Baby Shower

Baby Shower!

Thirty-four years ago I was doing a lot of the same things in the month of December as I still am doing this year - preparing for a school Christmas program as well as a church Christmas program. However, there was one additional thing I was preparing for - our first baby! My due date was January 11, and I just hoped I would not have this baby a month early as my aunt Dorothy had just done the month before.

The practices for the youth Christmas program were held at our house. The dates that year were exactly the same as they are this year. We had a rehearsal on Tuesday evening, the 4th. It was decided that we needed more practice, so Friday evening seemed like the next available time. As the youth were eating and having fun I went around to everyone to remind them that we're having another practice at our house Friday evening. Little did I know that my sister-in-law was following me telling everyone, "DON'T come Friday evening. We're having a baby shower here for her!"

Friday evening came and I fully expected a houseful of teenagers again. To my total surprise, when the first knock at the door came, there on the porch were WOMEN and GIRLS - our mothers, sisters, church friends, etc. "SURPRISE!" they yelled! And I was. I loved it! Several years before, when a bridal shower had been planned for us, I had seen a note that I should not have seen, which gave away the surprise. So it was fun to be really, truly surprised this time.

As it turned out, there was no hurry to have that baby shower. Lisa wanted to stay in the confines of my womb for a LOOONG time. The church program came and went, my school program came and went, my sister Doris's wedding (Dec. 28) came and went, I had absolutely everything as ready as it could possibly be, my due date came and went, a couple more weeks came and went, and FINALLY a month after Christmas, on January 25th Lisa decided to make her grand entrance. She was probably in there thinking, "If I come out too soon, Mom's never going to have time to pay attention to my birthday. I'm going to wait a month so she'll always have time to recover from Christmas first!" Good thinking, Lisa!

My pictures from that era are really pathetic, but here is what I looked like at that baby shower on December 7th, 1973!

The Geyser in My Bathroom

My experience with the leaking sink drain pipe the other morning reminded me of a story I never told here on my blog. The story took place in July 2005, just a couple of weeks after we moved here. Rather than take the time to write about it, I am just going to copy the email I sent to my family the day after it happened.

The Geyser in my Bathroom
(July 2005)

I had a good bit more excitement yesterday than necessary. What started out as a peaceful morning turned into a near disaster. I was cleaning up the sink and Destiny was taking a bath. Suddenly she came running from the bathroom, yelling that there was a loud noise and water in the bathroom. I ran back and discovered that there was water shooting out from under the bathroom sink, and I mean SHOOTING! It was like a geyser with tremendous pressure. I think I grabbed a beach towel first and put it under the pipe, then ran for the phone to call Dick. After I called him, I looked more closely and saw a valve that had broken off. I pushed it against the hole and was able to keep the flow down to several sprays instead of a complete gusher. So that's what I did for at least 20 minutes, probably 30, until Dick got home and finally discovered where to turn the main water off under the house. Every so often I would shift my fingers a bit, and the force would blow the valve back and I'd have to frantically try to put it back in place. Meanwhile I was yelling instructions at Destiny, who was running around naked (having just gotten out of the tub). First of all I told her to get all the towels out of the closet and throw them all over the bathroom and laundry floors. Then I told her to get dressed. One time I told her to get me something to catch the water in, and she brought me a huge kettle, which would never have fit underneath! Later she brought me a cup, but I couldn't really catch water with it, because that required moving my one hand, which resulted in the valve shifting and the water shooting out again. Needless to say, I was getting completely soaked under there, my hands were feeling like I couldn't hold on one more second.

When I could hear the water pressure die down after Dick turned the main water off, I felt like I would collapse. Dick went to Bomberger's Store nearby and got a new valve, soon had it fixed, and the water back on. Amazingly, no carpet got wet. The bathroom throw rugs and towels soaked up an amazing amount of water.

I thought I was no worse for the wear until I got up this morning. My shoulders and arm muscles are really sore.

So do you all know where to turn your main water off? Of course, it doesn't do me any good to know - you couldn't pay me to go into the crawl space under our house. I told Dick that if he was under there dying I would probably go in, but that's about it!

The Case of the Missing Coffee Mug

My story today is not from my childhood, nor is it from my early adulthood or parenting years. It is from YESTERDAY!

THE CASE OF THE MISSING COFFEE MUG

I constantly get a myriad of catalogs containing musical merchandise. Each one has a section of cute items with musical themes. Last year I was in need of a new coffee mug for school as well as a thermal mug for my ice water. I decided to order one of each from one of my catalogs. In our staff lounge we have a cupboard shelf or two full of mugs, most of them fair game for whomever. But I like to have my very own, so I assumed that by getting ones with notes and piano keyboards on them, everyone would know they are mine and mine alone.

However, a couple of weeks ago I could not find my coffee mug anywhere. So at the beginning of this week I posted a note on the frig asking if anyone had seen it. There was no response for two days. As I stood at the sink in the staff lounge on Wednesday I had a vague memory of dropping and breaking a coffee mug. How silly, I thought! I had broken my mug, most likely on a Friday, and had forgotten about it already by the following Monday. So I took the note down. But I had a nagging feeling that it was not just a few weeks ago that I had broken a mug. It seemed much longer ago. However, I just chalked it up to having had a lot on my mind when it happened.

That afternoon as I walked to my car carrying my thermal water mug, one of the teachers drove by and said, "So you found your mug?" I said, "No, this is my water mug. But I think I know what happened to my coffee mug - I broke it and then forgot all about it!" Well, we both screamed laughing. Again I thought that I can't believe that it was just two weeks ago that I broke that mug.

Thursday morning there was a gift bag on my desk when I arrived. In it was a beautiful musical themed coffee mug. Of course I went straight to the teacher to whom I had confessed my mistake. She said that right after she had left school the day before she went to a local meat and cheese store. She turned around and there was this mug. She just had to buy it for me. How sweet!

Friday morning during staff devotions, as I sat there drinking coffee out of my beautiful new mug, I told the staff they didn't need to worry about looking for my lost coffee mug anymore. I told them my story, and everyone laughed and laughed. Once again, as I told the story I was thinking that it seems like much longer ago than two weeks since I broke that mug. But it seemed like the only possible reason why my mug was missing, and it did make a good story. So again I assumed I must have had a lot on my mind the day I broke the mug and it had barely registered on my radar!

WELL!!! At the end of the day yesterday I went to the staff lounge to collect my lunch containers. UNBELIEVABLE!!! There in the dish drainer was the missing coffee mug, and it wasn't broken either! My first inclination was to take it home and never say another word about it! But then I thought, "Somebody just returned this and he/she knows it's not broken." So I showed it to a few staff members and everyone just screamed laughing again!!

Indeed I did break a musical coffee mug one time. But it wasn't this one, and it wasn't just two weeks ago. It was last school year, and it was a mug one of my students had given me for a gift. That's why I needed to order a new one! So SOMEBODY knows where this mug has been the past two weeks, and I will be waiting to hear!

But hey, the new one Melissa got me is much, much nicer. It has a lovely curved, thin lip that makes coffee taste so much better, and it's prettier too. So all's well that ends well (but this hasn't ended yet, has it??!!)

