One More Little Move

Sunday, November 16 – Saturday, November 22, 2008

Sunday, November 16

Birthday Greetings go out today to son-in-law Ryan McQuitty in Liberal, Kansas, and sister-in-law Billee Little in Mineola…Many Happy Returns!!!

It was great to be back at Rim Rock Cowboy Church this morning. Pastor Larry was out of town this weekend, but the youth minister, John Pollard, who more than ably filled the pulpit with a wonderful sermon based on II Peter 3:18.

We hadn’t been to the church since they finished their remodeling program, so were pleasantly surprised to see all that had been done. It has always been a pleasant place for worship services, but it is really nice now. In fact, when the service was over, I went back to the car, grabbed the camera, and came back to take some pictures. We were both very impressed with the wall decorations behind the baptismal trough (that’s right, their baptisms are in a horse trough…what else would you use in a cowboy church?). Mounted on the wall is a grouping of horseshoes, each one signifying a new baptism.
After shooting the outside and inside of the building and the rodeo arena, we got in the Vibe and drove back to Mineola, where we made a short stop at Mother’s house to check up on everyone. They had just gotten back from their church service and were going to have a quick lunch and take their afternoon naps, so we left, went back to Big V, and did the same.

Around 3:30 we went back to the house to have a little birthday celebration for Billee, who was ?? years old today. Since Barbara has a November birthday, too, TJ presented both with gorgeous flowers. She also baked a double chocolate cake for the occasion and we all sat around and talked and ate (we do a lot of that in our family).
When the party was over, we came on back to the civic center for the night. As we got out of the car, we noticed our “next door neighbors” outside. We had been on casual speaking terms with them since they got here several days ago…something along the line of, “Mornin’ (or Evenin’)…how ya doin’?”, and that sort of thing. Tonight we started the same way, but that initial exchange quickly turned into a full-blown conversation and the next thing we knew, we had invited them into Big V to show off something or other. Two hours later Gene and Carolyn, our newest friends (new full-timers from South Dakota) left to go back to their fifth wheel for the night. It was amazing how much we all found to talk about!

The rest of the night was spent working on the journal and downloading and cataloguing pictures that we had taken over the week-end.

Monday, November 17

Happy Birthday today to granddaughter Randi in San Antonio and niece Brandi in Cleburne!!!

We were still worn out from all the week-end activities, so the morning was a bit slow for us. I finally got around to going to the post office to mail out the last of the Toccoa DVD’s and, while I was at it, I drove by Sonic to pick up a couple of breakfast burritos so we could have breakfast before it was time for lunch.

Around noon I drove over to Mother’s house to see what was happening there and found that Mother and T.J. had gone to Quitman for the morning. Ernie and Billee were there, but they were heading out to Quitman. We visited for a few minutes until Mother and T.J. got back and then Ernie and Billee left. I put a load of clothes in the washing machine and told Mother we’d be back later.

After an hour or so, Ernie called and said to come on over to visit, so we did. When we got there, we found that they had bought a birthday cake for Barbara, since they wouldn’t be seeing us on the 28th. Ernie and I went out to do some work on one of the Vibe’s doors. About the time we came back in, T.J. came over, so we got the group all together and shared the birthday cake and had a “little” surprise party. As you can tell by the pictures, the cake decorations included a little tiara and wand, and Barbara couldn’t help posing as the fairy princess. She figured that when her reign was over, Abby could take over.
When we had finished a couple of loads of clothes and T.J. had left, we said our goodbyes for the afternoon. Barbara went to T.J.’s house to help her with a computer problem and I went back to Big V to take a short nap.

Barbara came back around 4:30, just as I was gearing up to take a motorcycle ride. It was an absolutely gorgeous day for riding, and the Voyager was calling my name. I rode for about an hour and a half, giving it up when it was dark and I couldn’t see where I was going…made a quick stop at the house to check in with Mother, Ernie, and Billee, and then came back to Big V where we whiled away the evening.

Whiling away the evening was easier since Barbara had spent my riding time doing some cleaning and straightening so we would be ready to take Big V to the RV doctor early tomorrow morning. We called Randi to offer our birthday greetings. She was glad to hear from us, but we don’t think she was overly impressed with our unique vocal rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

Tuesday, November 18

When we got back t Mineola last week we made an appointment to get Big V to Southern RV, between Lindale and Tyler, today for general servicing and to let them try to figure out why the electric part of our water heater hadn’t been working. We noticed the problem when we were in Georgia, but there was nothing we could do about it there.

We got up early this morning, moved vehicles around, disconnected the utilities and closed in the slides, and then I drove Big V to the shop while Barbara ran some errands before driving the Vibe down to catch up with me.

I got to Southern RV just a few minutes before 8:00 and, as promised, they took us in right away. They immediately got someone to start tracing the wiring to find out the problem with the water heater. It took nearly four hours to get everything done, but just before noon we drove away with the rig all up to date and ready to roll. The servicing procedure didn’t uncover any problems, and the electrician solved the water heater problem when he found a wire that had jolted loose from a connection…just one of the hazards of driving our house over bumpy roads.

We came on back to Mineola and got Big V back on the slab and hooked up to the utilities, but didn’t put any of the decorations out. After all, we were planning to leave to go back to Artesia tomorrow morning and figured that we could just work around things for a few hours.

Barbara cooked up a big batch of her Mexican casserole and, after eating and watching another episode of M*A*S*H, we started taking care of some general chores. I loaded up some tings we would be leaving in Mineola and took them over to Mother’s house for storage until we get back down here, while Barbara got caught up on her email and a Christmas project she is working on.

Just after I got back from Mother’s place, our next door neighbors, Gene and Carolyn, came over to visit. We’ve really enjoyed talking to them and sharing our experiences. They are just doing some traveling now, but would like to settle down in Mineola if things work out right. We told them we would be leaving tomorrow morning and they said that they would be too…they were having an electrical problem with their fifth wheel and had gotten an appointment with one of the authorized service shops farther down the road toward Waco.

Around 4:00 Barbara and I went back to visit Mother and leave her some of the casserole, put the cycle in storage at her place (not what I wanted to do, but it didn’t make much sense to take it back to Artesia for the winter, so I agreed to leave it behind), and drop off a few other things that we don’t think we’ll need for the next couple of months; then, we returned to Big V to get ready to head west tomorrow morning.

While we were working at our computers Barbara suggested that I give Gene and Carolyn one of the cards that she made up while we were at Toccoa. That would have been a good thing, but I had just thrown the last of them away…they were on flimsy paper instead of cardstock, and had gotten wadded up in my pockets. So, I did the next best thing…I typed out a short note telling them how much we had enjoyed visiting with them and included our email addresses and phone numbers for future reference.

Barbara was working on the Christmas project, so I took the information next door to Gene and Carolyn. They invited me in and gave me the grand tour of their “home on wheels,” and then we sat down and talked about a kazallion different things… it turns out that Gene and I have a lot of common interests, not the least of which is music.

Realizing that I had let the time get away from me, I said goodbye to our friends and returned to Big V where Barbara immediately asked whether I had taken pictures while I was next door. The answer, of course, was “of course not.” I said that we both ought to go back so she could see their home and we could get some photos.

So, back we went and soon we were all talking and sharing stories. Barbara noticed a large case sitting on the floor and Gene said it was his accordion. Barbara asked him if he would mind playing it, and the next thing we knew, we were getting our own private recital. Gene is really very good on the accordion and we enjoyed his music very much. We even discussed the possibility of putting together some accordion and trumpet duets the next time we get together…not a common combination, but also not totally out of the question.

Before we left, Carolyn found a CD that Gene had recorded and loaned it to us to import to our computers. After taking a few pictures, it really was time to get back to Big V for the night, so we said our goodbyes again and went back home, where we set to work importing our newest music collection before heading to bed.

