Welcome to this website and thanks for stopping by.  I have created this site in hopes that it will help new aquaintences get to know me and so that old friends whom I may not have seen in many years can get caught up on what has happened to me over the years. 

It will also be a good way to share some memories of growing up during those two wonderful decades, the 1950s and the 1960s.  God has been very good to me; I have been blessed with a wonderful life and I would like to tell you a little about it.

The above picture of me was taken on February 20, 2007.  That is what I looked like at 57 years of age, but let's start at the beginning.  Let me take you through a quick synopsis of my life here in this section.  I will then in succeeding sections go into some details about things that are important to me.

I was born at St. Margaret's Hospital in Hammond, Indiana, on June 2, 1949.  My parents were Paul and Alice Johnson, who lived on Alice Street at that time.

Dad worked as the superintendent of the outdoor parking facility at the Edward C. Minas Company, a large department store that was located on State Street in downtown Hammond, where it operated for ninety years until it was permanently closed in 1984.   Dad was given the responsibility for the operation and maintenance of Minas's four-story parking garage when it opened in early 1961 and he continued to be responsible for the outdoor lot.

In addition to his regular job at Minas's, Dad owned and operated a parking lot striping business, Tru-Line Striping Company.  He put in many long hours between working at Minas's and painting parking lots. He often painted in the early morning hours on weekdays and then worked at Minas's from noon until 9:30 PM on the nights when the downtown stores were open late.  Dad worked very hard to provide for his family and much of his Tru-Line income was used to send me to college.

Mom was a full time housewife while I was growing up but she had worked outside the home prior to my birth.  I am fortunate to have had a "stay at home" mom throughout my childhood.

I have only one sibling, my sister, Pauletta, who was thirteen years old when I was born.  She was married and gone by the time I was five, so for all of my childhood that I can actually remember, it was just me.

Mom and Dad were both born and raised near the little town of Greenville in western Kentucky and had moved to Hammond several years before my birth.  The majority of my relatives have always been in Kentucky and Mom and Dad took me on many trips down the entire length of Indiana's portion of US Highway 41, from Hammond to Evansville, and on across the Ohio River into Kentucky for visits as I was growing up.

I attended kindergarten and the first semester of first grade at McKinley School in East Chicago since we had moved to Homerlee Avenue in East Chicago when I was four years old.  We were only there for two years before moving to Woodward Avenue in Hammond in November or December of 1955. I finished first grade at Wallace Elementary School and continued to attend school there through the sixth grade. I went on to Washington Jr. High for seventh and eighth grades and then to Hammond High from 1963 to 1967.  I continued my education for four years at Purdue and earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Forestry, which I received in May of 1971.

The house at 6432 Woodward Avenue was home to me for almost all of my childhood.  I lived there from the time I was six and a half years old until I was twenty-two. God blessed me with a wonderful set of parents and a very happy childhood as I was growing up on Woodward Avenue.

I have lived in Greenville, KY, since moving here in February 1973.  I had tried unsuccessfully for two years to obtain a permanent job in forestry, having worked the summers of 1971 and 1972 in Idaho for the U.S. Forest Service, only to be laid off for the winter each year.  It is ironic that my mom and dad moved north to Hammond to make their living and I moved south to their hometown to make mine.  Dad retired in 1978, and he and Mom moved back to Greenville to a new home located about seven miles from me.

I worked several jobs after moving to Greenville, before being hired by the general contractor on a paper mill construction project in Madisonville, Kentucky, about twenty-five miles from Greenville.  When construction was completed and the paper mill began operation in June of 1974, I went to work for the paper company.  I have worked for them ever since.

I married a local gal, Georgeann Evitts, on June 21, 1975, and we have two grown children: a daughter, Dawn, born January 13, 1977; and a son, Wesley, born February 1, 1979.  Dawn is married and has given us two granddaughters; Payton, born June 24, 2003; and Taylor, born September 17, 2005.  Wesley is still single and is currently working in Elizabethtown, KY, about 90 miles away.

I lost Dad on September 27, 1994, to prostate cancer, which had spread to the bone.  At the time of this writing, Mom is residing in a nursing home not far from me. [update... Mom passed away on June 10, 2009, at the age of 95]

The story of my life could not be complete without making reference to my spiritual re-birth.  As I have already stated, my physical birth occurred on June 2, 1949, at St. Margaret's Hospital.  My spiritual re-birth occurred during a Sunday morning service at First Baptist Church of Hammond when I was eleven years old.  Dr. Jack Hyles was the pastor.

That's when I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart as my Lord and Savior and became a "born again" believer.  That's when I received the gift of Eternal Life.  

It is not my intention to make this a "religious" website, but it would have been wrong to leave out this important event in my life.  I will create a separate page and include more about spiritual matters there.  Those not interested in that subject have the option of  skipping that section, of course.