My Explorer and the Mysterious Vandal

Before I write my story today I need to make one thing perfectly clear. When I mention the words Puerto Rican in my story I am not demeaning them or their culture. We have three dearly loved sons who are of Puerto Rican descent, our precious granddaughter Destiny is as well, and we have had other children of Puerto Rican descent whom we have dearly loved when they were in our home. I have become involved in some of their biological families and feel quite at home and accepted among them. In fact, my husband Dick, with his curly hair and distinctive features, has been assumed to be Puerto Rican by some who did not know that those sons were not born to us! Now let me get on with my story for this week.

My Explorer and the Mysterious Vandal

When we bought our Explorer a number of years ago we were teased by Dick's co-workers that apparently it was previously owned by Puerto Ricans because it had so much extra chrome on it. If that was the case, I was glad they owned it previously because I liked all that extra chrome.

However, in the spring of 2004 I wasn't so sure about that. Our son Jeremy owned a house in Lancaster City that he was planning to sell in preparation for his move to Florida. Dick and I spent many evenings helping him with painting, etc. before he sold it. I would go home from school, prepare a meal which I would take along to Jeremy's, Dick would go to Jeremy's house straight from work, we would eat together and get busy working. Many evenings our son Frank was there to help as well.

The very first evening we were there to help him (sometime in March) I stayed later than Dick did. When I walked to my car (the Explorer), which I had parked at the Wachovia Bank parking lot nearby, I was stunned to realize that the passenger window behind the driver's seat had been smashed in. As we waited for the police to arrive (which I don't think they ever did because they were too involved in a murder that had just happened) we realized that my digital camera had been stolen. Stupid me - I had brought it along to take "before" pictures of Jeremy's house, but had forgotten to take it in and had left it right on the seat behind me.

A few weeks later, when Dick and I walked out to that same bank parking lot after an evening's work, we were stunned and disgusted again to discover that a back tire on my Explorer and a back tire on his pick-up truck had been slashed. We were parked next to each other, and it was our back tires that were facing each other that were slashed. We began to wonder if we had some enemies that we were unaware of. Once again we reported it to the police.

At the beginning of June, on the last evening that I was painting, right before the sale of his house, I walked out to my Explorer, again in that bank parking lot. Unbelievably, my window was smashed in and my stereo had been ripped out of the dash. Jeremy was so mad, because in the two years he had lived there, every one of his friends had parked there and no one had ever experienced vandalism. He and I drove it down to the police station as they told us to do. This time the policeman tried to get some finger prints. As he worked we discussed the mystery of it. He told us, just as we had been told before, that they NEVER got calls about vandalism in that parking lot. It was well lit, with major streets on both sides of it. The policeman asked (again) if we had someone that was mad at us for something. We assured him we could think of absolutely nobody. He said, "Maybe someone thinks that the car belongs to somebody else. It DOES look like a pimp wagon." Well, Jeremy and I just CRACKED UP!!

The mystery was never solved. Our son Frank tried to persuade me to park there again just so he could hide somewhere and catch them in the act. But I was afraid he was a little to eager to become a hero!!

For another year I, the good Christian grandma worship leader, continued to drive that pimp wagon until I graduated to a more appropriate old lady's Buick and left the pimp wagon driving to my husband!!

Of Airplances, Airports, and Restrooms

Of Airplanes, Airports, and Restrooms

Traveling by any means requires the use of restrooms. In the past five years I have done most of my traveling by air, and using the bathrooms has at times been a challenge and at other times an embarrassment.

In June 2002 I took 20-month-old Destiny with me to visit our daughter Miki and family in Sweden. It was a huge undertaking, no doubt, but I was desperate to visit them, we could not afford tickets for both Dick and me, and at that time there would not have been adequate child care for Destiny if I had gone without her.

We left the Newark, NJ airport at 7 PM on an 8-hour flight to Stockholm. By 11:00 she was sound asleep on my lap. I had probably gotten two hours of sleep when they started waking us up with hot, lemon-scented wash cloths for our faces, readying us for our soon-to-be-served breakfast. Hmm, I really had to pee. What to do? I couldn't leave her in my seat. So, believe it or not, I took her along to the restroom, her head on my shoulder, and in that teeny, tiny airplane restroom I somehow managed to take care of business. She slept right through the whole thing!

Two weeks later we said our goodbyes to Miki and family and took the one-hour, early morning flight from Umea to Stockholm. And Destiny fell asleep again just before we landed. I had hoped that our luggage would go straight through to Newark, but no such luck. This was post 9/11, and security was tight. I had to claim our luggage and recheck it for the next flight. Getting a luggage cart, I laid Destiny in the basket part of the cart with her head propped on my backpack for a pillow, and loaded our luggage. And again I had to pee. But alas, what would I do with this huge cart? I couldn't let it sit unattended, and the restroom door near baggage pick-up didn't even look wide enough for the cart to go through. Oh well, I would just wait until I had checked in our luggage. I traipsed through the humongous, very-under-construction Stockholm airport, pushing my cart and sleeping child, and "holding it". As I neared the international flight area I could NOT believe my eyes. The lines for checking luggage were LOOOOONG!! It's a good thing I didn't realize how long at that point. TWO HOURS later it was finally my turn! At that point Destiny stirred for the first time! (God is good!) I asked the lady that checked my luggage where the nearest restroom was and she told me in no uncertain terms that I had no time to stop at a restroom. I was just to wait until I was on board. The way to my gate was long. At one point I had to use an elevator and when I got off I noticed a restroom sign. I decided I didn't care if I missed my flight and I ran, pushing Destiny in her little umbrella stroller to that blessed relief station. Ahhhh!! And I didn't miss my flight either, lady!

Last fall I flew down to Tampa for a few days by myself when we had a day off school. It was the first time I had ever driven myself to the Baltimore airport and navigated the long term parking/shuttle thing without Dick. It was still early in the morning when I finally got there and had my bag checked in. With a couple of cups of coffee in my system, you guessed it - I had to pee. My cell phone rang as I walked toward the rest rooms. It was Lisa checking in on me. As I walked in to the rest room I remembered an article I had just read in the paper about how annoying it is to listen to someone talking on their cell phone in the next toilet stall, so I decided to stand at the sinks until we were finished talking. I was facing the mirrors as we talked when I noticed a MAN coming out of a stall behind me. I had mindlessly walked into the men's room!! Thank GOD I had read that newspaper article and only went as far as the sinks! Imagine that poor guy listening to me talk on my cellphone in the next stall!

And as you know, I just flew to Tampa last week, and I have one more restroom story. On the flight down I had to go. As I waited for someone else to exit the restroom, an attendant was coming back through the cabin, cleaning up. She found a magazine on an empty seat and asked me if I'd like to have it. It looked like a good one, so I said I'd take it. Then it was my turn to go in. Okay, what to do with the magazine in that teeny, tiny little cubicle? I put it up under my arm, lowered my capris, etc, was about to sit down, when to my astonishment I noticed that the door had swung open!! Apparently in trying to figure out where to put the magazine I had not closed the door properly, or even locked it!!! I considered flushing myself down, but that little hole didn't look big enough for me! (Just kidding!) There was no one waiting when I came out, so hopefully everyone in the airplane had their heads turned forward at that particular moment!!

And that, folks, is the end of my bathroom humor for today.

The Lo-o-o-o-ong Trip to Canada

After Dick read my story about his brother Jim last week, he wondered if I'm going to write the other story we always laugh over with Jim. So while I'm bashing Jim, I'll tell that one too. Trust me, Jim is a really awesome brother-in-law, and I feel very secure in my relationship with him. Otherwise I would never share these stories about him!

