Stetsons
My old friend wore a lot of hats.
He worked as a gold miner before he went off to fight in the Army in the second World War. He earned himself more than a few medals and swept a beautiful young girl off her feet at the USO. A glimpse of her smile melted his heart down into his combat boots, and he came home and married her.
Later on, he drove an old green truck hauling logs. A guy can still hear old truckers out west spin yarns about a death-defying trek he took with his load through a treacherous mountain pass. He helped build a barge that was a part of the construction of the Alaskan pipeline. He ran a grain elevator, and built his own motel.
When he retired, he bought a dairy farm in South Dakota.
True, my friend wore a lot of hats. But the old cowboy wore only two Stetsons.
In Sickness and in Health
by Paul Willingham
Bill and Becky Ann met at Purdue University where they both majored in Radio/Television broadcasting. They were married on the 13th of the month and believed that their marriage would not be undone by the superstitious whims of others. They were married for over 62 years. After broadcast gigs, first in Chicago and then at WCCO Radio in the Twin Cities, they struck out on their own and in 1949 successfully launched their own AM radio station.
For the next 20 plus years they successfully competed with and against stations with more broadcast power and were successful with counter-programming to the prevailing Rock and Roll and Top 40 formats of the day.
In the 50s and 60s women in business were rare and the glass ceiling was located somewhere just above the door knob of the corner office. But Becky Ann was a full-time active career partner with Bill as they owned, managed and worked together to build their business.
The Gift of Presence (Or: How I Met Megan)
I’ve long forgotten the meal — the fruit and nuts of it, anyway. I know I savored every bite, and even cleaned my plate. It was that good.
But the company? It was even better.
Megan and I jostled through the serving line of Tim’s buffet at Laity Lodge together. We didn’t plan it that way. We just sort of wound up there at the same time. We’d seen each other around — online, and now off line, but for some reason our paths had not yet intersected.
She would change all that.
We reached the door to the dining room at about the same time, and Megan yielded. Being from South Dakota, I yielded back. That’s what we do at uncontrolled intersections — we keep waving the other on until someone gives in.
But she’s from Texas. She won’t play the perpetual yield game. She looked up at me and said, “Go sit down.” She can be matter-of-fact like that. “I don’t know you yet, so I’m going to sit with you today.”
And that was that.
I don’t know if I’ve ever loved anyone so quickly in all my life.
That may not have been the day that Tim served pho. But I remember it as the best meal I had all weekend.
Megan brings to every encounter the gift of her presence. Her attention. Her questions. Her careful listening. Her tender heart.
::
I may be in big trouble before the day is through. (I’ll take a couple of friends down with me.) But I’m a big believer that forgiveness is easier to ask than permission. So, Megan, forgive me for this. But word on the street is it’s your birthday this weekend.
Permit the rest of us to celebrate a bit over you.
(Find my friend Megan – writer, tea drinker, failed liturgical dancer – at MeganWillome.com.)
Deep Bone Rest
I asked Jesus to scootch up really close to her bed.
There wasn’t much else I knew to do.
While a friend hours away pushed back against a sometimes debilitating disease from a hospital bed, I reminded myself that tapping at His window isn’t just a matter of helpless hand-wringing. Asking Him to do it was a better thing than scootching up to her bed myself.
No matter how I would have liked to do that.
The Hermit’s Dream
::
You can be a hermit later. Sign up.
I was bristling at a good thing, which seems often my custom, and a friend texted a reply meaning to soften my resistance.
I’d mentioned that I was wanting to go off on a hermitage for a few days, and didn’t that seem much more my style than a retreat full of . . . people?
Even if they are heart-buoying, amazing ones.
What followed was a complete misunderstanding that might give you your best laugh for the week, but we’re not going to talk about it here. Just remember the next time you text from your phone, that, well, sometimes texting sucks.
Waves
It seemed a perfect place to use a word like undulate.
I’d settled onto the beach next to an old rowboat, forcing the back legs of the chair deeper into the sand to make up for the front legs sinking into the softer, wetter edge where the waves slapped in. I rolled up my pantlegs and shed my socks to dip rarely-exposed feet into the tepid water that dragged in green weeds with every lap.
White plugs in my ears, I could barely hear Leeland over the roar of the water as he asked over and over, “Can you hear the sound of melodies?” and I wondered at how I couldn’t. Not his melody, anyway.
But I heard another, louder melody.
Flat Window Glass
The same trees stand in my yard and wave in the warm South Dakota wind every day. They don’t change, save for the occasional leaf that pulls itself away and dribbles to the ground. Or the branches that must be clipped and burned now and again because the worms weave their cottony capsules in them and threaten to take over the neighborhood.
Really, they’re the same trees. Day after day.
In the same grass. Against the same sky.
But some days, I step out and the warm air is just so, crackling dry after humid days that made walls and grass sweat and gasp for air. The sun sits just right overhead, laying down crisp shadows against flashing emerald.
On those days, I see something that most days I miss.
Pasa Un Mate
As the weeks wore on, we began to feel our way with our own clumsy handling of the language more than to rely on Maricela’s translation. On one hand, it was an unfair burden to place on our more fluent teammate.
On the other, frankly, sometimes she walked us into a swamp.
The Conversation