Lucky Neighbor
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
I'm Eugenia Fulkerson, and I'm the luckiest neighbor ever. I lived beside Jerry and Diane Gerard for the last third of Jerry's life.
I'm 62 now, about the age Jerry was when I moved in. How did I catch up to him and he never aged?
The neighborhood was waiting for us in 1982. A vigorous game of flag football ranged across Jerry and Diane's lakefront. In about 11 minutes, seven boys were inviting my new sixth- grader to join in.
When my 5-year-old said she wanted to be a nurse, Diane immediately volunteered "nursing lessons."
Everything in the neighborhood was right out my kitchen window. There were no property lines. I watched Jerry and Diane live their amazing close and harmonious partnership.
Across the street were Ron and Gail Adams, eventually homeschooling each child through to graduation.
And every July 4th? There were notorious week-long parties. Parade day, at the crack of dawn, Joe Prout fired the first canon blast right outside Jerry's window. We were truly at the epicenter of Warsaw!
Allee had recently moved in, and many a night Jerry and Diane walked down the grassy strip so they wouldn't disturb her.
If Jerry was basking in the sun, there was Diane reading beside him.
They spent most of the summer aboard their classic blue boat, flying an increasingly pale flag "Don't tread on me." However, they rarely left the pier!
Jerry and I had great fun publishing Winona Lake Preservation Association newsletters. Jerry's whole life was spent on these shores. His stories are classic about surfboard lions, drowning clowns or sailing boat lifts. What a treasure he was to Kosciusko historians!
He was incredibly generous with his art, his wonderful leaded glass, countless signs and other projects.
My mother began declining into Alzheimer's in 1997. As I was closet of five siblings, this became my responsibility. I was overwhelmed with the commitment until Diane focused my life with her comment, "I wish I had had that time to spend with my mother in her last years."
I can't tell you how that changed my life. I realized what a gift it was to immerse myself in high school graduates of 1936, and thereabouts.
There was a peace movement that year beginning in Oxford, England. "If all young men pledge not to fight a war, then there will be no more war." All Mother's Kokomo class signed the peace pledge.
The world disintegrated. Dark forces moved to curtail freedom. Then there was Dec. 7, 1941. America's young people stepped up. Not just the young men. Everyone participated.
It's no wonder Jerry described his Navy years as when he was most alive. Theirs was an incredibly heroic effort. What they gave us, the world alive today - is everything.
We owe them everything.
Each generation has to be vigilant to keep freedom and hope protected.
I was privileged to participate in my generation's efforts in Vietnam.
And we can be incredibly proud of David Fribley, Carlos Stinfer, Denny and Bobby Holder's son, and all the wonderful young people taking up that mantel today; to resist dark forces that want to impose the rigid rule of fear and domination.
We must honor Jerry's "the great generation," for what they give us - a model of how to live together, and how to flight enemies of liberty.
Thank you, Jerry.
Thank you for the life you lived in front of me, outside my kitchen window.
Eugenia Fulkerson
Warsaw
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I'm Eugenia Fulkerson, and I'm the luckiest neighbor ever. I lived beside Jerry and Diane Gerard for the last third of Jerry's life.
I'm 62 now, about the age Jerry was when I moved in. How did I catch up to him and he never aged?
The neighborhood was waiting for us in 1982. A vigorous game of flag football ranged across Jerry and Diane's lakefront. In about 11 minutes, seven boys were inviting my new sixth- grader to join in.
When my 5-year-old said she wanted to be a nurse, Diane immediately volunteered "nursing lessons."
Everything in the neighborhood was right out my kitchen window. There were no property lines. I watched Jerry and Diane live their amazing close and harmonious partnership.
Across the street were Ron and Gail Adams, eventually homeschooling each child through to graduation.
And every July 4th? There were notorious week-long parties. Parade day, at the crack of dawn, Joe Prout fired the first canon blast right outside Jerry's window. We were truly at the epicenter of Warsaw!
Allee had recently moved in, and many a night Jerry and Diane walked down the grassy strip so they wouldn't disturb her.
If Jerry was basking in the sun, there was Diane reading beside him.
They spent most of the summer aboard their classic blue boat, flying an increasingly pale flag "Don't tread on me." However, they rarely left the pier!
Jerry and I had great fun publishing Winona Lake Preservation Association newsletters. Jerry's whole life was spent on these shores. His stories are classic about surfboard lions, drowning clowns or sailing boat lifts. What a treasure he was to Kosciusko historians!
He was incredibly generous with his art, his wonderful leaded glass, countless signs and other projects.
My mother began declining into Alzheimer's in 1997. As I was closet of five siblings, this became my responsibility. I was overwhelmed with the commitment until Diane focused my life with her comment, "I wish I had had that time to spend with my mother in her last years."
I can't tell you how that changed my life. I realized what a gift it was to immerse myself in high school graduates of 1936, and thereabouts.
There was a peace movement that year beginning in Oxford, England. "If all young men pledge not to fight a war, then there will be no more war." All Mother's Kokomo class signed the peace pledge.
The world disintegrated. Dark forces moved to curtail freedom. Then there was Dec. 7, 1941. America's young people stepped up. Not just the young men. Everyone participated.
It's no wonder Jerry described his Navy years as when he was most alive. Theirs was an incredibly heroic effort. What they gave us, the world alive today - is everything.
We owe them everything.
Each generation has to be vigilant to keep freedom and hope protected.
I was privileged to participate in my generation's efforts in Vietnam.
And we can be incredibly proud of David Fribley, Carlos Stinfer, Denny and Bobby Holder's son, and all the wonderful young people taking up that mantel today; to resist dark forces that want to impose the rigid rule of fear and domination.
We must honor Jerry's "the great generation," for what they give us - a model of how to live together, and how to flight enemies of liberty.
Thank you, Jerry.
Thank you for the life you lived in front of me, outside my kitchen window.
Eugenia Fulkerson
Warsaw
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