The Lo-o-o-ong Trip to Canada

In June 1973 I was just realizing what it's really like to be in the first trimester of pregnancy - nauseated and quite irritable. Nevertheless, a big road trip had already been planned for months, and there was no thought of backing out. Dick's brother Bob and his wife were missionaries in northwestern Ontario, and we were going to go see them. We were also taking Dick's 16-year-old brother Jim along, as well as a teacher friend of mine (Lois) who was planning to spend a few weeks of summer mission work in that location.

We left very early and made amazing time the first day of our trip, getting all the way to Wisconsin Dells before we stopped for the night. I don't recall any major problems that day. But on day two poor Jim just started getting on my nerves. At some point (I think it was after we were in Ontario) we started hitting the longest, straightest stretches of highway any of us had ever seen. As far as the eye could see, both front and back, the straight roads just stretched right into the horizon. At first we all exclaimed over it, but eventually we got used to it. Not Jim. Every five minutes or so he would exclaim again, "I can't believe how straight these roads are!" or "Look how straight this road is!" or "Look! This road stays straight as far as you can see!" After a while I got to the point of being ready to hit him over the head with my pillow. But even being pregnant, I was not a violent person, so as far as I can remember I just endured his endless astonishment.

The really funny memory from that trip happened when we were crossing the border. The guard looked in our car trunk and chose Lois's suitcase to search. As we all stood around that trunk watching, he opened her suitcase, and what to our wondering eyes should appear but sanitary napkins neatly lying across the entire top of her belongings. And there stood 16-year-old Jim who had grown up with no sisters and was relatively unexposed to such female paraphernalia! Lois went bright red, Jim turned away, and I honestly don't remember if we or the guard made any comments. But even all these years later the memory of that moment just sends me into gales of laughter!

If Jim has been a patient man with his wife's pregnancies and the female paraphernalia in his half-female household, they can thank Lois and me for prepping him on that long ago trip!

First Impressions

First Impressions

The summer of 1967 was a romantic one indeed for me. Dick and I were just starting to "go together". I wasn't even 16 yet, so I wasn't allowed to actually go out on dates, but we found activities here and there that we were allowed to do. I was starting to get over my Ugly Duckling mentality and as a result was beginning to feel much more confident, even witty at times. Even my crooked eye tooth did not bother me anymore as I found ways to look more attractive.

One event at which Dick and I were allowed to be together was a youth picnic in his neighborhood. A softball game followed the picnic. Now what was a non-athletic girl like me to do? I was Dick's new girlfriend and I certainly wasn't going to embarrass him by sitting out. Everyone else was participating. His younger brothers were there, all four of them. This was my debut! Feeling very confident and cute, I decided to go for it, and act like I was good at it. When it was my turn at bat I breathed a prayer that I could at least hit it and not strike out. Amazingly I hit it!! AND I made it safely to first base!! Dick's younger brother Jim (age 11) was the first baseman, and as I madly dashed toward the base I was imagining how he must be so impressed with my great athletic skill. As I stood next to him catching my breath, he looked at me and said matter-of-factly, "Did you know that your one tooth sticks out?" DID I KNOW???? I didn't even know how to respond! No "wow, you can really run," or "good hit," or any of the nice things I imagined he was thinking! I suppose I gracefully told him that I DID know that my one tooth was crooked, and was soon off to second base.

That unrefined little boy has been my brother-in-law for almost 36 years now, and he's a fine man with lots of wisdom. He doesn't remember that first impression of me, so he has to take my word for it, but we have laughed over that incident many, many times over the years!

How Many People Can You Fit into a VW Rabbit?

Over the years of our marriage we have made many road trips, usually to visit our siblings or friends, and later, our children. Ironically, it seems that as our children got bigger we traveled in smaller and smaller vehicles! When they were really young we had a big Ford van from which we would remove the middle seat, making a nice carpeted play area on the floor. (There were no seat belt laws back in those days.) When they were ages 5, 8, and 11 we took a sixteen-day trip in a somewhat spacious Mercury Comet, but it wasn't spacious enough some days. Then in 1989 when they were 9, 13, and 15 we made the crazy decision (due to a very tight budget) to go see my sister Betty in Gloucester, MA in a tiny VW Rabbit!!

How Many People Can You Fit into a VW Rabbit?

In November 1989 our family had recently said our tearful goodbyes to two little foster children whose custody had been awarded to their father in Puerto Rico. Older daughter Miki was in college, and with our family suddenly smaller we decided on a whim to take a long weekend trip to see my sister Betty in Gloucester, MA. There wasn't much money in the budget for a trip, but we decided that if we could survive having five people in our little VW Rabbit, the savings on gas would make the trip possible. (I'm still not sure how we talked fifteen-year-old Lisa into it, and I'm quite sure she wonders the same thing!!)

We piled in at 5:00 AM, Dick in the driver's seat, Lisa riding shotgun, me in the middle of the back seat to keep peace between the Jeremy and Anthony. But alas, peace was hard to find even with my best laid plans. Long-legged Anthony was sitting directly behind Lisa, who also had considerably long legs and who also wanted to recline her seat. We were only ten minutes from home when we had to pull over, carefully extract ourselves from our little two-door prison, and then rearrange our order a bit. According to my diary the rest of the trip north was pretty good. We were quite good at playing games and reading while traveling. We had not yet allowed a TV into our home, so our children weren't used to needing that for entertainment. Actually, the best entertainment of the day was when we watched a bear go lumbering across the highway as we sat in sit-still traffic.

Betty lived in a spacious, charming old apartment with a view of the bay. It was delightful. The following day we decided to go sight-seeing in Boston. However, now there were six of us, and Betty's car was no bigger than ours. So we did the unthinkable - we piled six of us into the Rabbit! We had a delightful day climbing the Bunker Hill Monument and visiting a family who had been guests in our bed and breakfast the previous summer. They lived right across the street from the monument. We wanted to take a tour of the SS Constitution , but missed it by 10 minutes. Unfortunately, about that time we began noticing a strong odor of fuel. Our resident mechanic said there was a fuel injector that was threatening to act up, which meant nothing to the rest of us. But he said we'd better head back to Gloucester. So we did. It was dark by then anyway.

Unbelievably, the car gave us no trouble until we entered Gloucester. At that point it decided it was tired of the heavy load and just quit - just like that, along a busy main street! It absolutely refused to restart. So we swallowed our pride, got out, and pushed it until we got to a side street onto which we could get it out of the way. Cars horns were beeping at us and someone yelled, "Are you having fun?" Actually, we were! We were laughing like crazy! From there, we walked the mile to Betty's house in the crisp November air. And it was fun. Another memory had been made! God had kept that fuel injector working until we could walk the rest of the way. The next day Dick was able to buy the part that was needed to fix it, and a few days later the little Rabbit-that-Could got us safely back home to PA!

My First Night at the Pocono Mountains

Last week I told a story that occurred when I was five years old. My friend Cheryl commented that she couldn't believe that I could remember things from such a young age. I have no idea why I have always had such a vivid memory of details, but the truth is, I actually remember a trip our family took to the Pocono Mountains on my parents' 10th wedding anniversary. That would have been a month before my 2nd birthday! I know you might think I just remember it because of pictures or stories that others in the family have told. Not so. There are no pictures of that trip, and one of my most vivid memories is of something that no one else could have told me. And that will be my story for this week.

