Places, Vocations, Failures and Fun: Where I've Been, Where I Am, Where I'm Going

I am 48 years old... (and yes, I am posting this during the Super Bowl...)

There... I said it. Now that the admission and self-realization of my age is out there, maybe I can divulge some things that have been bothering me of late. Of course some of you may be thinking: "you still owe us a part two (three, four?) part blog entry yet." Yes, you are correct. More on that is coming. It is such an important topic to me that I want to make sure I articulate it correctly and with the import I intend for it to have (by the grace of God).

Call this entry catharsis if you like, but I feel a need to talk this one through as some form of debriefing. So in reality... who knows what the last paragraph will look like as I have not reached the conclusion in my head.

I feel like I am at a crossroads. The weird part is that it feels like I am standing in the middle of an intersection. No apparent "life traffic" bearing down on me from any direction, yet it seems like maybe all of the stop signs are pointed inward at me... or maybe they are yield signs... having me pause right there in the crossroads. As usual with life, other than faith that God is in control, I haven't a clue which way to go.

Hence the title of this entry. I have seen a fair share of places in our nation. I have worn my fair share of hats as well. I have had successes... and failures. So “places” are not just geographic for purposes of this particular diatribe. And many things, I must conclude, have been fun. Many are in the past and include a few burnt bridges, making return nigh upon impossible. Some are in the now and have not even sealed themselves as memories yet. Then of course there is the future, where no man may see but where hopes always seek to land.

So, I am going to start with geography. Where have I been that holds a memory? When was it and what makes it stand out?

I think one that stands out was the first time I ever visited Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. I think I was about seven years old, which would have made it around 1971 or so. I remember staying in a little, single story motel at an intersection. It was just me, my brother and my parents. I remember pancakes at the restaurant across the parking lot. There was a log flume ride in the parking lot as well. It was small, but it was still a ride to a kid my age. Pigeon Forge was not built up then like it is now. Even in my memories, it was small... a place to stop on a larger trip and have some fun. Why I remember this? I have no clue. But I will tell you the memory sticks out. I have been to the area at least five more times since then. I remember that Dodge Polara Station Wagon we used for the trip. I can see it sitting in that parking lot. Then I remember my brother asking me to pull a card from the playing card deck he had just bought at the gift shop. It shocked me. It was a trick. It left a metallic taste in my mouth for hours. Maybe that's why I remember it so well.

I remember my first car wreck. Not one I worked, but one I was in. The intersection at Lincoln and Vann (for those of you from Evanspatch) used to be a five-way intersection which included the entry to the Evansville State Hospital. Next time you are in the intersection look directly northeast and you will see that the trees still line both sides of a now non-existent drive. There were many wrecks there. This is why the drive now runs off of Lincoln a few hundred yards to the east. Anyway, my brother was taking me to the Zoo in his Plymouth Barracuda. Somebody hit us on my side of the vehicle... knocking the car clean to the sidewalk. I remember having a small cut on my hand and getting an x-ray. That's about it. No ambulance of the time was involved. My father was a police officer on EPD at the time. I remember him coming there and driving us to St. Mary's a few blocks away to be checked out. This was probably 1972 or so. No way to tell for sure. Not sure why this memory hangs out there either.

Me on a mountain outside of Salt Lake City in 2004

I only knew a few places first hand before I started travelling for work. They comprised a short list: Orlando, Florida... Kentucky Lake... Southern Indiana... A church choir trip to St. Louis and Six Flags... Gatlinburg area... Louisville for science fiction conventions (yes... I did and wouldn't mind doing again)... Oh... here is one...

I remember family trip to Arkansas, somewhere remote outside of Little Rock. I may have been eight or nine. The story was that we were going to visit my Dad's ex-partner from the police department, Jim Crawford. Jim had retired. This was in the five year span between Jim's retirement and my Dad doing the same. Anyway, as it turns out, Jim had been doing some in-retirement sleuthing about, tracking a criminal of some sort that was on the loose down in the Ozarks with a pretty hefty bounty on his head. That was the truth of the trip (Mom was not happy when she found out, but was very good friends with Jim's wife, so they got to hang out). I got to ride around in a pick-up truck for the first time in my life, listening to these two detectives try and figure out where they could catch this guy. We even found his camp site... strewn with beer cans and the not too old remnants of a fire from the night before. They found some stuff there that this guy had stolen. We had to leave the next day as the week went really quick. No "catching" occurred, but it was fun to watch and ride "shotgun."