Wednesday, November 19

We had hoped to get away from Mineola by 8:30 this morning, but didn’t quite make it. After we got Big V all closed up we drove over to Mother’s house to say goodbye. Barbara then dropped me off at the civic center so I could move Big V to another lot and hook up the trailer while she went to the post office and to find us some breakfast.

The trailer hookup went more smoothly than usual, so while I was waiting for Barbara to return I went back to Gene and Carolyn’s fifth wheel to return their CD and let them know we were leaving. About the time I got there, Barbara returned, so we went back to the other lot, loaded the Vibe on the trailer, and pulled away from the civic center just a few minutes after 9:00.

The next five hours were drive, drive, and more drive…not the way we like to travel, but this was basically a travel day and we wanted to get to Abilene as quickly as possible. The traffic around the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex cooperated for once and we made it through that mess hardly even slowing down.

Our reason for getting to Abilene today was twofold – it is approximately halfway between Mineola and Artesia and provides a good place for refueling and gauging our progress. Also, we had made arrangements to meet with a friend of Barbara’s from years ago, Dandy Heasley; she had come to Artesia to visit Barbara in the spring of 1962, but I hadn’t seen her since.

Barbara: The summer before my junior year at Hobbs High School, Daddy finished his education at SMU and was given an assistant pastor position in Tucumcari, NM. Since I was going to be Worthy Adviser in Rainbows, Mom and Dad decided that she, Nancy, and I would remain in Hobbs. (Carol was a freshman at McMurry in Abilene)

Every time Daddy would come home to Hobbs or we’d talk on the phone, he would talk to me about this real sweetheart of a girl, Dandy, who was my age. I hated her sight unseen since she was getting attention from MY daddy!!!!

However, once we all went to Tucumcari to visit Dad and I met Dandy, I found a real soul mate and could shed and recognize my “hatred” for what it was…jealousy!

Now that I’m older, I realize Daddy was trying to show me that moving to Tucumcari wouldn’t be the end of my world. (Which I thought it was going to be!) And…I did learn that lesson and began to look forward to summer so we could all be a family again and I could hang out with Dandy.

Once we were all in Tucumcari, every night and as much of the day as possible, Dandy and I were together…remember my dating story of Darrell Bone from San Jon and Barbara Perry from Tucumcari?...well, Dandy had a date with a friend of Darrell’s but since their names didn’t rhyme, we have no clue who he was.

Anyway, much to my chagrin, after balking at moving to Tucumcari, I never even got to attend one day of school with Dandy since Daddy was assigned the church in Artesia and we moved there.

Dandy and I had to be content to write each other long epistles, have an occasional phone call (no cell phones back in them there days!) and once she got to come to Artesia to visit me.

Somehow over the years Dandy and I would find each other, but after Henry’s death, we lost touch with each other and neither knew how to find the other. Then one night not too long ago, Jim got email from his friend Lynn and he noticed that it had Dandy’s email address on it! (Is it a small world or what????)

Anyway, I quickly wrote Dandy and the doors opened for our glorious reunion and the meeting of Glenn, her husband!

The time went far too quickly for us to cover a whole lot of territory during our short Flying J visit, but I remain hopeful that it’s just the first of many we’ll have in the days to come.
Jim: When we had finished our visit with Dandy and Glenn (and taken some pictures, of course), we headed back out to Big V for the next leg of the journey. Our plan was to drive about 60 or so miles to a rest area that we knew of and spend the night there. If the rest area was closed, we could drive on to Big Spring and camp out in the Wal-Mart lot, or turn north on U.S. 87 and go to a county rest area at Lamesa.

As luck would have it, we got to the I-20 rest area around 5:00 p.m. and found a good spot to park Big V for the night. There wasn’t anyone else there at the time, but we both knew that would change (maybe several times) over the next 10-12 hours.

Around 5:30 we grabbed our cameras and headed outside to take pictures of sunset. That may sound like a strange thing, but we hadn’t seen a true sunset since the night of June 30 when we left Artesia to take Mother to Mineola and begin our 4 ½ month odyssey. We saw the sun disappear over mountains and clumps of trees, craning our necks to get that last view, but had gone all this time without seeing the sun set on the far flat horizon. We were just in time this evening to watch a beautiful show as the sun dropped gradually, painting the horizon in incomparable hues of reds and oranges until the dark curtain of night closed off all light except for the stars, which shine brilliantly in this part of the world.

Barbara: Okay, I admit it…this gorgeous sunset photo is Jim’s! Mine paled in comparison to his…however; we each enjoyed capturing the wide open spaces of West Texas! Jim even took a photo of Big V’s cousin, the 18-wheeler parked next to us!

With night upon us, we returned to our “turtle home,” ate a meal while watching a couple of episodes of M*A*S*H, and then turned in to get some much needed sleep.

Thursday, November 20

We both woke up at 3:30 this morning with the sounds of diesel engines rumbling all around us. Sure enough, 18-wheelers had filled every available space in the rest area, and most of them just left their engines running. It wasn’t a loud or overpowering sound, but definitely something one doesn’t normally hear when at an RV Park.

Since we were both wide awake, we got up and checked our computers for email and/or online subscriptions, but it was way too early (and dark) for us to get out on the highway, so we went back and slept until 5:30, when we got up and started getting ready to travel.

The morning light was starting to glow on the eastern horizon as we pulled away from the rest area for a few more hours of travel. We stopped in Hobbs, New Mexico, for a tank of gas. Barbara called Susie to see if she wanted to meet us at McDonald’s for breakfast, but since she had a meeting at 9:00 and wouldn’t be able to do that, we decided we’d just head on to Artesia and eat after we got there.

The farther we went, the cloudier, windier, and colder it got. The clouds were so heavy that we couldn’t see Artesia when we topped 12-Mile Hill, a point from which we can normally see for nearly a hundred miles. The 38-degree temperature and high winds were certainly a change from the hot and sunny day that we had when we left on June 30!

We drove straight to Jean’s place west of town, got the car off the trailer, parked the trailer and unhooked it, and then I guided as Barbara drove Big V around the barn and into its parking place on our concrete pad at 4903 Eastwind Road. Once Big V’s tires were resting on rubber mats on the pad, we both went to work at our assigned tasks to get her ready for living again. I took care of all the outside hookups (electric, water, and the large propane tank), while Barbara put out the slides, leveled the rig, and started decorating. We had everything set up and in place in well under an hour…maybe a new record for us.

After a trip to town to go to the bank and Wal-Mart, we returned home, put away groceries, and spent the rest of the afternoon just piddling around the place. Jean called to see if we made it in ok and asked us if we wanted to go to Kwan Den for dinner with her tonight. Naturally, we jumped at the opportunity since we wanted to visit Jean and Kwan Den is one of our favorite Chinese places in the whole country.

Later, we heard a loud knock on the door…it was Nancy, just stopping by on her way home from work to welcome us home. She didn’t have much time to visit, since she and Jerry were attending the “invitation only” opening of the new arts council theater tonight. The old Ocotillo Theater, where I paid fifteen cents to watch Saturday matinee double features when I was much, much younger, has been completely remodeled and will serve as a venue for productions by the local theater group and community concert touring ensembles. Becky didn’t have a part in this production, but was in charge of props such as making the phone ring, etc.

We went over to visit Jean when she got home and then went out for a wonderful Chinese buffet, where we continued catching up with each other while we stuffed our faces with delicious food. When we were finished, we went back to Jean’s house to visit some more, but the long day had worn us down and we had to call it quits and go back to Big V, where we shut everything down and went to bed, falling asleep almost immediately.