My First Night at the Pocono Mountains

When my parents got married in October 1943 they went to the Pocono Mountains for their honeymoon. Ten years later it was a natural destination to celebrate their anniversary. However, a second honeymoon it was not! This time they had four children in tow, Janet (8), Dick (7), Mary Ellen (6), and me (not quite 2). Actually, now that I think about it, I suppose Doris was along on that trip as well, since she was born five months later!

Most of our activities of that weekend are beyond the grasp of my memory. But not all of them. I am quite sure we visited at least one of the waterfalls that the Pocono Mountains are so famous for, because I clearly remember standing on a wooden bridge and watching the rushing water underneath it. I also remember entering the cabin that we spent the night in. There were two rooms. The main room had two double beds in it and the other had one bed. Against the wall leaned a wire bed spring, and we decided it was the perfect place to keep our pinwheels. My siblings have told me that I turned the water on at the bathroom tub and got an unexpected shower, which made me cry. At bedtime we three girls had to sleep in the one bed, my brother got to have one to himself, and my parents slept in the other room.

Now here's the part that no one else could have told me. I very vividly remember waking up during the night and thinking that I did not like sleeping with my sisters. I sneaked out of the bed in the dark, walked to my parents' room, climbed up on their bed, and crawled in between them. I liked it there a whole lot better, all cozy and secure. But alas, to my great disappointment, it wasn't the middle of the night after all. It was early morning, and my dad, accustomed to rising early to milk cows, soon got up for the day.

That memory is so clear that I can hardly believe it myself that I was just a toddler at the time! Now if only my memory worked that well for things that are really important!!

Did the Doctor Bring a Baby??

DID THE DOCTOR BRING A BABY??

In the summer of 1957 I was five-and-one-half years old and already had two younger sisters, two older sisters, and an older brother. I did not know that another baby was soon to join our family, because such things were not discussed with five-year-olds back in those days. I never noticed that my mother's belly was getting bigger, and maybe it wasn't. (She used to say that a month before I was born people still did not realize she was pregnant!!) I did, however, notice that she had two new outfits that were completely unlike anything she had ever worn before. Instead of the traditional Mennonite cape dress that she had always worn, she had a SKIRT and two smock tops, one a flowered print, and one a formal-looking navy blue. I thought she looked so beautiful in that navy blue outfit.

One Sunday afternoon my parents wanted to attend a local tent meeting. For some reason they decided to take just me along. Perhaps they thought I needed it the most then already!! I felt wonderfully special, like I was an only child. As we sat in our seats under the tent, a little girl I knew looked back at us from her seat in the row in front of us. I thought, "I bet she wishes her mom had a pretty outfit like my mom does!!" (I did need that tent meeting, didn't I?? Such vain thoughts at age five!!)

September 8th was a Sunday that year. I was awakened before dawn by voices in my parents' bedroom. I lay there listening, wondering what was going on. I heard someone go down the stairs, then after a while I heard people coming up the stairs. I recognized our family doctor's voice. I wondered what was wrong. For some reason I never did get out of bed to go ask. Eventually I heard a baby's cry. The doctor must have brought us a baby!!! I was so excited! I honestly did NOT know where babies came from, and I pictured a huge room at the hospital where babies were kept. I just couldn't figure out how they kept them from growing before people got them!

When I heard voices in the hall, I got up and went out. It was my older siblings. They told me that Mamma had had a baby girl. We stood out there and talked as we awaited our chance to go into the room to see her. My brother said in all his 11-year-old wisdom, "Well, Mamma won't need to wear those dresses anymore." I couldn't believe it. "Why not?" I exclaimed. "She looked so pretty in them." I think he tried to come up with some kind of lame answer, but I can't remember what it was!

We finally were ushered into my parents' bedroom and got to meet little Betty. It was love at first sight for me. I had been too young to enjoy Doris and Barb when they were babies, but now I could really have fun with Betty. And I did.

For some reason I felt a special need to take care of her. When she was big enough to outgrow her crib she became my sleeping partner. Every night I would hug her and tell her stories before we went to sleep. When she faced a difficult transition to public junior high school I took it upon myself to make three new outfits for her.

Betty has gone on to become a teacher and administrator, a wife and mother (after age 40!) and her name has changed to Elizabeth. But to us she's still Betty! Her warm, caring, funny, vivacious personality makes her a delight to be with. When they come to the area for family events they usually stay at our house and we enjoy having them here so very much. I'm so glad God brought Betty to our family 50 years ago. We love you, Betty!

Preschool Memories

Seeing the soft, wet cement out front reminds me of two things. The first thing is the book I used to read to my children and still do read to Destiny called Small Pig. The farmer's wife was doing such a thorough cleaning that she even cleaned the pig's pen. So he set out in search of some good, soft mud. He finally found some in the city, only it was wet cement, and he got stuck in it!! The other thing I am reminded of is the time I walked in soft, wet cement. That, along with other memories of my first five years of life, will be my story today.

Preschool Memories

Our family lived on a rented farm the first five years of my life. Although we moved to a farm that my dad bought when I was only five years old, I have many very distinct memories my first home. Here are some of them.

1. When we were preparing to move, the folks who had bought the farm were remodeling the dairy barn. One day my younger sister Doris and I were playing outside and decided to check things out in the barn. We were amazed at the beautiful new floor in the dairy barn and decided to walk across it. Hmmm. I soon realized that something was very wrong. With each step we took, our feet sank into the beautiful new floor. What to do? We kept walking the whole way across to the other side, then left the barn and never said a word to anyone about it. I was quite sure we had done a very bad thing. When I was older I found out that the workmen had had to come back to repair the damage we had done and they had worked until midnight to finish it!

2. Speaking of Doris, it's a wonder she survived childhood. I remember the day our mother was out in the "summer kitchen" doing the laundry. (Those were the wringer washer days.) Doris was in the high chair and I had climbed up onto the counter to get something out of the cupboard. I discovered this interesting stuff up on top of the cupboard. It looked like puffed rice, except it was hard. I asked Doris if she wanted some cereal. I proceeded to put the stuff in a bowl with milk and gave it to Doris. She didn't like it, thank God. When mom came back into the house I found out it was mouse poison! I had done a very bad thing again.

3. One day I was playing with my dolls and decided to pretend I was driving somewhere. I got into our 1951 Ford in the garage with my doll on the front seat (the way all babies rode in those days!) I was having a lot of fun shifting the gears, turning the steering wheel, and trying to reach the pedals. Suddenly I felt the car begin to drift backward. I kept drifting right out of the garage until it came to a stop against the hedge at the other side of the driveway! I screamed and screamed and screamed in absolute terror. I can still see my dad running out of the barn and my mom running out of the house. I'm sure they expected to find me half dead!

4. One summer evening after supper my brother Dick decided to take me for a bike ride. I sat behind him, bare feet dangling at the sides. The unthinkable happened. My one foot got caught it the spokes of the back tire. I've learned since that a major artery in my ankle was severed and the blood spurted out with each heartbeat. My memory was of others in the family rushing out of the house and up the road to see what had happened. And get this - I remember that Mary Ellen was still eating her dessert - a piece of white cake! How weird is that?? Anyway, I was rushed to the doctor's office. That ankle had to be doctored for months. Getting the bandage changed was always traumatic, so the nurse started telling me that she was using her dull scissors. Then I would settle down!!

