PROLOGUE

..............THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LYLE BERNARD (CORKY) SCHMEISER............

Yes, in Him, in Whom we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, Who is working out all things according to the counsel of His own will; That we might be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ. Ephesians 1:11&12(NET)

I am EXTREMELY PROUD of my heritage!!! I am proud of the fact that I was born AT and ultimately raised ON my PIONEER Parent's HOMESTEAD, which...if you were to draw an imaginary line from the summit of that famous majestically beautiful Rocky Mountain called Pikes Peak (14,110 feet) straight east to that Beloved old HOMESTEAD...the distance would be approximately seventy five miles...Eight miles east and one mile north of the Rush "33" Colorado store and United States Post Office, in what is commonly known as the "L" of Lincoln County Colorado.

The photo of that cute little boy...in a dress....was taken of me when I was six months old (About the time that, according to what my Mother told my wife Evelyn, I had outgrown the dresser drawer they placed me in after I'd gotten too big for the shoe box they had placed me in when I was born)....read the rest of the story..... This photo has been retouched by Jane Moor the wife of my cousin Herbert Lee Moor of West Unity Ohio. The original has gotten pretty well beat up over the many years since my (late) sister Gladys Eileen Hoopes (8/21/1919-2/6/2010) had taken it. While the original photo is a treasure in itself, the words that my beloved sister wrote on the back are indeed a priceless treasure. She wrote...Corky Schmeiser 6 mo old. Sent by Gladys Schmeiser, 1500 E. Boulder St. Colorado Springs Colo. Gladys was in training at the Bethel School of Nursing when the original photo was taken.

The conception and subsequently my birth occurred in the same year one of my...... many.....HEROES....took the oath of office of the 32nd President of the United States of America...FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (1882-1945)...President Roosevelt was born January 30, 1882 in Hyde Park New York and passed away April 12 1945 in Warm Springs Georgia.

Assuming the presidency at the depth of the GREAT DEPRESSION, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt helped the people to regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he had promised prompt, vigorous action and asserted in his inaugural address "THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF"!!!

At the age of thirty nine President Roosevelt was stricken with poliomyelitis and....
like another one of my HEROES, Comrade James Edward "Jim" Sursely, Past National Commander, Past Florida State Commander as well as Past Commander of the Central Florida Chapter 16 DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS, overcame all odds by demonstrating indomitable courage!!! I was twelve years old the year President Roosevelt died in office!!! My beloved Comrade, friend Jim Sursely is a 100% Combat Wounded Vietnam War HERO who stepped on a landmine and lost both legs and his left arm and although he has been confined to a wheelchair for the past forty years NOTHING deters him, nothing stops him from doing anything and everything he wishes to do...especially wild game hunting!!!

Another Historic event that I wish to mention in this prologue is a sort of quiz question that I delight in presenting to people whenever they inquire about my age.
I can vividly remember that fateful Sunday December 7, 1941, the day that President Roosevelt declared would live in infamy...the day the Japanese destroyed the better part of the United States Naval Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. The primary reason I remember that date so well is because my Mother had prepared one of her usual OUTSTANDINGLY DELICIOUS **dinners, in honor of my eighth (8th) Birthday that day!!! The older generation no doubt would be, along with me, appalled at the numbers of people who cannot give me the correct answer to that quiz!!!

**Dinner....Back in the "GOOD OLD DAYS" on the old HOMESTEAD, out there in...... the "sticks"...the "boondocks" as some folks would say...dinner was the noon meal and supper was the evening meal. Then we all got "citified" and changed all of that so that now the evening meal is dinner and....for me...the only thing that remains about "supper" is ALLLL the GOOOD memories of ALL the GOOD suppers my beloved PIONEER Mother prepared for me!!!