Friday, November 21

Barbara: Friday started out with a lengthy phone conversation with Social Security. Unsurprisingly, we couldn’t understand a word of what the internet interpretation of a law was concerning SS; so I had scheduled a phone appointment. It was quite informative and the lady I talked with was very helpful…I definitely recommend this way of communicating with SS! Sure beats waiting in an office!

Since the phone call required faxing some information to Betty, my SS rep, we decided to hit the road and take some Artesia photos before going by the funeral home to use the fax machine. Jim’s decided we’re not using those photos this week so…moving on.

After finishing business around town, we came back out to Jean’s to share lunch with her before heading out for Roswell. We certainly were in no mood to travel again, but we needed to return the faulty motorcycle battery they put in the Voyager back in June. We feared that it would be a hassle, but Jim met with the manager and in no time, we had received a credit for the battery.

Since we were in Roswell, we went over to my sister Carol’s house to visit. We were greeted with a big hug from both Carol and Cal who is still having much difficulty breathing and is on oxygen all the time now, but we were pleased with how much better he looked today than the last time we saw him. These are definitely hard times for them with Cal not being able to get around much.

While Cal and Jim visited, Carol and I crammed as much talking into the moments as we could! In fact, we didn’t have nearly enough time so I called and visited with her when we finally headed back to Artesia.

Before leaving Roswell, though, we went by Jim’s brother’s house, but found that Jerry and Jane were not home. We had no choice but to write a short note and head back to Big V since dark was approaching. And, as you all know by now, we turn into pumpkins and can’t/don’t like to drive at that time!

Saturday, November 22

Barbara: Go, Texas Tech Raiders! ...wrote this before the game! :(

Since I spent the first 60 years of my live going to football games… first with Henry, and then the boys, to watch him referee, later to observe the boys play, and then to support Jim as he directed the band at games (at least I stayed until after half-time)…football is no longer a huge priority with me.

However, tonight is especially sentimental for me. Henry loved Texas Tech and enjoyed refereeing their scrimmages…he always dreamed that one day they would have a team that commanded respect. Here it is November 22nd, what would be his 67th birthday, and they are rated number 2 the BCS and are playing Oklahoma in a monumental game. What a gift it would be if they could just win!! (Well…that didn’t turn out so well, now did it?)

Jim: It was a football day around here. Artesia played Kirtland Central in a quarter-final round of the New Mexico playoffs. It was a gorgeous, sunny afternoon at Bulldog Bowl, where our Bulldogs destroyed the visiting Broncos by a score of 57-14. I went to the game with Jerry and Nancy while Barbara stayed at the place to cook and visit with Jean.

We spent most of the day cooking a Puerto Rican dinner for Jean, Jerry, and Nancy…chicken, rice, and black beans; and Barbara baked a butter pecan cake as well as hamburger meat to put in the freezer for future use. Around 5:30 we took everything over to Jerry and Nancy’s house so we could watch the Tech game while we ate. The food turned out much better than the game, but at least we had a good time visiting and sharing stories of the last 4 ½ months.

“The great secret to a successful life is to treat all disasters as incidents, and none of the incidents as disasters.” – Harold Nicolson (paraphrase)

From our “Little” house on the prairie,

Jim & Barbara

A Little Rest

Monday, November 10 – Saturday, November 15, 2008

Monday, November 10

Happy Birthday to James Francis in Hobbs, NM!!!

When we did get up and moving around this morning, Barbara went right to work on a new DVD production of the final week of our volunteer activities at Toccoa. After seeing the DVD from the first week, several folks asked us to come up with a second one, since about half the team was new. We weren’t able to even start on the slide show until we got away from Toccoa, so we decided that it was going to be a priority project for this week.

Around mid-morning, while I was still dragging around the place, Barbara decided to go to the post office to collect the 7 week’s worth of mail that had collected while we were gone. It was amazing – we ended up with a huge pile of paper, but easily 90 per cent of it was trash that we didn’t even open…just put it directly into file 13, and there wasn’t a single thing that we needed to deal with.

After sorting everything out, we got back to business…Barbara working on the slide show, and me catching up on email and trying to clean up my computer files…really exciting stuff.

We did take a couple of breaks during the day to go over to Mother’s house to visit everyone for a while. I decided that I wanted to upload some of my band CD’s to the computer, so while I was at Mother’s, I dug out a bunch of recordings that were stored there and took them back to Big V to put them in an ITunes folder.

The odd jobs kept us busy all day and before we knew it, it was time to join the family over at T.J.’s house for dinner. She wanted to have a “welcome back” meal for us and knew that we would enjoy her chicken enchiladas and beans (and she was so very right). Also, it gave us a chance to play the DVD’s that we had made of all the wedding activities and during our first week at Toccoa. Barbara had redone Mike and Kelly’s wedding DVD so that it would move slower for Mother and give her a chance to really take in the photos. Afterwards, according to TJ and Mother, they felt like they had been at the wedding after all!

Tuesday, November 11

Happy Veterans Day…Thanks to all who served and sacrificed!!!

We went over to Mother’s house about 9:30 this morning. She has a large collection of CD’s and Barbara wanted to look through them to find appropriate background music for the Toccoa slide show. While she started doing that, T.J., Mother, and I got in T.J.’s car and I drove to Tyler so Mother could keep her medical appointment there,

A few weeks ago, Dr. Bankhead, Mother’s primary physician in Mineola, had her get some MRI scans to try to find out what was causing her back pain. An initial reading of the scans showed that a vertebra was slightly out of alignment and was pressing rubbing on a nerve in her spinal column; so, Dr. Bankhead set up an appointment with a neurosurgeon in Tyler to discuss some options for dealing with the problem.

The surgeon did a wonderful job of checking Mother over and then showing and explaining the MRI results and answering every question we had. What the scans showed was that Mother has both vertical and lateral curvature of the spine, more pronounced in the vertical curvature, and an area around the vertebra that had been worked on last December that has become slightly displaced and has developed a bit of a spur.

He explained that any corrective surgery would be very extensive, much more so than the “balloon surgery” that she had last year, and with corresponding extensive risks. He said that because of her advanced osteoporosis, it would be like working with a house of cards, and that one small slip could cause a collapse of the spinal column. Her choices were to have the surgery, where the risks far outweighed the possible benefits, or he could refer her to a pain management specialist who would help her deal with the symptoms rather than the problem.

After reviewing everything the doctor told us and showed us, Mother opted for the pain management program. She will soon get an appointment with a specialist and will go from there.

With all that accomplished, we left Tyler in the cold and rain and began the return drive to Mineola, stopping at Long John Silver’s in Lindale for a late lunch (it was after 1:00 when we left the doctor’s office).

I drove back to the civic center and got out, leaving T.J. to drive Mother back to her house while I went inside to give a full report of the morning’s activities and information to Barbara, who had been working on the slide show all day.

It rained off and on all afternoon, so I thought that I’d go outside and try to wash off some of the really bad places on the front of Big V. We had collected a large number of species of bugs during our seven-state journey, and needed to make room for more that we are sure to gather when we return to Artesia. Since the weatherman was predicting heavy rains to night, I figured that I could wash down the rig and get a nice rainwater rinse in the bargain.

The rains didn’t materialize as promised, but I did get the front and the driver side of Big V washed down before it got too dark to continue. Who knows, maybe I’ll have a chance to finish the job before we leave Mineola.

Wednesday, November 12

We’re not having a really exciting week, which is not a bad thing. Today was more of the same around Big V…Barbara was working on the slide show and I was uploading and cataloging recordings…jobs which were relatively simple (mine much more simple that Barbara’s) but time-consuming.