5. We had a girls' bedroom in which three of us slept - Janet, Mary Ellen, and me. (Brother Dick, being the only boy, always had his own room.) Our favorite thing was taking saltine crackers along to bed. We would hide them under our pillows, then after Mom had left the room, we would lay there and talk and eat our saltines. She always complained about the crumbs in our beds, but we kept doing it.

6. The funniest memory of that bedroom was after Barb was born. She got to have the crib in my parents' room, and one-year-old Doris had to be moved, crib and all, to our bedroom. As she got older she thoroughly enjoyed the audience of three older sisters. At one point the one end of her crib railing broke and she could swing it open like a door. She would do that and climb out, then get in again and close it. We older girls would lie there in our beds and howl laughing as she would do that over and over again. It didn't take much to entertain children back in those days!

7. My not as favorite memory of that bedroom was the night my mattress started to push up and down. Something was under my bed! I told Janet and Mary Ellen what was happening and I started to cry because I was so scared. Turns out my brother Dick had quietly crawled across the hall, got under my bed and pushed up and down to scare me. It worked!

8. Janet, Mary Ellen, Dick, and I would play house. Sometimes they would make me be the mom, even though I was far younger. Their favorite trick was when we pretended we were at church praying, they would sneak away while my eyes were closed. I would open my eyes and all my children were gone. Then I would get mad and cry and they would come back laughing their heads off. It's a wonder I turned out alright!!

9. We used to hire Puerto Ricans to help us with our tomato harvest. We would transform a little chicken house into a living quarters for them. I was always jealous, because I thought it was so cute. Their bathroom was our outhouse. One day when I was outside playing I decided to use the outhouse instead of going inside. I started to open the door, but was yelled at by one of the hired men who was inside. I was mortified. From then on I never wanted to see any of them for fear they were mad at me.

10. Speaking of the tomato harvest, my first experience driving tractor was during the tomato harvest. It was September and the older three were back in school. My dad needed someone to steer the tractor as he loaded the baskets of tomatoes onto the wagon. So he sat me up there, put the tractor into the lowest gear possible, and instructed me to steer straight. It was scary, but I was very proud. I was even prouder when the other three arrived home from school a little while later and came running out to the tomato field seeing me driving the tractor. I felt so grown up!!

There are many more memories of that place, but that's it for this time!

Has Anyone Seen Anthony??

HAS ANYONE SEEN ANTHONY??

As our children were growing up, Dick and I had a musical group known as The Freedom Singers. In the Spring of 1982 our group decided to get matching outfits. Linda (the other female in the group) and I went shopping one evening to get our dresses. Her young teenage brother Phil came along with us and wandered about the mall on his own while we did our shopping. We found the dresses we wanted, then met Phil at the appointed time. Mission accomplished.

The next mission was to find the guys (Dick, his brother Steve, and our bass player Don) shirts, pants, and ties to match our dresses. A family shopping trip was planned for the next evening. When I told five-year-old Anthony where we were going that evening, he asked, "While you're looking for the men's suits, can I walk around by myself?"

My quick answer was, "NO!!"

"Why not?" he asked incredulously. "You said that when you and Linda went shopping, Phil was walking around by himself."

"Anthony, Phil is a lot older than you are. You are just a little boy. There are some really bad people that kidnap children and do really terrible things to them. Sometimes they even kill the children." I think I even went into more specific details than that. I wanted to be sure he would NEVER want to walk around by himself!

That evening our shopping crew consisted of three families: Steve's family, which included his wife and two young children, our family, which included three young children (Miki was a teen, but did not go along), and bass player Don with his fourteen-year-old daughter Michelle.

We started out at Sears, but were not satisfied with the selection. Next destination - Penneys. That meant a long walk to the center of the mall, then a trip down another mall to Penneys. By then the children were thirsty, so we stopped in the center to get them drinks, then continued on our merry way toward Penneys.

At Penneys, the men were checking out the selections, Steve's wife and I were giving our opinions, and the children were starting to get noisy as they played. Anthony was usually the loudest one, so as I started telling the children to quiet down, I was especially looking for him. Where was he? I asked the other children. They didn't know. I started to panic. I asked the rest of the adults, "Have any of you seen Anthony since we're here at Penneys?" None of them could remember seeing him since we got drinks.

Then I REALLY panicked! I grabbed two-year-old Jeremy and told Michelle and eight-year-old Lisa to come with me. As we practically ran through the Penneys mall toward the center we kept watching everywhere for him. We looked around the area where we had gotten drinks, then ran down the mall toward the security office. All the while Jeremy was getting heavier and heavier, and he kept trying to turn my face toward his as he continually asked, "Anthony lost? Anthony lost?"

We got to the end of that mall, only to discover that this was NOT the one with the security office. I had gotten mixed up. By then I was crying. I was besieged with thoughts of all the things I had told him that afternoon. Had I spoken them into existence? I had never known such incredible fear in my life.

We ran back to the center again. I felt like I was going to drop Jeremy any minute. So I ordered Michelle and Lisa to sit on a fixture in the center and hold Jeremy for me and keep their eyes open for Anthony. Then I literally RACED down the mall where the security office really was. I was just crying and crying silently to God to please protect my precious little boy.

I got to the security office and, PRAISE GOD, there Anthony sat!!! There just are not words in the English language to describe my incredible relief. He started to cry as he said, "I was watching all these TV's (security monitors) looking for you, but I couldn't see you anywhere."

How did it happen? This is what we came up with: After we got our drinks and started the walk toward Penneys, Steve was taking up the rear (or so he thought.) Anthony was actually following Steve, but Steve did not know it. It was the week before Mother's Day, so there were various stands along the way selling things to buy for Mothers. Steve saw something that he considered buying for Faye, so he stopped to check it out. Anthony did not notice that Steve had stopped and kept walking. After a while he looked around and couldn't see any of us, so he walked back toward the center to find us. Of course we were not there. He started to cry and "a nice old man and lady" (according to Anthony) asked him if he was lost. He told them that he couldn't find his family, so they took him to the security office. Bless their dear hearts! And praise the Lord for bringing them to Anthony first.

I have often wondered why it took me so long to notice he was missing. Why did I leave that drink stand without making sure he was with us? I have no answers. I only have extreme gratefulness to God for providing His protection when mine was so sadly lacking.

The Night the Mother Invaded the Dance Club

The Night the Mother Invaded the Dance Club

When Frank first got his driver's license in the spring of 1996, he did not have a car of his own, so he and I shared a car, just as all the other kids had to do at first. My car was a very nice little maroon VW Rabbit that we had just bought from a coworker of mine.

One Friday evening in June Frank had our permission to use my car to go to a teen dance club in Lancaster. Unfortunately we were experiencing the effects of tropical storm Bertha, and as the evening progressed the rain became more torrential. Around 9 PM we got a phone booth call from a boy named Frank who had been unable to see a curve in the street and had driven my car right up onto a grassy island that separated traffic lanes. He was afraid something was wrong because it wouldn't drive. We told him to just stay there and we'd come and take a look. He expressed concern that he was supposed to meet his girlfriend at the club, and she would think he stood her up, and he was thinking that if we were coming for the car anyway, he would call a taxi to take him to the club. I told him in no uncertain terms, "Stay there!!!" I had very little sympathy for him or his girlfriend at that point. Dick had just had a chemo treatment that day, and I had a lot more sympathy and concern for him.

