As I've said before, I'm not an enthusiastic church person. However, I feel I have a relationship with God. There was the time we were just about through with the furniture for the Kahala Hilton in Honolulu. My foreman lived in Portland and stayed in a room we built for him at the factory. He came out to our house for dinner and would stay and watch TV. This night he returned to the shop right after dinner. The storm sewer in the alley had plugged up and there was at least ½" of water throughout the shop and the furniture was all on 15/16" blocks of wood. Elden tore out the heavy cast iron storm drain and tore out the sand in that drain by hand. We didn't lose a single piece of furniture. I figured God and Elden saved our hides.

Shortly after that, even though we had built the furniture for what for many years we supposed to be the fanciest hotel in the world, we still had terrible cash flow problems. One Friday we were down to two employees and the cupboard was bare.  We didn't have a dollar to give them. At noon we received a check for $100 from a small job at the Tropics Motel. I cashed that check and gave each of them $50 on account. I didn't know when or how we'd get the rest of their salary paid. That night when I went to bed I talked to God. I said, "Thy will be done". On Monday work came in and a down payment covered the employee's checks.

Another time the same situation arose. It was Friday and we were broke. This was the date of my parent's sixtieth anniversary. There was a big article in the newspapers complete with a big picture of my folks and a notice that we were having an open house at our home on Sunday.

We took our bottom dollars, bought a sheet cake and somehow managed a reasonable open house for the folks. That night again I told God, "Thy will be done".

Again on Monday work came in and we were up and operating again.

By the way, if you remember my maroon pajamas story where I said if my late wife had the power to return those pajamas I wished she would do something about my golf game. This morning she sank a 96 foot putt for me. Unfortunately, Willis didn't see it, he only heard it fall in the cup.

Either Ethel or God sunk that putt, there's no way in the world that I could have done it.