I took some time this morning to go to the post office and send off a batch of DVD’s from the first week at Toccoa. We had received requests for them from some of the folks who had not spent the final week with us and didn’t have a chance to pick them up.

Contrary to the weatherman’s predictions, the heavy rains did not appear, but we did have foggy and misty skies until around noon when the sun broke through and began heating things up again.

Of course, each day’s activities includes, at least one if not more visit’s to mother’s house, but it gets repetitious saying that…

Thursday, November 13

This week’s entries sound like a broken record. Today was more of the same as we worked to finish our respective projects. Barbara burned the slide show to a disc, a process that takes nearly two hours because of all the pictures and music that are involved. Then, we carefully reviewed the finished disc to see if there were any duplicated pictures (there were), missing or faulty transitions (there were), and places where the music didn’t match up with pictures or transitions (see previous parenthetical remarks).

After making notes about what we had seen (or didn’t see), it was back to the story board for Barbara to make the corrections.

Meanwhile, I stayed busy reviewing CD’s for uploading to the computer files and making revisions in the way I wanted to catalog them (why do anything right the first time and eliminate the golden opportunity to do it over again, and again, and…).

We did break out of our cocoon long enough this afternoon to go to Wal-Mart and buy some groceries. We had planned a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for the family at Mother’s house on Saturday, and the time finally came to set the plans in motion.

Friday, November 14

Hooray!!! The slide show was finally ready to commit to disc…again, it was a two-hour job to load the burner and prepare the first disc, but after that one, it was a faster process…as soon a disc popped out, we just put in another one and pushed the button to get it started. Since we had 14 discs to burn and prepare for mailing, it took a big chunk of the day. We did manage to get about half the discs in the mail today…the rest will make it to the post office tomorrow and the job will be finished.

This afternoon we began work on our Thanksgiving feast. Barbara baked a cake using the Butter Pecan recipe that she got from Nell and Bob when we visited them in Georgia while we were on the way to Virginia, and I baked the first of two loaves of bread. We voted that except for the turkey, we could fix everything for the meal here in Big V and then transfer it to Mother’s kitchen tomorrow.

We finally have pretty good internet service, but with Artesia drawing a bye for the first week of the football playoffs, there wasn’t a game to watch or listen to, so we called it a night fairly early.

Saturday, November 15

Wouldn’t you know it…we had a morning where we could afford to sleep in a little and both of us were wide awake by 4:30…go figure!

We spent our first two and a half hours checking email, reading online journals, and making sure we had everything ready to take over to Mother’s house (including starting a loaf of jalapeno bread.

About 7:30 we gathered everything up and made the drive down the street. Ernie was up and moving around; he suggested that we let McDonald’s fix our breakfast today since we had so much to do to get ready for lunch. So, we left Barbara to begin working on the turkey while we made the run across town for breakfast.

Back at the house we opened the sack to find that they had gotten the order wrong…we had extras of some things, but they didn’t include Barbara’s order. Ernie, Billee, Mother, and I went ahead and ate (it wasn’t that big a breakfast) and then Barbara and I went back to McDonald’s to get her something to eat before we went back to Big V.

Around 10:30 we voted that it was time to move into high gear with our food preparations. We were cooking for 13 (Heather, Andy, Alexander, and Abby were coming over from Richardson, and Ladd, Angela, and Madelyn would also be joining us).

We had told everyone that we would eat around 1:00, so we had plenty of time to get everything ready, especially since the turkey had been slow-roasting since just after 7:30. All we had left to do was mash the potatoes, put the dressing in the oven with the turkey, fix the green beans, and make the gravies (the latter two were my jobs). While we were working at those cores, Billee came in and set the tables for us…the large table for the “grown-ups” and a card table next to it for Alexander, Abby, Grams, and Gramps).

Everything was moving along on schedule (maybe even a little ahead) when Angela, Ladd, and Madelyn arrived. While they sat in the living room and visited with Mother and T.J., we hustled and bustled around the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the meal.

At 12:15 I called Heather and Andy to see how far away they were so I would know when to start the gravy. Heather said that they were just two blocks from their house; they had trouble getting away and would be at least 45 minutes late getting to Mineola.

With that in mind, we decided to go ahead and get everything ready and then serve two meals, one with everyone who was here, and a second one when the kids got here. So, while Barbara followed the progress of the everything that was already cooking, I started to work on the gravies…one pot of giblet gravy and one of regular cream gravy. Again, all went well until I had an unfortunate misstep.

Mother’s electric range is set in the middle of a long kitchen counter. I was working on both sides of the oven, fixing the green beans on one side, and the gravy on the other. With the green bean boiling merrily away, I was focused on getting the gravy to just the right consistency. I had just finished adding juice from the turkey pan to the giblet gravy when, without my knowing it, Barbara opened the oven door to get the dressing out. Without looking, I took a step backward, bumped against the door, spun out of control, and fell across the door and into the corner where the cabinets met. As if hat wasn’t bad enough, as I was falling, my left hand hit the pot of simmering green beans, knocking the pan off and pouring all the liquid down my left arm before the pot hit the floor with a resounding CLANG, alerting everyone in the house (and maybe the neighborhood) that we had a problem.

At first I was upset for having fallen and spilled the beans (quite literally), since that recipe was my major contribution to the dinner. Then, I looked at my arm and saw that I had done some pretty serious damage to it. So, while Barbara, Billee, and Ernie started cleaning up the mess around the oven and on the floor (it’s amazing how those beans multiplied while they were in flight), I made my way to the kitchen sink and started running cold water on my arm. T.J. found some Aloe lotion in the bathroom cabinet and we smeared it all over my arm when I finally had it rinsed off good.

To make a short story long (this all happened in a matter of just a couple of minutes), the others got the floor cleaned up enough that everyone could come in and fill their plates from the buffet line and I headed to the bathroom/laundry room to take off my apron and the new shirt I was wearing for the first time today.

Luckily, I didn’t suffer very serious burns from the liquid…my arm stayed red for a couple of hours and is still spotted around the wrist (probably because that’s the part that hit the pan), but I came out of the ordeal much better that the oven door, which didn’t come off of it’s hinges, but did severely bend them. It looks as if we’ll need a house call from the oven door doctor, since we general practitioners were unable to fix it and Mother wouldn’t let us shoot it to put it out of its misery.

Other than that, the dinner went quite well and we enjoyed our favorite family pastime of feeding our faces and talking, a multi-tasking skill at which we are masters.
Ladd, Angela, and Madelyn had to leave for some other obligations, so they once again missed out on meeting Heather, Andy, and the kids…maybe next time.
When the kids did arrive, we told them our story and then set the table so they could eat (and I could take my second helpings). Heather explained that the reason they were late was because they had their own excitement this morning. They had decided to do their grocery shopping this morning so they wouldn’t have to deal with it on Sunday, something that we, as former teachers, understood very well. While they were putting away their groceries at the house, one of them dropped a jar of molasses on the kitchen floor and it shattered. She said the molasses just globbed up in one place, but little slivers of glass went flying everywhere, so they had to take quite a bit of time to find them and get everything cleaned up, thus, their late departure from Richardson and later-than-planned arrival in Mineola. Everything worked out though, and when they had finished eating, we retired to the living room to visit and get caught up with each other.

It was a beautiful afternoon outside, so it wasn’t long before Alexander and Abby wanted to go out and play. While Alexander and I played catch with each other, Barbara and Abby did some exploring around the yard. We stayed outside until it go too cool to be much fun (I must be in better shape than I thought, because Alexander didn’t wear me down like he did on the last visit), and then we went back inside.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was a classic family Thanksgiving…conversations that branched off in every direction, little kids playing, singing, and dancing, and, of course, lots of picture-taking. Alexander and Abby love to visit Granny’s house (although Abby still isn’t too sure about Spike and Bonita) and like to play a while in the living room and then go “exploring.”