When we arrived, about thirty minutes later, there was no Frank anywhere to be found. Dick could tell, even in the torrential rain and darkness, that the car was not drivable - something underneath had broken apart. He stayed in the Rabbit while I drove to a nearby Turkey Hill to call the dance club. (No cell phones to make things easier in 1996!) I was MAD!!! When I called the club and described my son, they said he had just arrived. They got him to the phone and I gave him a very large piece of my mind.

I then went back to the scene only to discover that a policeman had arrived. When we tried to explain what had happened, he wondered where the driver was. So I told him where the driver was. He said, "I can't even proceed in writing up an accident report unless the driver is here. You'll have to go get him." I could not believe it. By now I was completely drenched and looked like a drowned rat. I had NEVER been to a dance club in my entire life.

As I drove the many blocks to the dance club I just could not believe the predicament I was in. I imagined how I would go in and tell the people at the front desk that I was the mom who had called earlier, and they would go get Frank, and then we would leave without too many people seeing me.

Not so! When I arrived, the guy at the desk told me that all the bouncers were elsewhere, and he could not leave the front desk. I would need to go back to the dance floor and find him myself!!!! I begged and pleaded for them to find someone to do it for me, to no avail. As I walked through the little food area, kids were sitting in the booths on either side of me, and heads turned. Can you imagine their surprise at seeing a 40-something, angry, soaking wet woman invading their world? Next was the dance floor, and it was DARK, with flashing strobe lights. I was supposed to find him in there???? I stood looking and wondering what in the world to do. Then, in a mirrored column I saw a familiar looking white shirt and as the light hit his face, I could see it was Frank. A bouncer was standing nearby and I told him I had an emergency and needed to talk to my son. I showed him the white shirt in the mirror and asked if he would please go out there and get him. I could have kissed him as he agreed to do so. The look on Frank's face when he saw me standing there was worth it all. It was payback time!!!

They say all's well that ends well. Frank and his sweet little girlfriend came with me, the accident report was written up, the car was towed, and insurance ended up totaling the car and paying us four times what we had paid my coworker for the car! Frank learned that you never leave the scene of an accident when he got the fine for doing so. And I have had the satisfaction of remembering my grand entrance into that dance club and the look on his face, and I have been laughing about it upon every remembrance!

Our "New" Car

OUR "NEW" CAR

As we raised our many children the most practical means of transportation was big Ford vans, which we would drive for many years. As the children became drivers we added VW Rabbits to our driveway. It was never hard to find our vehicles in a parking lot, because they didn't look like anybody else's.

That is, until 1995 when we got a gray Mercury Sable which looked amazingly like many other cars on the road. I was not known to be much of a car noticer, so I was in for a challenge!

One particular Saturday morning Dick and I had been to a doctor appointment and got finished just before twelve noon. I wanted to to go to the bank before they closed so we hurried to the nearest Fulton Bank which was in a little K-Mart strip mall. He pulled up to the curb in front of the bank, I jumped out and made a mad rush for the door, getting inside the door just before they locked it.

A few minutes later I came out of the bank and quickly jumped into the car that was at the curb where Dick had let me out. I was completely SHOCKED as I heard a strange man's voice saying, "Wrong car, Hon!"

"Oh my goodness, I am SO SORRY!" I exclaimed profusely as I even more quickly jumped back out of that car without as much as a glance at the man who had spoken. I turned around and saw Dick sitting in our car in a parking space facing the bank, with the BIGGEST grin in town. He had watched the whole thing with greatest amusement. I sheepishly walked over and got into our car, still without looking at the man in the wrong car. Dick told me it was an older man who had probably enjoyed having a younger woman hopping into his car! (I hate to admit it, but the wrong car was not a Mercury Sable; in fact, it wasn't even gray - it was brown.)

The Beautiful Dress

The Beautiful Dress

In the mid-nineties I made frequent visits to our local used clothing shop, looking for dresses. Our school dress code required at that time that teachers wear skirts or dresses, and it seemed there must have been a very stylish woman just my size who often took her no-longer-wanted dresses to this shop. I just loved shopping there.

On one particular occasion I found a dress that was especially beautiful, fit me perfectly, and looked really good on me. I decided it would be my dress for the Spring program. The program was over a month away, so I wore it occasionally and always received compliments about it.

One such occasion was my nephew Scott Peifer's wedding. After the wedding we family members stood outside the church talking and having a great time. Of course several of them said how much they liked my dress. THEN my nephew Richard Witmer's wife Jennifer said, "I think I had a dress just like that for my high school graduation." I said, "Oh, no! Do you remember what you did with it?" She did not. I asked, "Did you by any chance take it to the Nearly Nu shop in Manheim?" She said, "You know, I think I did!" Well, we just shrieked with laughter! I would never have guessed that the dress was probably eight years old. It certainly seemed to still be in style. And, frankly, I didn't care. If it was good enough for Jennifer's graduation it was good enough for me!

Prophet or Rebel?

PROPHET OR REBEL?

As a preschooler in the 1950's, an afternoon nap was a requirement for me, probably for my dear mother's sanity. By the time I was three-and-a-half, I had two baby sisters, Doris and Barb. The older I became, the harder it was to fall asleep during those naps, so I would need to come up with things to entertain myself.

One particular afternoon I was taking my nap in my brother's bedroom, probably because Doris was taking hers in the "girls'" room.) I found a Bible, which I could not read, and I don't recall that it had any pictures either. But I did discover that it was easy to tear the pages out, and it made a rather delightful sound. So I proceeded to tear the pages out, one by one, stuffing each one carefully behind my brother's bed. Eventually my conscience got the better of me, and I decided I'd better stop. I put the Bible back where it had been and never said a word about it.

Sometime later, how long I do not remember, the torn out pages were found so carefully stuffed behind that bed. I was sternly scolded and questioned as to WHY I had done such a thing. I really had no idea why I had done it, but this is what came out of my mouth: "So that when Daddy becomes a preacher he can't read those pages."

My dad was not a preacher at that time, but when I was nine years old, he was ordained as the pastor of our church. So I have often wondered, was I a little prophet or a little rebel????

The Rabbit Head

THE RABBIT HEAD

In the 1990's our family was "blessed" with an ongoing parade of teenage drivers. We discovered that VW Rabbits were just the ticket for us. They could be bought for just a few hundred bucks and Dick knew how to fix whatever ailed them. Teenage driver accidents became quite common place for us. But not to worry - there was probably another Rabbit just around the corner, and most likely it needed a part that Dick had salvaged from one of the previously wrecked Rabbits. We probably could have opened our own Rabbit parts store. A few times we even made money on them. After having made only one payment for collision insurance, one of our guys would wreck the poor thing, and lo and behold, the insurance payment would be more than we had just paid for it!

One morning in September 1996 I was hurriedly getting ready to leave for school, when I remembered I needed to run to the basement to get a frozen lunch from the freezer to take with me. I ran down the basement stairs, yanked the freezer door open, and *#%?!~^*#@*! I found myself on the floor in front of the open freezer door, realizing that something tremendously heavy had fallen onto my head. I was dazed and couldn't even think what to do. There was this huge thing on the floor in front of me. I never knew that freezer motors were inside the freezer, but that's the only thing I could imagine it was. I started to cry out for help, and began crawling toward the stairs. I heard Sam come pounding down the stairs to the kitchen above me yelling, "Mom, what's wrong??!!" He helped me to get up the stairs to the kitchen table so I could call Dick.