About a year after that, Dad came home one day and told us that Jim had died. He had been out mowing the grass at his Ozark mountain home. He came inside, sat down in his favorite chair and asked his wife for a glass of tea. When she returned from the kitchen, Jim was dead. This was the first time I drew the conclusion that sometimes you don't get to live very long once you retire. I liked Jim. He was a really nice guy.

Anyway, those trips usually were a week long and involved one or more Chrysler products (Dad never bought anything else).

As a teen, I once took a road trip to Memphis with my friend Chris to check out a college he was thinking about attending. Seems we forgot to tell our parents we were going. I think the missing children alerts were cancelled quickly.

In later years, while working for my primary employer, I would see the Golden Gate Bridge, Julius' Castle in San Francisco, the mountains of Colorado, Rhode Island, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Akron, Lexington, Las Vegas, Reno, Sacramento, Dallas, New Oleans, Atlanta, Richmond... the list goes on.

I took this photo up close in New Mexico

There are many more places to see. On the fun side, through Scouting, I have been at the Barr Camp on the side of Pike's Peak at 10,400 feet. I've attended training at Philmont in New Mexico alongside my son Michael (a truly enchanted place). On the trip back from there, Michael and I stopped in Amarillo, Texas and then visited the bombing memorial in Oklahoma City. The latter being a very humbling experience.

As a family, we have vacationed in Florida, Tennessee and Michigan several times. Always good stuff. I have found that I love large bridges and lighthouses through these trips.

I am only now starting to catalog where I have been and sift through the memories. Places are important, but so are vocations as they form who we are by the roles we play in life. I'll save the best vocation for last in this list, but I have had a lot of opportunity to get involved and get good experience while doing something worthwhile.

My first job was actually as a volunteer. I pulled shifts after school as a teen worker at the Wesselman Park Nature Center manning the gift shop and taking care of Owls and an Opossum. The Opossum was probably one of the most loving animals I have ever been around. It used to sleep in my lap while I sat behind the gift shop counter. I also joined Civil Air Patrol as well for a bit over a year and made it up to First Sergeant rank. It was during this time that the U of E Aces plane crash occurred.

I then spent four years working as a sales clerk for Kuester's Hardware store. Over those few years I worked in Hardware, Paint, Electrical, Electronics, Plumbing and Lawn and Garden. Good experience.

At the same time that I was abandoning college at U of E and the University of Southern Indiana, I took an EMT course at St. Mary's Hospital. I got addicted to prehospital medicine very quickly. I joined a volunteer fire department and worked at Comaier Ambulance alongside my first wife.

So... I spent twelve years as a firefighter between McCutchanville and Knight Township. I served in capacities from firefighter to EMS. I even did a two year time frame as the Safety Officer on Knight. We put AEDs in service during that time.

 After two years working as an EMT, I went to Paramedic School at Community Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Kentucky. I continued to work as an EMT at Comaier during this time. As I was finishing paramedic training, I became an EMS instructor. In 1987, I went to work for Alexander Ambulance as a paramedic. In 1988, I was promoted to the position I still hold today in training and quality improvement twenty-five years later. Alexander became Mercy. Mercy became AMR. I also taught EMT courses for Deaconess and Pike County. Alongside my friend Gary Kleeman, I taught Advanced EMT and Paramedic courses in Perry County.

In 1990, my first child was born: Katherine Kyrie Turpen. She is now 22 years old and in Vet School at OSU. She is a brain. I love her dearly.

In 1989, I started teaching EMS programs at IVY Tech as part-time adjunct faculty and I am still there today.

Following the turmoil of 1993 with the purchase of Alexander Ambulance by Mercy... a divorce... and a bout of trying to find myself that lasted through 1995, God gave me my second chance, my wife Annette. Why I got a second chance, I will never know, because I (me, myself AND I) failed dismally the first time in my understanding of God's plan for marriage. Annette and I were married in 1997.

In 1995 I started working for Posey EMS. 1997 added Perry County EMS and Harrison County EMS (along with a wedding). Yeah... it got busy. I wasn't done yet. I started working with the Vanderburgh County Coroner's Office as a Deputy Coroner on Christmas Day 1997. That would last not quite a decade, but would show me worse things than I would ever see in EMS. I became certified as a Medicolegal Death Investigator and added working at 3am while holding down a full-time job and five other part-time jobs at the same time.

I became a Critical Care Paramedic through the UMBC program in 1998 (and I won’t get into the depth of how this led to a reformatting of the delivery of Critical Care and the education surrounding it locally).

In the late 1990's I received the Indiana Primary Instructor of the Year Award from the EMS Commission. I then received the Indiana Paramedic of the Year Award from that same group in 2004.