To write about all the conversations and activities, even if we remembered all the details, would take more time and space than we have here. Suffice it to say that for three hours the house resounded with the happy sounds of a family get-together, little children playing, talking, singing, and laughing, and bigger kids (ages 35 and up) doing much the same (oh, and did we mention the picture-taking?).
But, all good things must come to an end and around 5:30 the kids loaded up the car and headed back to Richardson. It wasn’t long until we all decided to clean up the mess, straighten the house a little, and call it a day. Barbara and I had been up since 4:30 this morning and all the excitement had worn us out. So, we said our goodbyes to Mother, Ernie, and Billee and drove back to Big V, our stomachs full from great meals, and our hearts full from a wonderful visit with family members, proving once again that Thanksgiving, like Christmas, is far more than just a day on the calendar…it’s a happening that can take place any day of the year that family and friends can get together for the pure enjoyment of being together.

“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.” – Edward Sandford Martin

From Mineola with love,

Jim & Barbara

A Little Mission Accomplished

Sunday, November 2 – Sunday, November 9, 2008

Sunday, November 2

The Ebenezer Baptist Church was having work done on their building this week, so they combined their two services into one large celebration service at the Georgia Baptist Conference Center auditorium this morning, enabling the volunteers to attend church almost without leaving home. Many of us met at the auditorium at 10:30 for a worship and praise service that also honored Pastor Andy Childs and his family on the fifth anniversary of their call to the church.

There was a large banquet at the dining hall following the service, but Barbara and I elected to go back up the hill to Big V for a simple, quiet meal. Most of our meals here have been with large groups, and we were enjoying having a nice quiet weekend and hanging out with a few of our friends.

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon Bob and Nell came by and invited us to ride up to Toccoa Falls with them. They have been wonderful about showing us some of the most beautiful places in northern Georgia, and this would be someplace that wouldn’t require a lot of travel.
Nestled in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, 95 miles north of Atlanta, Georgia, and 65 miles south of Greenville, South Carolina, is Toccoa Falls. It is located on the campus of Toccoa Falls College, a four-year, fully accredited Christian college.
A meandering stream flows through the lower part of the 1,000-acre, wooded campus from the base of the 186 foot high waterfall. This spectacular waterfall, higher than Niagara Falls, is a popular tourist attraction and campus retreat. The short 100-yard path to the falls is handicap accessible.

Toccoa Falls is the site of an earthen dam that broke on November 6, 1977. Thirty-nine people lost their lives during that tragic event and an additional sixty six were injured; all of the casualties were people associated in one way or another with the college.

A worldwide outpouring of money and volunteer support led to a massive effort to rebuild and repair the facilities on the campus.

After taking a tour of the falls (and more than a few photographs), we made the obligatory trip to Wal-Mart for a little Sunday afternoon shop-looking before returning to the campgrounds.

When we got to Big V, several of us decided to go back to town to have our evening meal at Captain D’s Seafood Restaurant. John and Lynn, Bob and Nell, and Barbara and I, along with newcomers John and Margaret met up for a delightful evening of good seafood and great conversation.

Later, we had another campfire up behind Big V with the eight of us continuing our talking (along with drinking coffee and eating slices of pie), singing, and getting better acquainted with John and Margaret, who will be with us for the final week at GBCC.
Monday, November 3

With the seniors’ fall conferences completed, things started to slow down a bit this morning. We had a new group come in for several days, an annual conference for the Georgia Substance-Abuse Counselors. But, there were only a little over a hundred of them, so our general dining hall duties were greatly diminished. Several of the ladies were kept busy setting up for breaks by the group, and the laundry crew had the same old, same old, but most of the men were able to get on to some other tasks.

Bob, John M., and I were assigned to assist in the dishwashing room immediately following the morning and noon meals, but with the smaller crowd, it didn’t take long to knock out the dishes and pots and pans that were used…then, it was on to other things.

Our main job for the week was to do some painting around the place. There are two steel-framed covered walkways leading from the King Hotel lobby to the chapel. I don’t know how long it had been since they were last painted, but they were both showing signs of aging, with badly rusted places and faded, peeling paint.

While a couple of the guys started spray painting the tile ceilings of the walkways, the rest of us grabbed steel brushes, scrapers, and sandpaper and went to work chipping away the old paint and brushing out as much of the rust as we could. This task wasn’t made any easier by the fact that we had to stand on ladders and do contortionist acts to get to many of the bad spots.

I’ve never been a painting fanatic, and the experience today just reinforced my belief that preparation and painting are a special calling. But, by the end of the day, we had the steel scraped, brushed, and primed, and the ceilings had two coats of white paint sprayed on them. We all had looked at the unfinished galvanized trim that was mounted on the inside facing of the walkway roofs and decided that it should also be painted the same beige color as the steel. After scraping steel, my job was to get a vinegar solution and rub down the galvanized trim in order to remove the invisible corrosion and leave a clean base so the paint would adhere.

On the face of it (so to speak), it was a fairly simple job…climb up on the ladder, spray on the solution, and wipe it down as far as I could reach. Then, climb down, move the ladder, and start over again on a new section. Everything went well until I got to an area that was bordered by some very mature holly bushes. Now, I don’t know who wrote all those Christmas songs about the beautiful holly, but I will guarantee you that whoever did never came down off a ladder and backed full-force into a holly bush! I’ve had bad experiences with cactus in the past, but those couldn’t begin to compare with working around these beautiful, but body-lacerating plants.

But, I finally got the job done and someone came behind me to roll on the base layer of paint, and soon we were done for the afternoon…not a bad days’ work, and one made all the more enjoyable by the camaraderie of a great bunch of guys with whom I was working.Barbara: My assignment this week was to help the new dessert chef Heidi in any way she needed me. This was a real treat…pun intended…since Heidi allowed me to really help and was very patient with my endeavors. Not only did I learn several new dessert recipes, but I also learned how to cut a pineapple properly, use the industrial mixer, and arrange desserts in an eye-pleasing manner (which has never been all that important to me…my philosophy was always…here it is…now eat it!)

Since I was in the kitchen, I also was able to help out sorting silverware, putting clean dishes and pans up, set up the dessert tables for the meals, and just about anything else that came along!

Jim: Tonight…dinner in the dining hall (we didn’t even have to wash dishes after this one) devotional time with the volunteers, and then a quiet night in Big V.
Tuesday, November 4: Election Day

Today was pretty much business as usual. The volunteers met at 7:20 for our morning devotional and then walked over to the dining hall for another great breakfast.

Bob, John M., and I stuck around after breakfast to help with the dishwashing and then headed back outside to join the paint crew. It was a gorgeous morning…perfect for a lot of things, but since our job was to paint, that’s what we did.

Barbara: My day, like Jim’s set out as a pretty much normal one. Heidi had things so organized that I was able to slip out once again to track down the other volunteers and capture their activities on digital (can’t say film anymore!)

However, one event that morning really sent my mind in overload. Let me explain.

As Heidi and I were working on one of the desserts, she took a huge pan of whipped topping out of the fridge. About the same time, Eric, the head chef came by and gave the topping a couple of huge turns using a large spatula. Since I was busily placing cookie bars on a platter, I paid little attention to him until he said, “Barbara, I’m wondering if this stuff is still good.” I looked up and found the spatula very close to my nose and before I could do anything, I had a nice size glob on my nose! I swore revenge right then and there! However, the best my feeble mind could come up with on such short notice is shown in the photo on the right…puny revenge at best! Surely I can do better later!

