It Was A River Of Rushing Water

Why me?
     I don't know how to explain this desire I have to work with my hands and to build things. Perhaps genetic influence has something to do with it; my Great-grandpa Geiger was a craftsman and an inventor. Somewhere along the line I started figuring out how things work. While my friends played with baseballs and model airplanes, I built a photographic enlarger, darkroom to process film and a strobe light. I needed to learn everything for myself.
      Many times in my life I have heard a small inner voice telling me that I needed to do something. The voice doesn't cease until the work is done. I distinctly recall the first time I became aware of the voice. I was painting a scene from a South Pacific photograph that interested me deeply. The voice urged me on, and I worked all night. When the painting was finished, I was exhausted but happy, and the voice was gone.
      Once, when facing a crucial life decision, the voice spoke clearly to me. I wondered if I could make a living with my hands. I hadn't figured out how, yet the voice inside spoke, almost as if coming from another person: "Yes, you can."
      When I invent equipment or a new technique, I often hear the voice, and the urge to work is upon me. After I had been making raku pots for years, suddenly the voice spoke: "There's something else I want you to do." I knew it meant something new was coming along. Soon after that I awoke one morning and recalled an incident in which I had biscuited some pots in the vapor of the second chamber of a salt kiln. The vapor turned everything orange. At the time I had seen it as a mistake and dismissed it from my mind. Then suddenly a light went on in my mind as the voice said: "Do you remember when the pots turned orange? Maybe orange can be beautiful." That was when I began working on the low-temperature salt technique.

A Brightly Colored Parrot Swooped Out of the Sky

     I was born in Summerfield, Illinois in 1921. My father was a Mennonite minister, and we moved from place to place. From Illinois to southern Pennsylvania to Goshen, Indiana, and finally to Bluffton, Ohio, at which time my father ceased preaching and became a fundraiser for Bluffton College, a Mennonite school. Later, he sold mutual funds for a living.
      The Mennonites and Amish, like Heinz products, come in about fifty-seven varieties! The Amish are the strictest sect, but there are several levels to the Mennonites. We were part of the most liberal group. Our church people wore ordinary clothing, and women could wear make-up if they wanted. The only practice that set us aside from other Protestant denominations was our pacifism. That was a basic principle.
     During World War II, I was classified as a conscientious objector because of my church affiliation. Nevertheless, I appealed the ruling and asked for non-combatant service, which shook up my Mennonite community considerably. I didn't want to bear arms but felt I wanted to do something because of Hitler. Subsequently, I found myself entered as a medic in General Patton's 11th Armoured Division, and spent three and a half years working my way through Europe, including the Battle of the Bulge. We ended up in Austria, where our division relieved the Mounthausen concentration camp. There I saw the worst of man's inhumanity and finally realized why I was there.
      The day my father placed me on the train to go to war, he gave me a piece of good advice. He said, "I know you don't want to go, and you're going to have all sorts of bad experiences. But remember, you can always benefit and learn from anything." How true! If I had remained back in my little protected Ohio environment, without the exposure to other cultures and religions through travel, I might still be there. I might never have stretched and grown.
      My Mother died while I was a freshman in college, just before our entrance into the war. I remember an Aunt who said to me as we were walking away from Mother's grave, "Your mother expects you to do the best you can with whatever you have." Certainly the Mennonites expected us children to do our best at all times. In many ways the Menonite philosophy continued to influence my later life. Their work ethic was a powerful incentive in my development. I think, however, that it was their belief in selflessness which was particularly strong, especially when it came to doing for others rather than for yourself. That principle helped me as a teacher, because that is, after all, what teaching is about.