In 2004, I spent a period of time appointed by then Governor Kernan, as the EMS representative to the Indiana State Child Fatality Review Committee… those were some of the saddest meetings of my life. I would later relay these by saying they were “three hour meetings accompanied by three hours of crying on the way home.” Dr. Antoinette Laskey was the Chair of this group. She is a wonderful asset to Indiana and the hard task ahead of preventing child abuse.

In 2005, I was appointed by then Governor Daniels to the Indiana EMS Commission as the commissioner representing paramedics. In 2006, I was elected the vice-chair of this group by my fellow commissioners. During this time I have worked on AMR’s National Equipment Evaluation Team and then switched to my role on the Clinical Leadership Council. I currently serve in a sub-role for that group as a team leader for the “Things That Matter” Project in the areas of heart attack and stroke.

In 2011, toward the end of Governor Daniels second term, he appointed me as Chairman of the EMS Commission. I will note here that I am still very green at this. The level of work/involvement between being vice-chair and chair is staggering. I am also learning very quickly that compromise between differing viewpoints is not always well liked by everyone.

Since 2004, I have also spent a lot of time being involved with the Boy Scouts of America. This has been rewarding in many ways. It has increased my involvement with my own children and allowed me to help in the process of growth (spiritual, leadership, self-reliance, etc.) with other youth. My wife and I banded together to revitalize the Cub scout Pack of my youth. I have also had a hand in giving Evansville a Lutheran troop once more. Little in my life has been as personally rewarding as my work in the BSA. It gives me a sense of accomplishment unlike anything else I have done as a focus.

So we come today… that intersection I mentioned earlier. I have five wonderful children who each teach me different things daily. Even now, I still have much to learn about being a parent and what God wants of me in this aspect.

I am drawn to projects and work within our church and school. When I am in that building, all is well in my life. I think it is because I missed something way earlier in my life. Call it a missed calling, or maybe it was a message of “You are not ready yet.” Not really sure. I know that I am drawn to read anything related to theology. Many of the writings from the 1500’s are so clear to me. They bring understanding and clarification of what I already know to be true.

Whatever the future does hold, I believe it will involve growth with my faith and the application thereof.

So what does the future look like from this intersection? I am not sure. At the moment, I cannot even figure out how to fund a short family get-away before Michael starts high school (not to mention where to go if I could).

I do know this. I cannot abdicate responsibility with any decision I make. I must be responsible to God, my family, my church… and at least for now… the professional vocations where God has caused me to be. Is there a tug there? Absolutely.

I love ANY time that I get speaking with our local Lutheran pastors. Where group Bible study is concerned, the deeper the delving into theology and doctrine the happier I am. I yearn for this learning almost as much as I yearn for the comfort of the Sacrament of the Altar.

Don’t get me wrong. I still love paramedicine. But… there are some directions in which EMS is evolving where I have moral, ethical differences. There are also a lot of decisions being made on uneducated, inexperienced beliefs as well as poor data. Some recent supposed advances in equipment and tools have only served to delay care or make the job harder (corner me and  will be glad to tell you the stuff I am talking about… but after a run in with a manufacturer back in the ‘90’s where I ended up being right, I don’t need the drama of their weak defense of their products). EMS is coming into a time of great change. There will be a lot of doing more with less. More harder days than easy I am sure. I have now been in EMS thirty years. A lot has changed, not all of it good.

I’m not ready to hang that up yet… unless of course I suddenly become independently wealthy and am able to pay off everything I owe on AND support my family.

If it was up to me, I would spend more time outdoors as well. I feel the pull to go and hike and backpack more frequently.

So where I am I headed? My guess is uncharted waters.

It’s kind of like driving in freezing rain without washer fluid and three year old wiper blades. The car is a going, but other than being on slick pavement, who knows what I am passing.

The GPS... Somewhere on I-70 in Kansas in 2008 on the way to New Mexico

The GPS in your car only works when you tell it a destination.

A few things I can tell you. I will be saying “no” more often. Not to slight anyone, but I must laser target where my impact can be made. If I use my dad’s time on Earth as a timeline of life, I may only have forty years or so left. But as my friend Bobby Crabtree used to say, “Life is like a frame of bowling: God’s got his finger on the reset button."

I look to the book of Jeremiah for comfort when my thinking turns to which road to take:

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”  - Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV

With those things said, I guess your guess is as good as mine, because I simply do not know. The first realization is that I simply need to be along for the ride. Many people would disagree with that perspective I am afraid. I feel that perspective is sound.

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” - 1 Peter 4:10-11 ESV

Whatever I end up doing in the future, may the focus be far less on me and my wishes and far more upon Him. May what I do be Soli Deo Gloria in the Latin… To the glory of God alone.