Jim: Since everything had been cleaned and primed yesterday, we only had to put on one coat of paint on everything, but much of the work was done in the crevices and corners of the ceiling area and was quite time-consuming. In fact, we worked all morning with little, if any, break, and still didn’t have a couple of small sections completed. But, lunch time is not negotiable, so we broke at noon to go back to the lunch room for our meal.

Since the noon meals this week were being served in the hotel lobby, the volunteers were given a room close to the serving room. That worked out fine for us, but involved moving all dishes back to the dining hall when everyone was finished, and the conference attendees took considerably more time to finish their meals than we did. As a result, our dishwashing crew didn’t get finished until after 2:30. We were pretty well whipped by that time, so Barbara and I went back up to Big V for some rest while someone else finished off the last of the painting on the walkways.

Tonight I went through the usual dishwashing routine after supper, but since Barbara was still feeling poorly, she stayed put for the evening. One of the conferences had scheduled a late night dinner so most of the women were busy with that which meant that our normal evening devotional and prayer meeting was called off. Therefore, when I finished up with the washing, I headed back to Big V for the night.

Wednesday, November 5

It was our turn to do the morning devotional, so we got to the room a little earlier than usual to prepare. We based it on an email that Margarita and Maria sent to us a while back, and was entitled, “The ‘U’ in Jesus.” As I read a short poem, Barbara did her Vanna impersonation and held up sheets of paper with key words on them. Afterwards, we had a prayer service raising up our newly elected leaders and asking for God’s wisdom and guidance as they assume their new duties.

The rest of the day was devoted to our regular assignments. After breakfast I helped with the dishwashing crew and then we went out to join the paint crew again. While the volunteers were working on the covered walkways the past two days, conference center maintenance employees were power-washing a large concrete retaining wall across from the auditorium. Our first job today was to put a couple of coats of beige paint on the wall.

With several of us attached to the business ends of rollers and brushes, we whittled a one-day job down to a little more than half a day. In fact, when we had finished the first and second coats of paint on the wall, Bob and I left the rest of the crew to paint stair railings and facings while we moved over to the King Hotel to start painting the outside staircases leading from the parking area to the second floor.

We took a short break for lunch and dishwashing and then returned to the painting job where we worked until mid-afternoon before stopping to clean up.

Barbara: What a successful day I had! Not only did I get to help Heidi but I found a perfect way to exact my revenge on Eric…just can’t believe though that I didn’t photo op the moment! It began like this…Eric had gone into his office and closed the door; so I grabbed some aprons, a cart, and began building a barrier for him to have to cross to get out of his office. This was a rather dicey feat since he has a huge glass window connecting the office to the kitchen. However, with persistence and adaptability, I finally concluded my handy work. Now to patiently wait for him to come out!

Oops! What I didn’t know was that he had an employee in the office with him…then I worried if this might have been the wrong time to be playing pranks! However, by the time I had that knowledge, it was too late…his door opened and I heard him laugh loudly and ask, “What! Dustin, did you do this?” (Relief flowed through me! He wasn’t angry!) Next he blamed Andy as I gloated that he had no clue…didn’t even suspect me.

As he slowly came by the dessert work table, it finally hit him. I was the culprit! He was in awe of the fact that he never saw me come by his window so he never suspected me! Revenge is sweet!

And…just for the record…I really did a lot of work today, but tricking Eric was my ultimate achievement and I forgot to document it with the camera! Alas, that’s how it goes…I remember to photograph others and forget my crowning moments. Weep, weep.
Jim: Again, it was a quiet, short evening as we retired to Big V after dinner and the evening devotional.

Thursday, November 6

Happy birthday to brother-in-law Cal in Roswell!

We went down the hill this morning facing our last full day of work at the conference center. Our plans were to get as much done as possible today, spend the afternoon packing Big V for travel, and moving her down to the main parking lot so we could hook up the trailer and be ready to leave tomorrow morning.

As plans go, those plans worked well. After the morning devotional and breakfast, we all went about our regular duties. It didn’t take long to knock out the dishwashing, and soon Bob and I were back at work painting outdoor staircases. It seemed like a fairly easy job at first, but it entailed a lot of climbing, bending, and twisting to get to all the spots that needed painting.

We completed two and a half sets of stairs before lunch, and then returned to the job to finish afterwards. Luckily, we finished the paint and the painting at exactly the same time, but only because David brought over a little paint that was left in his can from the place where he had been painting…just enough to take care of our last step.
Barbara: Actually this day was a bittersweet one since we knew it was time to move on, but we had such a good, tiring, and enlightening experience that part of us hated to leave. The friends we have made and the memories they have given us are so very special. Once again, we found that the quantity of time means relatively nothing compared to the quality of time one has with people.

One noteworthy occurance happened later in the day when Nell went to the restroom in the main lobby of the King Hotel while we were waiting for supper. She came rushing out and grabbed Bob…seems as though the snake in the photo on the top left had taken up residence in the restroom…And…go figure, Nell wanted it removed!
Jim: We cleaned up our mess and then Barbara and I drove back up to the campground to begin the task of getting Big V ready to travel. It took about an hour to get everything put together; then, while Barbara drove the Vibe down the hill, I followed in Big V. Once in the parking lot, it didn’t take much time to hook up the trailer, load the car, and move off to the side of the lot to find a parking place for the night. Fortunately for us, we were able to park in a designated RV space that even had a 50-Amp hookup so we wouldn’t have to run the generator.

The volunteers all met at the King Hotel lobby a little before dinner. It was enjoyable to sit around and visit a little before the meal. After dinner, we all went back to our meeting room for the evening devotional. John and Lynn led our music tonight and Billy led the prayer service. We finished early (for us) and several of the volunteers retired to the lobby of the hotel once again to visit, but we were whipped and went out to Big V. Barbara was asleep by 7:45 and I followed pretty quickly after that.
Friday, November 7

This was it…our last morning at Toccoa. Since we were already in the parking lot, it was an easy walk over to the King Hotel lobby and then to our “upper room” where we held our daily devotionals for the last two weeks and where we met to get our work assignments for each day.

Following the devotional time, those of us who were leaving today took care of some last minute “check-out” procedures, while John W. gave out the work assignments to the volunteers who were staying through the day or until tomorrow.

We then went to breakfast, said our farewells, and had our group picture taken (several times, on several different cameras).
When we had hugged and shook hands all around, Barbara and I headed on out to Big V to begin our journey for the day, one which would be Point A to Point B (we just didn’t know where Point B would be, but we sure hoped it would be well past Atlanta).

The trip was relatively uneventful…we stopped at a Flying J truck stop about 30 miles north of Atlanta and got gas for $2.05…well below what we had projected when we began this trip on September 16. The trip around Atlanta was a breeze; all we had to do was pick the right lane, stay behind the truck ahead of us and ahead of the truck behind us, and forget about the 55 MPH speed limit (from the speed of the vehicles in our lane and that of the cars passing us, we began to think the 55 was just a mild suggestion).

After a brief stop at the Alabama Welcome Center, we fired up and hit the road again, hitting intermittent light rain along the way, but maintaining a constant 60 MPH, the most fuel-efficient speed limit for Big V.

We had planned along the way to make it to the Birmingham area, stop at a Flying J, and call it an early day; but, we managed to find one of those rare Flying J’s that didn’t have adequate RV parking, so we just gassed up and went on down the road to Tuscaloosa, where we could overnight at the Wal-Mart Super Center. Well, that was certainly an idea, but one that worked out just as well as the Flying J. The Wal-Mart parking lot was not big rig friendly…very tight turns and very slanted parking places. We did go in to buy some groceries and other necessities, but decided when we came out that it would be in our best interests to get away from there as quickly as possible.

