From Wit’s End

Jack likes to sit down at the computer and “bype” different letters out. Today he freaked us out a little bit by typing “TAC” and saying “cat!” Whoa.

Sunday morning when we were in church, the congregation was reciting the Apostle’s Creed. Everyone said, “Amen” at the end, and a split second later, Jack said, “Ahh-mmm”. Wow! Up until now, he only used his one word at the end of grace at dinner. This was the first time he used it in a church context.

Then, just a few minutes later, Dr. Ferguson was saying something about baptism right before two babies were to be baptized. He mentioned something about people bringing babies to Jesus so that he could bless them, and out of nowhere, Jack said, “Ahh-mmm,” again! It’s sure to be a coincidence, but it’s still pretty freaky.

Then last night when we were sitting at dinner, Jack was sitting on the floor reading his books because he had indicated that he wasn’t really hungry for dinner. All of a sudden, he stood up with a book in his hand and walked over to us. He walked up to the table and reached up to put the open book up on the table. It was his little cardboard book about Jesus, and he had it open to the page showing a cartoon of Jesus blessing the little children that were brought to him. Okay, so now I’m totally freaked out.

Well, I had the most exciting grocery shopping trip of my life this evening. I was standing in line at the checkout at about 8:00pm Monday night when I heard a huge crash coming from the wine section, quickly followed by a scream and a woman yelling “Stop him! He’s got my wallet!” There was something about the way she said it that no one in the store doubted her. He dashed all the way across behind the row of registers and headed for the entrance next to the pharmacy with quite a few people in pursuit. Another crash and the pharmacist came running out the door to intercept him, the manager came over the customer service desk, and three men tackled the thief. He was on the ground right at the doors. He yelled a lot and the men holding him down yelled back. They stayed on top of him until the police arrived.
After what happened at VT today, I couldn’t help but be afraid this guy had a gun. If he did, he never had a chance to get it out. I think I’ll be watching my purse a little more closely now.

My son Jack has erupted his first tooth, and my Mom knew something about computers that I didn’t — namely how to enable posting to this blog past the new firewall on my computer. Will wonders never cease…

Here’s the aforementioned letter from the Chairman of the Admin Committee on the session. It was meant as a reply to my first letter to the Admin Committee, but providentially, it didn’t get to me in time, so I wrote a second letter. The second letter garnered a more direct response.

It’s apparent that he put a lot of consideration into his response to my first letter, and concur in the main with what he states in his letter. From what I’ve heard about the recent history of our church, the trend has indeed been to make the officer nomination and election process more transparent and inclusive. I believe that that trend should continue with all deliberation and humble reliance on the Lord’s guidance. To that end, my friends and I will be, Lord willing, meeting with the Chairman and a few elders from this past year’s Admin committee to ask some questions to understand the officer election process and propose some ideas that may be useful for the incoming Session to further improve the process of officer election at First Presbyterian Church.

Stay tuned.

Oh my. I just heard from the Chairman of the FPC Admin Committee by e-mail. A few weeks after I sent my first letter to the FPC Admin Committee, he actually did write a response, but I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it because he sent it to an address one digit off from my address — an address that didn’t exist. Because I didn’t get his letter in time, I wrote my second letter and got a phone call from the Chairman of the Admin Committee — this was a much more effective method of communication — asking if we could meet to talk about my concerns. I’ll be getting his original letter of reply in a few days, sent to the proper address.

We’ve been crazy busy lately. Last week we had a missionary from Bolivia at our house all week. He brought us some coffee from Bolivia.

This past Friday, my folks were passing through town, and we had dinner with them and other friends from the old small group Bible study at a very nice restaurant called “Elizabeth’s”

Rachel’s folks came down to stay with us on Saturday. They came down for the Allison Kraus & Union Station concert that was Jennifer’s Christmas present for us all. We had steak at Texas Roadhouse, then zipped to the Township auditorium for lots of sad bluegrass music sprinkled with the occasional happy bluegrass love song.

On Sunday, we had 11 people sit down at the lunch table, including my folks, her folks and little brother, and Andy & Ellie and Jennifer & Tim. Rachel excelled at the preparation of lunch. There was just enough food even though we had three more people then we originally expected.

This week we have a missionary from New Guinea at our house. He brought us a great bounty of grapfruit and oranges fresh-picked from Florida, and news about the intra-denominational struggles within the PCUSA.

Friday we will be having 10 people sit down for dinner from our sunday school class at church.

This is great!! But it will be good to have a quiet spell after all this partying.

I had resolved to go to the coin show in Baltimore on Thursday while we were staying hear in nearby DC. When I googled it to look up the opening time it was a good thing I looked at the fine print, or the trip might have been for naught. The first day of the coin show was for dealers only, so instead of going on Thursday and returning to Columbia on Friday like we thought we were going to do, we delayed our return by a day, so that I could go to the show on Friday. This proved to be providential.

