7 Quick Takes Friday #30

As Friday nears its end, I can finally relax. After three weeks of non-stop traveling, I am home, home, home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) Immediately after returning from Jordan, two weeks ago, Donnie and I rented a wheelchair-accessible van and took off on a 14-state trek over a ten-day period, all in order to see my nephew get married in Ohio. There is more to that story, though. Doah spent his last year in high school living with that nephew and his father, my brother, Rollie. So, there was no question that we would go. Lizzie flew in from South Carolina to meet us. Noelle wanted to go, too. However, she cannot fly because she is now confined to an electric wheelchair, which means being forklifted onto a plane and wrestled into a seat by two baggage handlers. The last time she flew was ten years ago, and we have no desire to attempt it again. Hence, the van. We took the northern route to Ohio in order to stop and see a friend in Nebraska and the southern route back in order to return faster. As part of Jennifer Futwiler's 7 Quick Takes Friday meme, hosted at Conversion Diary, I have focused on seven salient aspects of this week -- people, not places, since places are less special than the people associated with them.

1. Annette. We did not know Annette before this trip. Annette was in the women's room when Noelle got stuck at our first pit stop. She helped her out, and on we went -- but not before an exchange of phone numbers so that she and Noelle can get together. It turns out that they live less than an hour apart and share the same birthday!

2. Geri. Geri was the friend we met in Nebraska. It is interesting the places that I meet Geri. I came to know her in Jordan, where I hired her to teach English literature and composition, thinking that she was a young African-American man and being surprised to meet a middle-aged white lady (albeit from the Caribbean, which had thrown off my ear in talking to her). Then, when she became a department chair at a university in Lithuania, she convinced me to teach an intensive semester course for her, as some who read my blogs from this past January (and January 2009) know. Now, we were going to meet her in Nebraska, where her family has settled. Unbelievably, we drove up to the restaurant at exactly the time we gave her: 7:30 Thursday evening. (Doah was fascinated with the conversation.)

3. Sue Munday. Sue was Doah's special education teacher at Hayes High School. She was one of the few teachers ever to be able to get Doah to read a little. Had she been with him longer, he would probably have been an even better reader. After he graduated from high school (voted "class flirt" -- the first special education student to win a popularity award), Rollie's landlord put him out of Rollie's apartment on the basis that he was not immediate family and now was of age to live on his own. But he was not mentally capable of living on his own. I was working at NASA, flying back and forth between Star City, Russia and Houston, Texas, with no way to take Doah with me, and Donnie was still in California from where we had fled in order to protect Doah (long story, perhaps another time...). Sue called me in Houston and offered to give Doah a home until the group home that we had planned for him to move into was finished being built. As luck would have it, Sue and her two classroom helpers were having a party at a local campground when we arrived, so Doah was invited to join them. Everyone was delighted to see Doah, and Doah was ecstatic to see them.

4. Rollie. Rollie is Rollie. That is the only way to describe him. I have written other posts about him. They can be found here. Of all my siblings, Rollie was the happiest by nature and the most brutally abused by our parents. My mother once stabbed him in the buttocks, and my father once pinned him to the barn floor by throwing a pitchfork through his leg. Still, Rollie managed to keep the kind of temperament that keep children everywhere following him. His grandchildren call him "Old Man" and never leave his side when they are around him. Prying Doah away from him is difficult, too. Doah is already asking to go back to see him, and we left Ohio less than a week ago.

5. Shelly, whom Lizzie calls her twin cousin because they were born within two hours of each other, lives in Columbus, the town next to Delaware, Ohio. She drove over the day after the wedding (Sunday) to attend the birthday party we held for Ronnie and Noelle. Sue came, too, and we found out that her birthday is the day after Noelle's. Amazing!

6. Jake and Jessica. They had a beautiful but unusual wedding. It was a 1920s event. Some folks dressed up as flappers, others as mafia members. Here is a picture of Jake and Jessica cutting the cake (and before they got into the spirit of smearing each other with it). Here also are pictures of the three bridesmaids and the three best men. Guests got into the spirit by dressing accordingly. The wedding was planned for outdoors but was moved inside when a thunderstorm hit Ohio and knocked out power for seven hours. Although the lights came back on right before the 6:00 p.m. wedding, the grass was anything but dry. Nonetheless, spirits were not dampened, and everyone just unfolded the outdoor chairs and made an outside-inside seating area that worked just fine.








7. Autumn and Bubba (Ayden), children of Jake and Jessica. Autumn was a beautiful flower girl. She enjoys playing with her great-aunt Beth. She cutely asks Jessica when I am involved in talking to her, "Can Aunt Beth come out and play now?" Bubba entertained everyone as a little mafia ring-bearer.

I was not back from the trip before I got a call from my boss (see The Grace of a Lost Wallet), hurried the rest of the way home, got on a redeye plane, flew to DC, got on a redeye back same day, and went in to work this morning just like it was a normal day. Oh, come to think of it, it was a normal day.

May all your normal days be a little less than abnormal! (That's what I wish for me, too!) And may scenes, like this peaceful one from Wyoming, fill your days!