So, we crawled back into the 5:30 traffic and found our way back to I-20 and headed west again. Just a word of caution…if you are thinking Tuscaloosa, try thinking something else. The traffic lights were evidently programmed by the lowest scoring entrant in a traffic management class, or by a fired city engineer who hacked into the computer system and left a little land mine that went off a couple of days after he left the state!

Thankful to get Big V and the trailer out of that mess, we motored on down I-20 until we got to the final westbound Alabama rest area, where we pulled in, opened up the right side slide-outs, and set up camp for the night. If you are thinking about great rest areas, think Alabama…clearly the most beautiful and easy in/easy out rest areas we’ve ever seen.

It being Friday night and football time, I logged on to the KSVP website in Artesia and listened to the first half of the game in Roswell with the Goddard Rockets, but the long day took its toll on me and I shut the computer down at halftime and went to bed well after Barbara’s journey to bed by 8.

Saturday, November 8

We took our time getting around this morning. With two days before we had planned to get back to Mineola, we had more than enough time to get ready to leave. While checking email and the online newspapers, I found that Artesia had taken a revenge beating from Goddard last night, but that the Bulldogs were still eligible for the playoffs. At the same time, Liberal got walloped by Hutchinson last night in the first round of the Kansas playoffs and can now focus on basketball.

We finally got away from the rest area and drove into and across Mississippi, stopping at Vicksburg to spend the afternoon and evening at the Ameri-Star RV Park beside the Mississippi River.

It was a very pleasant afternoon and evening. In addition to relaxing, we managed to get all the laundry caught up and watched the Texas Tech and Oklahoma State football game from Lubbock. Obviously, we were cheering all the way for the Red Raiders, who made an outstanding showing in the game and now have to gear up to meet the OU Sooners in a couple of weeks to either determine a clear winner of the Big XII South or throw it into a real jumble.

Sunday, November 9

We woke up this morning prepared to just take it easy, have a leisurely breakfast at the casino across the street (the RV park gave us complimentary tickets), and then get away around 11:30 for a drive to Shreveport, where we would spend the night before heading to Mineola tomorrow.

But, after waking up and thinking about it, we decided that we’d been on the road long enough and it was time to get back to Texas. So, we packed everything away, closed up Big V, and were on the road by 8:30, happy to have a plan.

Traffic was light to moderate all day, so we didn’t have any trouble making our way down the interstate. Along the way we made another grocery list and stopped at Wal-Mart in Ruston, Louisiana, to buy groceries and take a short break.

The most frustrating part of the day came when we reached the Flying J just west of Shreveport. We needed both propane and gasoline, but had to get the propane first. There was no attendant on duty, so Barbara went in to find someone while I stayed with Big V. We waited for quite a while, and while we were waiting, a couple of other people brought portable propane tanks up to the pump station.

The attendant finally came out, but instead of taking the hose to our tank, he went directly to one of the portable tanks and started filling it. The lady who was standing there with the portables immediately apologized to us and then the attendant realized what he had done. However, there wasn’t anything he could do about it, since he would have to change nozzles to fill our tank. So, we just waited until the portables were filled and then we got our load of propane.

With that done, I pulled Big V forward and topped off the gasoline tank. It took us nearly an hour and we could see that there was no way we could get to Mineola before dark, but we decided to press on, since it wouldn’t be all that late when we got there.

Aside from a 4-mile traffic jam around the Kilgore exit, the rest of the trip was uneventful and at 6:15 we pulled in at the Mineola Center. It didn’t take long to get the Vibe off the trailer and the trailer parked and disconnected from Big V. Then, all that was left was to back Big V onto one of the spacious (and nearly level) concrete pads and set up shop for a few days.

With Big V ready for living again, we drove over to Mother’s house to let her know we were home. Since I always call her on Sunday night about the same time, I decided to play a prank. I would pull up to the front of the house, call her, and while she was talking, I would use my keys and let us into the house and tell her we were home. However, that plan went to heck in a hurry when I dropped the keys between the car seats and couldn’t get them out and talk on the phone at the same time. Barbara frantically tried to retrieve them, but with that not being accomplished well either, so I had to ‘fess up that we were there and needed her to come open the door since Ernie and Billee were at church.

Of course, she was surprised and glad to see us. We sat there and visited until Ernie and Billee got there to join in on the conversations. We all visited for about a half hour, but Barbara and I were beat, so we said our goodbyes and drove back to the civic center where we quickly fell into bed…tired, but glad to be back with family after 56 days, 2,676 miles in Big V and 1,600 miles of local driving in the Vibe, and travel through seven states.

Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves; they will never cease to be amused.” – Church Signs

Back at our Mineola home with fond memories of Georgia, the people, and the beautiful fall Toccoa scenery! (Notice that the water in the top right photo appears to be a conglomeration of colors from the reflection of the trees rather than the blue it was!)
Jim & Barbara

A Little Mission Part II

Sunday, October 26 - Saturday, November 1, 2008

Sunday, October 26

On a beautiful Sunday morning we found ourselves visiting the late service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Toccoa. We almost didn’t go, but both of us felt that little last minute tug and decided we’d visit; and boy, were we ever glad we did…we got just the sermon we needed to boost our flagging spirits.

After church we came back to the dining hall at the conference center and joined several of the volunteers for Sunday lunch. Some of the group we worked with had either gone home for the weekend or had finished their work and left, so the lunch bunch was small.

After lunch we returned to Big V. It was such a beautiful afternoon that we decided to take a few pictures of our surroundings. While we don’t have a great view of Lake Louise from Big V, it takes only a few steps to see the lake and the gorgeous surroundings that gave us some wonderful photo opportunities.
With the picture taking completed, we went back inside to work on the journal and relax for a couple of hours, exchanging conversations with others who were parked near us.

Bob and Nell returned later in the afternoon and invited us to join several of the group for Mexican food at a restaurant in Toccoa. Soon, nine of us were clustered around a group of tables, talking, eating, and generally having a good time.

Later, the volunteers met for a couple of hours so we could get acquainted with all the newcomers and hear from Nancy about the activities that would be going on at the conference center in the coming week.

We received this picture of Mike and Kelly’s “homecoming” as they returned to Richmond tonight. Their friend Beth happened to be arriving on another flight about the same time that Mike and Kelly were coming in and got this shot of the happy couple.



Monday, October 27

Today set the tone for what the musician in me would call “Theme with Minor Variations.” Since I had established my presence in the dishwashing room on Friday and Saturday, I decided I would just stay with that job and all it entailed. Following today’s meals, I worked at the conveyor belt, sorting silverware, removing trash and leftover food, putting glasses and cups in racks, and whatever else needed doing. When it got really hectic, I could only think of that old “I Love Lucy” episode where Lucy and Ethel were working in the candy factory, trying to sort the chocolates. Just substitute dishes and silverware for the chocolates, and you have a great picture of the mess we were making as dishes, silverware, glasses, and cups were flying everywhere.

The team scattered all around the conference center when we were finally done in the dining hall this morning. Some 350 or so senior citizens were coming in this afternoon for the first of two Fall Festival conferences and there were rooms to be cleaned, towels and sheets to be washed, etc.

Bob Brewer and I joined some of the maintenance staff at the King Hotel rotunda to set up chairs for conference events. Those two years of graduate school and 28 ½ years of being a band director finally paid off as we took chairs off of stacks and set them out in semi-circles, taking care to leave proper spacing between chairs and rows…I felt just like I was setting the stage for a band concert!

Barbara: While Jim was getting dishpan hands and playing like a band director, I was busy in the dining room fixing gallons upon gallons of tea and coffee. (I can hear my family and friends falling out of their chairs with laughter since they know how I feel about coffee!) I had the privilege to mostly work with a couple from Blairsville, GA, Gwen and Jere as well as Bill from VA; and with their company we took care of drinks, ice, plates, silverware, etc.

