Memory Page-Paul Ruter

My Life: by Paul (Wally Gator) Ruter, the meanest Gator in the Swamp…Not 😊
I was born at 5:33 AM March 31, 1945. When I was being born, I got stuck in the birth canal. My head was too big. But just before they put the forceps on me, I came out.
I attended a one room schoolhouse with all eight grades in one room. There was one teacher.
There was no running water and outdoor toilets. There was a hand pump water well. It was called Gravel Hill School.
It was here in the third grade that I first encountered poverty. There was a feeling that welled up inside me. The three girls sitting near me, Dorothy, Joan and Linda did not have very much in their lunch pails. Their clothes looked almost like rags. I told my parents about it. I said that I wanted several sandwiches, apples, and oatmeal cookies. Also, an extra thermos of Ovaltine chocolate milk to share with them. This was near Shannon, Illinois.
After this it was a two-room schoolhouse with four grades upstairs and four grades downstairs. Then it was over to Foreston High School, then on to Central College, Pella, Iowa. It was always on my mind and heart that I was going to be a minister. One of my labels they put on me at Central College was that I was pre-seminary. But I never did like holier than thou super pious people.
When I started to meet other students from New York City, New Jersey and other parts of the world, I knew I was in the right place at the right time. When the opportunity to become a member of the Phi Delta Tau fraternity came, I went for it. I saw myself as a country-bumpkin. I had lived a very sheltered life as the son of German immigrants.
After Central College: When I graduated from Central College in May of 1967, I had a BS of Philosophy/Psychology and Religion. I then attended New Brunswick Theological Seminary from September of 1967 to May of 1969. I left the campus of the seminary and went to live in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, NYC.
I lived in a cold water flat on the third floor on Ave A and 11th Street. At that time two drug addicts came to live with me. I learned all about the street life from them. Then I started a ministry program for drug addicts in the Queensboro Rehab. Center, 4704 Van Dam St. in Queens. Some of the addicts were artists, poets, and musicians.
It was a distressing time when all of this STUFF was happening that I met a beautiful woman named Johanna. She had an inner spiritual beauty. She was graduating from Douglas College for Women. We were married on May 23rd, 1970, at the New Brunswick Seminary Chapel. We had a wonderful time for 25 years.
In November 1978 we came to be part of the Shawangunk Reformed Church. It was an old stone house and an old stone church. This place looked like Camelot compared to Belleville, New Jersey. In November 1978 to November 1995 we raised our two children, Johanna got her master’s degree of Special Education and became the Director of Special Education in the Wallkill School District.
So here we are, she was working full time and I was working full time. Then I applied to the Trinity Counseling Center, Princeton University, Princeton New Jersey. I was accepted into their program to work on my second master’s degree of Therapy and Counseling. So, I went from a one room schoolhouse with all eight grades in one room and no running water to Princeton University. But it is not about me and I am not about bragging. It is about you and all of those men and women who believed in us and who walked and talked with us along the way.
It was in November 1996 that Johanna and I began to come to the parting of our marriage. She began to put down roots. It is not easy to be married to a minister who is too dedicated to his work. As a result of this separation and divorce, I went into a deep clinical depression and left the ministry for a while.
I got a job on an old family farm taking care of the horses and chickens. We started to rebuild the stone walls on the long lane. We rebuilt the retaining wall on the Shawangunk River. Rebuilding stone walls was like rebuilding my mind, heart and will to fire. Since that time, I have been able to help people who are depressed or who have Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
My perception of the higher power or the Lord God is that the Lord is neither male, nor female, nor it. The Lord is the Friend (capitol F). The Friend appears in my life every day.
My Brothers in Bonds helped me to change, to grow and transform. The critical feedback was good for me.
Thank you!!!
Paul Z. Ruter