I left in my parents’ condo in the morning, and made it to Union Station 10-15 minutes before the train I wanted to take was to leave. I purchased a ticket to Baltimore’s Penn Station at an electronic ticket kiosk. The ticket price was more than I thought it would be, and the departure time was 10 minutes off, but I was in a hurry and grabbed the ticket from the printer.

I got on the train, and after it departed the station, the attendant came through the car to collect the tickets. When he took mine he raised his eyebrows. I asked if I was on the wrong car, and he told me that my ticket was an Amtrak ticket and I was on a MARC train. “Well, you’re here now,” he said, and continued through the car. The discrepancies of price and departure time now explained, I shrugged my shoulders, wrote off the $8 difference, and contemplated how the two transit systems resolved such passenger errors between them.

Penn Station is about two miles from the Baltimore Conference Center, but I had a map from MSN directions, and I walked the distance, taking pictures along the way…

…and arriving about 15 minutes after the show opened to the public at 10am.

I encountered that heady feeling of discovery so much that i neglected food and water until about 1:30pm, with a tight feeling in my head that wasn’t quite a headache. I had a very good, very over-priced freshly-sliced turkey sandwich and chocolate popsicle from the Conference Center concession stand, and I took the time to organize all the possible purchases i’d found, writing them in my notebook. In case you didn’t know, I am collecting all the coins minted in the year 1899, and I assure you that this fixation is entirely random.

At quarter till 6pm, I was extremely weary and ready to go home. I consulted the train schedule, and realized that the last train out of Baltimore to DC was leaving Camden Station at 6:10pm. Thankfully, Camden station was less than two blocks away, and not only did I purchase the correct kind of ticket, but I also got on the train. During the 70-80 minute train ride, I read my escapist summer vacation reading, contemplated my recent purchases, and wondered with small twinges of regret if the coins I had traded away were worth more than I sold them for. Somewhere along the line, the train slowed down and stopped, and a freight train whizzed by going in the opposite direction. The conductor came on the PA system and told us all that the commuter train had to wait for the freight train to pass before it could continue, I assume for safety reasons. I silently lamented the delay, because I really wanted to get back and rest, but even this happened for a reason.

I disembarked from the MARC line, and smiled to myself when the car attendant said “Have a good weekend”, because I had been on vacation all week and had forgotten that it was Friday. I bought a Metro pass, and got on the escalator to go down into the subway station.

For the past few months, I have consciously and unconsciously been missing the friends that I made in College quite terribly. This may be because I never got to properly say goodbye to any of them at graduation. The last I physically heard from any of them was their shouts of approval from the audience as I was handed my diploma. The year after that, I occasionally received an e-mail from one or two of them, but those naturally petered out. Since I’ve been out of school, I’ve had a recurring dream of a reunion with the old posse about once or twice a year. Since i determined around the beginning of this year to go to my 5th Homecoming at Grove City College, the dreams have been coming more and more frequently, increasing from once a month to once or twice a week. The internal conflict made worse by my inclination to think that none of them would actually be there at homecoming, and the temptation to try the old e-mail addresses, always hesitating for fear of being disappointed by bounced e-mail messages.

So when I picked a face out of the crowd waited for the Metro train…

…my first inclination was to think that the nostalgia had become so strong that I was now hallucinating. My second feeling was that old sensation familiar to military kids the world over that my mind was force-fitting the face of a complete stranger to that of one that I knew from a memory long past. But hopefully, the last name sprang from my lips unbidden, louder than intended: “Sawka!” Some young black kids on the steps in front of me laughed at me as if they thought I was crazy, but I persisted: “Andy!” The face didn’t respond, but persisted in reading his book, standing on the platform. Well, if it’s not him, he’ll indicate as much eventually, I thought, so walked toward him, repeatedly calling his first name. I walked right up to him and said, “Andy.” The face looked up from his book and broke into a smile of recognition.

We were taking the same train for a certain stretch, so we caught up with ourselves and our mutual friends. He mentioned hanging out recently with Mike, “Bobo” & Lingle. Prairie Home Companion came up (which Mike and Bobo and I would listen to on Saturday nights in school), and then they were wondering what had become of me. There had been quite a few marriages since graduation, and we are all over the eastern half of the country (Kentucky, South Carolina, D.C., Philadelphia), doing all sorts of things (Selling Insurance, TV Producer, Mechanical Engineer, Ph.D. candidates). He gave me his card, and Mike’s cell phone number (who also lives in D.C.), to further restore contact. We shook hands, I got off at my stop, tired but no longer weary.