REVERSING THE CURSE

I am 77. That's not a street address like the old TV show 77 sunset strip. That is years old. 

Adam the original Adam ended up being cursed. We've all been under that curse by having to work hard. My dad taught me how to reverse that, by working even harder and having fun doing it, that is, working harder than anyone else. I started off at a factory that was very patient with me and trying to be how to work on a continuous vulcanization line which is known as a CV line. 

A CV line is a monstrous extruder. Wire runs through it and the extruder coats it and the wire continues to go down a 400 ft steam tube down a reclining tunnel and then makes a very sharp u-turn and comes back up a trough filled with cold water which cools that very hot wire until it is through a complicated process of pulleys rolled continuously onto alternating reels. 24 hours a day. 6 days a week and normally five. The average speed? 200 ft a minute. 

Our factory started with eight CV lines. We made ignition wire and at first appliance wire. How much, you may ask? Millions and millions of feet. Per month. I'm not exaggerating. It's a multi-stage process, starting with a core, an intercore that gets an insulation jacket, and an outer beautiful jacket made of silicone that was a gorgeous piece of work. 

My name is Michael Dittmer and my initials are MD. Some forklift driver at the beginning of my 20-year career used my initials and remembered my name MD by nicknaming me mad dog. When I was 26 years old and in my first pastorate I read a book that caused me to commit myself to always praise the Lord in every circumstance. At the age of 40 I got to try that out, that philosophy, in the dirtiest most stressful and hottest environment there is. I worked harder than anybody in that plant except for my right hand man Rick. While I was pastoring a small Church I was also working this job. I was also homeschooling my two daughters and trying to make a lovely woman who was my wife happy and also trying to work on a five bedroom farmhouse that I was purchasing and I learned to do it being trained by the factory and by the Lord without complaint and in fact smiling and laughing sometimes too loudly. Because normal people have lives and don't like to work 7 days a week 12 hours a day, they would often try to get the weekend off after 40 hours. My supervisor by the name of Terry cross trained me on every job by having me work the line next to him and then he became my babysitter and I'd start off very very slow but with time picked up speed and then was able to fill in for these normal people who wanted the weekend off. 

I became so adept at filling in and my paychecks by the end of the year became so large that I started earning more yearly than the company president. 

Rumors spread and others asked for advice how to do that and became my disciples known as mad dog juniors and there was even a young gorgeous little lady under five foot who practice the same thing and her nickname became mad doggette. 

I think that's enough of this story for now. Thank you for listening. Be blessed and let the grace of God fall on you like a monsoon until the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth like an ocean. Later Gators.

The above picture is of my first wife and two homeschooled daughters at The farmhouse on redwood road where I pastored a small Church and worked mad dog hours at a factory rarely complaining.