Her Heart Was Aimed Towards Me

     There wasn't a time in my life when I didn't know the Miners family. Bill and I were Cradle Roll babies at the First Presbyterian Church. We graduated from high school the same year. Leonard plowed Nadine's garden and brought them fresh fall mushrooms. Over the decades, plates of cookies, garden produce and other goodies were delivered back and forth. Our support for one another is without end.
     Intelligent and well read, they knew Shakespeare as if he were their next door neighbor. They studied and conversed about everything and anything. 
     Nancy is the last of the living. The rest are as near as her next thought. She said, "We genuinely liked each other. We had different ideas. We debated, but we didn't fight. We were always there for each other.
     "When I was small and overly shy, I was invited to a neighbor girl's birthday party. Two other friends were there, but they wouldn't talk to me. I guess they already knew each other. I stood at a distance. The phone rang. The Birthday girl handed it to me.
     "Nancy, are you having a good time?" Mom asked.
     "No," I whispered into the phone.
     "My heart is aimed towards you, Honey. It will be okay."
     "I broke out in a smile. Mom, the foundation of everlasting arms took time to check on me. Her love is the kind that is there all the time, goes all the way, always, all ways. No conditions. No clock. No yardstick. No count-it-out. All loving you for you. Carried all the way 100%.
     "Thank you for thinking of me." I hung up confident I could fit in, and I did."

©2014 Red Convertible Travel Series  
   

   

   

Goliath the Bridge

Our beloved Pastor Burton A. Knudsen was retiring after over thirty-years as the Pastor of our First Presbyterian Church. Staying in the community it would be look but don't touch. We needed a shift in our relationship. In Nashville, Tennessee and again in Des Moines, Iowa, I saw goats. They gave me an idea.

At his retirement I told him we were concerned he'd be lonely so we got him a pet. The audience of over 200 gasped, "She didn't!"

"In Mississippi we found a homeless pet Diane, the church secretary, named 'Goliath'. With a name like that can you imagine the appetite? Weaned and housebroken, it's diet requires 18% crude protein. "

Pastor guessed it was a catfish, opend the Fed-Ex box and did what any kid would do: took the angora, cloth, happy-faced fourteen-inch tall goat out of the box and hugged it. It's pail of 18% crude protein petfood just happened to be chocolate.

In Goliath we had a bridge that demanded nothing of Pastor. We could call and, "If Pat answers, just ask how the old goat, I mean Pastor is."

copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series