is private but a memorial service will be held at Union Grove Christian Church at 3125 Ridge Road, Barboursville, Virginia, at 2:00pm on Saturday, October 7th. Friends are welcome an hour before and after the service.

In lieu of flowers, the family appreciates any donations for the next new church to Waypoint Church Partners, PO Box 6224, Williamsburg, VA 23188.

At Disney November 2022

Street Scene /  by Dave Hileman

Lady paused her shopping to take a call in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Sponge Capitol of the US. Lots of neat murals in the town. Note the Greek names of the streets about the English spelling.

Eye of the Eagle /  by Dave Hileman

On the back country tour of Monument Valley our guide took us to the remarkable arch called Eye of the Eagle. The photo shows the scale of the rock formation with some people on the bottom edge of the photo. I could just barely get it in the frame with the one lens I had on the jeep tour. The interesting thing was if you lay on your back under the arch you could see the outline of the eagle where rock layers had peeled off and the arch fit perfectly into that space for its eye.

The “eye” and a portion of the head of the eagle

Delicate Balance /  by Dave Hileman

This is not the usual view of the Delicate Arch at Arches National Park. If you drive past the main parking lot you come to an alternative trail. Not one to reach but only view the famous arch found on the plates of Utah automobiles. This shot is from over 2 miles from the arch and the canyon is 900 feet deep.

Reminds me of a Dylan Song /  by Dave Hileman

“Seen a shooting star tonight. And I thought of you” It is from Shooting Star and is Dylan’s interpretation of the return of Jesus. To be fair lots of things remind me of Dylan songs. I, of course, do not actually know the name of the flower. I did shoot the photo this spring in New Mexico. So if it is not called Shooting Star, it ought to be renamed!

UPDATE: Geof looked it up and it is a David Fuchsia, now you also get a botanical education.

Camping in all the Usual Places... /  by Dave Hileman

….not quite. We have a Harvest Host membership and we get to stay in great spots like these sample:

Fruit stand in Florida

Dairy Farm in NY

Winery in Pennsylvania

Apple Orchard in Washington

Movie studio in LA owned by “Bo Duke”

Organic Beef Farm in Georgia

Winery in Wisconsin

Winery in Texas

Golf Course in NM