Poor Dick. As soon as I managed to tell him that something big had just fallen onto my head when I yanked the freezer door open, he immediately knew what a terrible thing he had just done the evening before. He had been replacing the stove pipe for our coal stove, which was a very dirty, dusty job. There had been a cylinder head from a Rabbit down there and he had decided to move it away from the dirty job he was doing. SO he put it on top of the upright freezer, never imagining that it would come falling down on someone.

He took me to the doctor's office where they determined that I was not having a concussion, but I did need several stitches. They advised me to take the day off from school, which I had no problem obeying. I had a MAJOR head ache!

A few years later I needed to obtain a few years of my medical history in order to qualify for a cheaper premium on my life insurance. My doctor's office got everything copied for me, and during a break in my schedule one day, I went to pick them up. As I got back into my car I took a quick glance at the first page. The very first entry was dated September 27, 1996. The first sentence read:

"Was trying to get something out of the freezer in the basement and a head from a rabbit which weighs about 25 pounds fell out on her head."

I howled laughing the whole way back to school. I could just picture the transcriptionist who had listened to the doctor's explanation on the little tape recorder and then had faithfully typed it onto paper. What ever must she have been thinking? A rabbit head that weighed 25 pounds??? That was one BIG rabbit!! And what in the heck was it doing in this lady's freezer anyway???

For the record: we weighed it, and it weighed 33 pounds. I obviously have a very hard head.

Henry

This week, as I learned the news of the massacre at Virginia Tech, I felt sad for the families of the victims. I too have had children in college. But for some reason I felt an unspeakable sadness for the young man who did it. At first, as I heard things about his writings and withdrawn nature, I felt sure that something horrendous must have happened to him sometime in the past. But I don't know if that is necessarily so. Mental illness can so totally play with the mind, and perhaps that was more the cause than some traumatic abuse or experience. Unfortunately, for most of us it is easy to condemn, blame, criticize, and even despise anything we do not understand or have close ties to. It seems that only when we know and love someone who is different than we are or struggles with something that we do not, do we have the compassion they so desperately need. Yes, what Sueng-Hui Cho did this week was a terrible, terrible thing, but he must have had tremendous needs.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, on Thursday of this week I knew why my heart ached so much for Sueng-Hui Cho. I remembered Henry, and the tears began to flow. I knew that my Saturday story this week would need to be titled Henry. This is not a funny story, it's not scary, it's not inspirational. It is just profoundly sad.

HENRY

In the spring of 1984 our three children ranged in age from four to ten, and our foster daughter Miki was a seventeen-year-old junior in high school. Our foster agency called to ask if we could do respite care for one weekend for an eleven-year-old boy named Henry. He had just spent several days with a potential foster family, but they wanted to have a weekend without him to make their decision before he moved in. Having a boy in the house that was just a year older than Lisa was not something we would have wanted long term, but we certainly could keep him for the weekend.

Henry came and we had a good weekend with him. All weekend he talked excitedly about the farm he would be moving to. Monday morning arrived and so did his caseworker - with bad news. The family had decided they could not take him. I will never forget sitting there watching his reaction. My heart just ached for him and my immediate reaction was that surely we could somehow give him a place in our family. However, we told the caseworker our reservations about having a boy that age in our home, which the agency understood, and we agreed to keep him while they looked for another placement for him. Our children were glad he would be staying longer.

Henry stayed five weeks. Another family was found who would take him, but their school district would not, and in the end another agency found a placement for him. Before long we heard that he had been taken to a juvenile psychiatric facility. We were told that Henry had been diagnosed with a mental illness. We were not surprised; in fact, we felt somewhat relieved.

In trying to describe the five weeks of living with Henry I will need to sound like I am describing two different people. The one Henry was extremely kind and loving, with a great tenderness for the things of God. The only music he wanted to listen to was a tape of The Witmer Trio. He listened to it in his room over and over again, he went to sleep with it on every night, and he knew every word by heart. We gave him blank tapes to entertain himself, and he would record himself praying.

The other Henry would "snap" at the slightest provocation and obsess over any little thing. When the marker he was using bled through and messed up another picture he had done, he suddenly went on a rampage that could not be stopped until he had thrown everything that belonged to him outside on the lawn in the pouring rain.

At one point he decided that he absolutely had to have a "George" card (you have to be old enough to know what that was!) from our local bank. One day he would not stop riding his bike through the drive-up window of the bank until they would give him a George card. The police needed to be called.

Another day he found Anthony's toy hunting rifle and began acting as though he were shooting everybody in all the pictures on our family photo wall. He said, "Maybe someday I'll come and do that to all of you." Meanwhile, four-year-old Jeremy looked on in fear. As I tried to persuade him to give the toy rifle to me he slapped me.

If the sweet Henry had been present more often than the unpredictable, unreasonable Henry, we probably would have decided that he should stay with us rather than experience one more rejection and one more move. But sweet Henry made increasingly rare appearances. Because his placement was in limbo, Henry was not in school those five weeks, but rather at home with Jeremy and me every day all day long. I was slowly but surely burning out from the emotional toll he took on me. Our children were becoming afraid of him and started to feel that we cared more about his special needs than we did theirs. Our family could not continue like that long term.

The call came on a Friday afternoon that another agency had found a placement for him and that they would come yet that afternoon to pick him up. I could not believe it. Yes, we could not continue life with him in our home, but no, we could not just have him snatched away that quickly with no chance for our children to say goodbye to him. We had plans that weekend that he was really looking forward to. I convinced them to let him stay until Monday.

That weekend sweet Henry returned for the entire weekend. He did not want to leave. He even said, "They're probably not even a Christian family, and who knows what kind of music they listen to and they probably watch bad things on TV all the time." My heart was in torture all weekend long. How could we be turning him out like this? But how could our family survive with him in it? The goodbyes on Monday morning were very tearful ones. After he left I laid across my bed and wept with deep sorrow for him and for us.

A few weeks later was his twelfth birthday. Through the agency we were given an invitation to his birthday party. He was being permitted to go home to his biological mother's house for his birthday, and the party would be there. We went to the party that Sunday afternoon. We and a neighbor lady were the only ones at the party. Henry was as sweet as he had ever been, telling us over and over how he missed us and how he disliked his new family. Even his mother said that he was so much happier with us and wondered why he couldn't have stayed. I was wracked with guilt by the time we left. Even our children were starting to feel like we should let him come back. Anthony said, "Henry WAS really nice sometimes."

A few months later we heard that he had been admitted to a juvenile psychiatric hospital and that before he had even been in our home, his diagnosis was such that there were questions as to whether it was safe to place him with a family. Looking back now I cannot help but wonder why he was not on any medication, but I'm sure there was much less understanding of the brain in 1984 than there is now. It took a long time for me to be able to come to terms with our apparent failure to be what Henry needed. In my annual letter that Christmas I wrote, "If even Christian families cannot meet their needs, what is to become of all the Henrys in this world?"

Life went on and we lost track of Henry. Four years later I read in the paper that Henry was was accused of murdering a nine-year-old boy. Henry had gone to the library and told the boy that he was a friend of the boy's mother and was supposed to take him home. Later, in an alley near the library, the nine-year-old's dead body was found. For some reason I felt like I had to go see Henry and sing to him the songs from that tape he had loved so much. I called a woman who worked with a prison ministry in that town to find out if there was any way I could get to visit him, but he wasn't in the local prison at that time. She said he probably would be there in a few months when they held the trial.

