80

Last night Skip Stuber and family celebrated birthday number eight zero. Significant not just because of who was present but because of who wasn't present. A wife, home sick with the flu, a younger brother who passed away, and a son who passed away many years ago. Skip was willing to share significant events in his life, from losing a baseball game to Allentown when he was an 8th grader, to watching Jug Stuber slide right out the gym door during a basketball game in Tremont where too many people had brought slushy snow into the gym making the floor wet, to milk route days where he picked up milk from farmers who had German P.O.W.'s working their fields, to watching his dad heft 100 pound milk cans onto the truck with one arm and a knee. I learned that wealth was not the divider of people that it is today, everyone was poor during the depression. We learned that students havn't changed much except they probably aren't as rough (I have not seen a PCHS student drug around with a rope around their neck.). I learned that families who struggle together and stick together will probably struggle together and stick together throughout life. I learned that faith is the "stick together" in all things. I learned that fighting the good fight in marriage is worth it. Love grows through time and overcoming marriage flaws is worth the fight. If you love someone enough to marry them no matter their weaknesses you later discover, fight the good fight look beyond those weaknesses and grow that marriage to maturity. Faith in a God that cares for us, in good times, bad times, and in times where we aren't sure is essential to making any sense of this existence. As you look at this mini-clip may you think about whether your own family will be this close when you are 80. Will your family walk in the knowledge of Truth and the confidence that God is the purpose of life? May God bless you and yours.