I went to Decatur on Friday, and spent the night, to go to SC on Saturday - and not do all the driving on one day. It would be about eight hours of driving if I tried to go to Greenville and get back home without stopping to rest/sleep someplace, and I have pretty much learned that isn't possible any more. Been there, done that (as in driving to Tybee Island, Valdosta and back to Lynch Road before flopping into bed), and know it's not sensible, practic-able or something anyone with 1/2 a brain would attempt. Which implies that your average teenager would just jump in the car and take a tour without a second thought.
Anyway: I wanted to go to Greenville due to having received an invitation to my pen pal's birthday party. His actual birthday was on the 21st, but his family planned the party, to be in his home church fellowship hall, for Saturday, when more people would be able to attend. When I met the preacher, I told him that I fully expected to get the prize for 'the person who traveled the greatest distance'.
The family had set up a couple of tables with memoribilia on it: family photos, all his ribbons and pins from serving in theArmy, several photo/scrapbooks he has complied over the years with personal history. I was standing there looking at pictures, and reading some cute and sweet letters he has saved from schools where he has been invited to talk about his service in WW II. And turned around, to discover the room had completely filled up, with over one hundred people there, all milling around, greeting one another, hugging, shaking hands, passing around babies. They were eating birthday cake, drinking punch, enjoying reconnecting with one another, sharing stores and laughs.
And suddenly thought about the book I read a year or so ago about Paul Revere, Revolutionary hero. It seems that we all remember Paul Revere, silver-smith and midnight rider. He lived in Boston when the Birtish Army was sent to put down a small insurrection, but accidently caused a revolution instead. The reason we know and admire Mr. Revere two-hundred-plus years later is that he was the guy who was the contact point for all the other people in the community who were part of the surreptitious militia, men and boys, husbands and wives, who willing to take up arms to defend their homes and families from the Red-coated troops. He was the 'hub' of the many small groups, making contact with lots of other people who were the 'spokes' and put the word out in the community to let the citizenry know what was going on, and what they needed to do to protect themselves. Kinda like the place where the 'Venn' diagram in your elementary school math class intersects.
I looked up and saw Mr. Homer, standing there, smiling all over, looking so pleased and delighted to see all his friends, family, fellow church members, fellow American Legion members, neighbors - and realized that 90 % of the people there were directly connected to him. And the other 10 % who were there as spouses, were in some way connected to the people who got the invitations to the party. So he was essentially the center of his own personal 'Venn' diagram - the place where all those other people overlapped - the person they all came to see, greet, smile for, laugh with, share memories, funny stories, reminisce. Everyone of them got up off the couch, and in the car, drove to his little Dunean Baptist Church and walked in the door to say: they were happy that he was having another birthday.
Me, too!
No comments:
Post a Comment