But a few months later I read in the newspaper that Henry had admitted he murdered the boy and that there would be no trial. He would be committed to a State prison for life without the possibility of parole. And that is the last thing I ever heard about Henry. When I googled his name this week there was nothing - like he never existed.

In a prison somewhere there is probably a man named Henry who will soon turn thirty-five. I don't feel guilty anymore. I know we were not at all equipped to meet his needs. But I do feel deep compassion for him. And I especially feel compassion for the family of Seung-Hui Cho.

Sisters

SISTERS

Growing up in a family of girls (seven!) had many advantages, but the best one of all has been the tremendous friendship we have as adult sisters. When we get together from all over the country, it's like we were never apart. The conversation flows at a high rate of speed, the tears flow at times, but mostly the laughter, belly laughter, I-can't-catch-my-breath laughter, erupts at the slightest provocation.

Over the years we have done many sister overnights and weekends, and I have usually written diaries of those events. There's a certain amount of sadness that accompanies those memories now, because Janet, who caused so many of those laughs, is now gone. I have often contemplated why Janet did cause so many of our laughs. She was such a "together", accomplished person, the one we all looked up to and wanted to be like. Did her misadventures make us laugh so hard because we were so relieved that she was actually "normal" like the rest of us? I don't know. But who cares? Below are some of those memories.

On one of our road trips I decided to read aloud the Erma Bombeck column of why it takes women longer than men to use the rest room. One of the reasons was that women "settle in" after they find a place to put their belongings, slipcover the toilet seat, etc. Of course the reading of that column brought gales of laughter, but not nearly as many as we had at our next restroom stop. It was quite a dirty restroom, and as we all "went" in our separate stalls, we were commenting about the filth to each other. As we thoroughly washed our hands afterward, Janet came out of her stall completely unaware of the trail of toilet paper that was streaming from her waist in the back. I said, "Uh, Janet, your slipcover got stuck in your pants." Surely the other women in that restroom must have questioned our sanity as we laughed until we could hardly breathe.

At another stop we decided to eat at the Burger King that was a part of that rest stop. It was VERY crowded, and we sisters stood there in a group, continuing our animated conversation, completely unaware that we were standing in the "pick up" line instead of the "order" line. After a long wait, we discovered our mistake and went to the back of the "order" line. After another long wait, we finally ordered and switched back over to the "pick up' line. No problem, we still had lots to talk about. Eventually we discovered that they were calling numbers. We asked somebody about that, and were told that our receipts had numbers on them. I looked at the receipt in my hand, and sure enough, there was a number. Janet and Mary Ellen had ordered together, and Janet said, "We didn't even get a receipt." Then she looked at my hands and said, "Oh, here it is. Jeanie has it." I said, "No it's not. This is MY receipt." Janet looked completely bewildered as to why she would not have gotten a receipt if the rest of us did. Somebody asked her, "Did you get any change back? What did you do with that?" She looked in her wallet, of all places, and there was her receipt. I think you had to be there to appreciate the humor in that situation, but appreciate it we did!

And yet another "bust" on Janet. In our sightseeing of Gloucester and Newport, where our sister Betty lived at that time, Janet needed more cash. She was "modern" enough to have a MAC card. We went to Betty's bank, which was closed, but there was a MAC machine inside the lobby. Betty told her that there was a slot in the front door into which one could insert a MAC card, and it would unlock the door. Janet got out of the car while the rest of us sat and watched. To our great amusement we watched her insert her MAC card, not into the small slot that Betty was talking about, but rather into the slit between the two big double front doors. She turned around to us questioningly, because it obviously did not work. Oh, did we howl. If only I had been quick with the camera - a brilliant, dignified woman like Janet, standing there, trying to insert her MAC card between those two doors! We decided we were lucky that she did not set off some kind of burglar alarm!!

On another road trip I, the current driver, had trouble closing my seatbelt properly. Doris helped me out, shoving it "good and proper", and it stayed shut. Stay shut it did indeed! Several hours later we decided to switch drivers. We pulled over along this very busy interstate highway north of NYC to do so. My seat belt would not open. Several of my sisters tried to help, squatting beside my opened door, right along that busy highway. We pushed and pulled and pressed and shoved, all to no avail. SOOO, it seemed I was stuck forever - until we came up with this great idea. I reclined my seat as far back as it could possibly go, then right there in full view of all the people passing by, I wiggled out of that seatbelt up over the back of the seat and out the back passenger door - definitely not the most dignified position I've ever been in. Of course, the entire drama was accompanied by gut-wrenching laughter.

That night in Rose's house in Voluntown, CT I was sleeping next to Janet on a sofabed. We sisters had stayed up talking into the wee hours of the night and were finally trying to settle down and get some necessary sleep. I was just dozing off when Janet started that shaking that comes with laughter that one tries to keep inside. Before long, she could no longer keep the laughter inside. She said, "I'm sorry, I was almost sleeping when I got a sudden flashback of you trying to get out of that seatbelt." Did you ever try to go to sleep after the other person in your bed starts laughing? You both lie still, and then one of you starts shaking, or just outright laughing, and then you're both laughing again. And then you stop and try to lie still.....

Oh, God, we would just love to laugh with Janet again. And someday we will.

The Keys That Wouldn't Work

THE KEYS THAT WOULDN'T WORK

It was December 1997, and our household consisted of Ray, Frank, and Jeremy who were still in high school, Sam and Anthony who were home from college on Christmas break, and Lisa who had already graduated from college and was living at home and working and preparing for her upcoming wedding to George.

It was my day off from school and Lisa had asked if I would take her to work because George was planning to pick her up after work, and she didn't want to leave her car there. I agreed, and when it was time to leave I went out to my Honda Prelude ahead of Lisa to get it started and warmed up. However, for some unexplainable reason, my key would NOT turn in the ignition. I made sure the steering wheel wasn't in the locked position, but that did not help. I tried and tried, all to no avail. Just then Gary Zimmerman, my stepmother's son who was installing replacement windows in our house, arrived. I told him of my dilemma. He decided that maybe the ignition needed to be sprayed with some WD-40 oil, which he did. He got in and tried that key, but it wouldn't work for him either. Meanwhile Lisa had called the COBYS Group Home, where she worked, to tell them she'd be late, and she also had decided that we would just use her car instead, except that she couldn't find her keys anywhere. I called Dick to see if he had any suggestions to try, but he didn't. He did say that if Anthony's car was there we should just use it.

That seemed to be the only solution. Anthony was still sleeping, but I knew I had a key for his VW Golf on my ring, so I got into his car and tried the key, and it wouldn't work either!! I was beginning to feel like there was some kind of curse on our keys, when I looked a little closer at the keys on my key ring. Lisa and Gary were standing outside the car when I sheepishly looked up and said, "These aren't even my keys!" I held up the key ring and Lisa exclaimed, "Those are MY keys that I was looking for!"

I felt like a complete idiot, but we just laughed and laughed and laughed all the way to COBYS. We figured out how it had happened. My keys were safely in my purse the entire time. Lisa had laid her keys on the kitchen table and I had mindlessly picked them up, thinking they were mine. There actually were many similarities: her car was a Honda CRX, so we each had a black Honda key on our rings; we also each had a little Weis Markets swipe card on our rings; she also had a big key on hers that resembled the one for Anthony's car; and of course, we each had an identical house key. So I really wasn't that much of an idiot, was I?? But knowing Gary, he probably had more than a few chuckles over it as he worked on our windows that day.