Eighty Years Behind the Masts

The introduction was written 62 years ago. The “Great Beyond” is from my age of 17 to my age of 80. I looked forward, but one can look back with me. Our youth are encouraged to write their own, “Great Beyond”. This book will reveal what can be done. It answers the question, “Who am I?” Will your Beyond be a “Great Beyond” or one of “Meology” (breathing, eating, sleeping and me, me, me, etc.)?

The Miller genealogy is traced back to Adam and Eve, the parents of all people. I include the “Miller Code of Ethics” for one to compare and my “Curriculum Vitae”, a professional life revealed. A “Broad Mentality” with its 13 categories is defined.

Our earth is small, but the cultures extensive. Every productive person I know has traveled the world. I have circled the earth seven times, traveled to Japan 40 times, to Pearl Harbor 25 times, Europe more times than I have counted. I have driven thousands of miles in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. Young person, “Study the world and its cultures that are different than yours.” Travel to India and your life will never be the same. You can’t find the world cooking hamburgers in the backyard or in the microwave. Learn to look at the person beneath their skin as God’s creation just as you are. Develop your mind so that people with white, black or colored skin all look the same. Learn the motto that God gives us in His Word, “Faith, Hope, and Love.” Never, never, be ashamed of God!

My life has been one of working and learning. Read my Vitae (my life) and learn without working. It has been shown that a surgeon only becomes a good citizen after being in practice about seven years. He has paid off his debts, proved his ability, developed a good practice and feels secure. Plan your life “NOW!” Thirty years in advance I planned a sabbatical leave every ten years and did it and more. I show you three planned concurrent careers: Academic Neurosurgery (40 years), The United States Naval Reserve for 59 years with 160 sets of orders (and many days without orders), and the Founder of a Neurosciences Center with 16 Neuro specialists and 100 plus neuro nurses, and an academic interchange with at least forty seven centers in twenty-five countries (18 years). There were other centers waiting to be included. Academic interchange has replaced music as the international language.

Cathy and I looked at places to retire in over 20 countries. After working seven days a week for 40 years in neurosurgery, I feared retirement. I taught Sunday School for the most of 58 years. At age 70, I retired to the unknown. I elected an entirely new life for one year. By our private 34-foot Sea Ray yacht we traveled to all 36 yacht clubs in the Florida Council of Yacht Clubs from Destin through the Keys to Jacksonville, and added the northern Bahamas. There is much time on a boat at night. I memorized the “Teachings on the Mount.” (They are not sermons.)

Time seemed to have forced us to return to our retirement home in Apollo Beach, Florida. Here I was retired, but not working. We were tired of being on the boat. Had life forsaken me? Upon retirement from neurosurgery, I received 201 letters (44 were international), but none of them came with me to retirement. Cathy and I were all alone. I became so busy that I coined a new term, “Retirement Career.” (Career as a noun is a profession of life’s work and as a verb it is “go at top speed in a headlong manner.” Read about being busier that ever: I authored seven books, I am on the voluntary faculty of the medical school, deacon and teacher at church, and continued “Permissive Orders” for the Navy. Recently with the local Reserve Unit I became the only 80-year-old drilling reservist. I have pushed patriotism and lectured to thousands of veterans and other patriots. I have lapel pinned 285 men in our church (and some on other churches). The lapel pin they wear is their testimony that they are men of prayer and patriotic Americans. We have a once a week pool man, and once every two weeks yard man (We have no grass, our lot is covered in white rocks and palm trees. Our house is on a golf course and five feet from the water out to Tampa Bay. I can travel thousands of miles without stopping except for fuel and food. My only responsibility is to keep the boat dock mosquito and “no-see-ums” (the Chironomidae “Flies” with 2000 species) free, fill the Mosquito Magnet with propane every two weeks, service the jet boat, three boat lifts, and keep the garage in order. Read on and learn what one can do or what not to do!!

There is still much to learn. When I had a rectal abscess, I learned that the brain was not necessarily the most important organ. It is part of the “whole”. Travel the world and learn more about the “whole”. Study the Bible and learn “Why” there is a “whole” and what the “whole” actually is!

I have addressed Biblical Illiteracy among southern Baptists for 40 years, but have failed. It is worse than ever. I am fighting the invasion of Calvinism among Southern Baptists, but with weak leaders we are failing. I have fought Islam for several years. Our failure here is due to unexpected reasons, weak Muslims and weak Christians. They both just float along like a stick in a river, while their world changes about them.