Occasionally I’d sneak out with my trusty camera and take photos of all the different jobs the volunteers were doing. Jim and I had decided that we were going to put together a DVD to commemorate the time here so we needed as many photos as possible. Once again I know that what I’m about to say won’t shock any of my family and friends, but I think people were ready to run when they saw me coming! However, when they learned that I really had a purpose for all the photos and was making a DVD movie with the photos, they were good sports about the whole flashing lights bit.
Since the seniors wanted 3 meals a day (imagine that!) …Jere, Gwen, and I became quite proficient at dining room attendant skills (which include setting out food, utensils, desserts, etc. as well as the coffee, tea, or me bit!)

Jim: Tonight we went to the concert that was being held in the King rotunda. The Cleghorns, a regional gospel-singing family, was performing for the Fall Festival attendees. Because we were late getting out of the dining hall, we only got to hear part of the concert, but really enjoyed what we did hear. There was a reception in the dining hall following the event, but we opted to return to Big V and call it a day…the 5:00 a.m. wake-up alarm is taking its toll.

Tuesday, October 28

It was “up and at ‘em again” at 5:00 this morning to go through much of the same routine. With 350 conference attendees, 23 volunteers, and who knows how many regular staff members to feed, our work was cut out for us.

We’ve both settled in to semi-regular jobs during the meal times. Barbara makes the tea and coffee (no small chore) with the able assistance of Jere Akins, a retired U.S. Army major general. Together, they keep the tea and coffee makers going throughout the meals. I (along with others) help with the odd jobs that go along with having all the food set out on the line and the desserts set up in one corner of the dining hall.

As soon as we finished eating, several of us scurried to the dish washing room to get ready for the trays and all their contents to come down the conveyer system. There were no trash cans or other containers at the window where the trays were placed, so we had to pull out the paper trash, get the silverware and sort it out before we throw it in buckets to soak, pull off the cups and glasses, empty them, and set them in racks above the line, and empty the leftovers from the plates and bowls into large trash cans before sending them down the line to be hosed off and placed in racks that then go through the dishwasher.

This morning I got a new job in the sequence. Because grits (a major element of a Georgia breakfast) and the strawberry pancake syrup are so sticky, they don’t come completely off the dishes even after spraying and going through the high-pressure dish washer, so I got the job of standing over a hot sink and hand washing every dish that had either grits or syrup on it; that’s in addition to scrubbing nearly every pot, pan, and metal tray that came out of the kitchen. Believe me when I say that I literally had my hands full for a couple of hours as I took plates and bowls from the line to the sink, scrubbed them with steel wool, stacked them on my counter, and then carried them back to the conveyer belt to go through the normal process; all this while doing a delicate dance with Bob, who was removing clean dishes from the dish washer and stacking them on a rack behind us, and Nancy or whoever else was coming into the room to pick up the dishes from the rack and taking them back out to the serving line.

Barbara: Since hearing how heavy the coffee and tea urns are, how hard the packages of each are to open sometimes, how fast we run out of cups and glasses, how much sugar it takes to sweeten the tea, etc. could get a little boring, I will share some important info instead.
Did you know that the # 1 question on the food line is…”Where is the sweetener?” Our guests were looking for little packages and instead overlooked the sugar and saccharine containers right beside the coffee urns.

“Where is the butter?” ran a close 2nd. And, in their defense here, we could understand this one better since it was by the salads instead of by the breads.

And…boy! Did we learn a valuable lesson about seniors! Don’t try to give them coffee from a carafe since they are convinced that coffee from them is NOT hot! In fact, I encountered my only rude customer because of the carafe. Here’s how it went…we ran out of coffee on the front line in 2 urns today (these are serious drinkers!) So…while they were brewing, we filled carafes from the back line to assist their morning caffeine.

I had just filled my carafe from another urn and poured a cup for this lady. She spit the coffee back in her mug and slammed it down…jostling coffee all over the counter (and holding up the line). When I asked if something was wrong, she informed me that that coffee was cold! So…I got her another cup, turned to the back line urn I had just filled my carafe with and got her another cup. This pleased her and she merrily went on her way thanking me for finding her hot coffee! Go figure.

More stories from the Diary of a Dining Room Attendant will follow in the coming days.

Jim: Meanwhile, members of the volunteer team are assisting the cooks, picking up trays from those guests who have trouble carrying them to the beginning of the conveyer belt, and restocking the four food lines.

Afterward, everyone pitches in to get the place all cleaned up so we can do it all again for the next meal session.
Tonight’s meal was complicated by the fact that we had a large men’s choir (150, with some family members) who ate first so they could get ready for a concert. By the end of the shift, we had fed over 500 people.

Although we were not quite finished with our assigned chores, most of the volunteers left the dining hall a few minutes before 7:00 to go to the conference center auditorium for a concert by The Sons of Jubal, a 120-voice men’s choir and brass ensemble comprised of Baptist ministers of music from across the state of Georgia. Their name was inspired by Genesis 4:21, “His brother’s name was Jubal, father of all who play the harp and the flute.”

Founded as a male chorus in 1954, the choir is primarily a music/missions organization. Its members are committed to both worship enrichment and gospel proclamation. A unit of the state missions program of Music and Worship Ministries, Sons of Jubal presents an annual series of concerts throughout Georgia. In addition to those programs, they have presented concerts during tours of Russia, South America, Italy, Israel, Canada, Costa Rica, and the Czech Republic. Tonight they appeared under the auspices of the Northeast Georgia Community Concert Association.

About the concert…all we could say was “WOW!!!” Whether singing a capella, with the brass choir, or piano or organ, the group was beyond fantastic. We’d never heard of them before, but we’d certainly go out of our way to hear them again.

There was a reception for the group and all the guests following the concert, but with a very full day behind us and another creeping up, we once again voted to go back to Big V and call it a day.

Wednesday, October 29

Today was more of the same except that our 350 were leaving right after lunch, only to be replaced by a new batch of around 260. The morning and noon meals were as hectic as ever; but, oh, what a difference a hundred or so fewer people made in the way things went tonight.

With a new group of guests arriving, the laundry crew was up to their necks in sheets and towels as they washed all the linens and bedding from each room, then folded it and sent it back to the hotels…another unsung part of this operation that no one thinks about very much.
We were telling Nancy about the wear and tear on my hands since I was doing the fulltime pot scrubbing, and she came up with a pair of good kitchen gloves…talk about an improvement. I fill the basin with the hottest water I can stand and add a special detergent solution created just for heavy duty scrubbing. I got to thinking that if that stuff can dissolve burned-on eggs and potatoes in just a couple of minutes, it can’t be doing my hands much good, so I was grateful for the new gloves.

Barbara added to her resume’ today by moving into food line supervision. That meant that she had to keep watch over the food lines and be prepared to take full steam trays out to the line to replace empty trays and then bring the empty trays to me to be scrubbed. Since no two trays on the line go empty at the same time, it can become quite a juggling act.

Barbara: Well…don’t get too impressed about that, because in the process of changing Brunswick stew trays, I sloshed it all over my sleeve. Deborah, one of the Center’s regular dining room attendants, just smiled at me and suggested that maybe I should do like her and wear short sleeves. Oh, yes, she also suggested that I soak my shirt in cold water! Gotta love that Deborah! She’s a jewel.

Jere had a really cool experience today; and, yes, the pun is intended! He was standing guard on the drink line when we saw a woman fill her glass with ice, and then pour it all out. Fill her glass with ice, pour it out. This continued 3 or 4 times, so he went over and asked if there was a problem with the ice. She just smiled and said, “Yes, I kept getting too much in my glass, but I’ve got the right amount now.” How he kept from rolling in the floor with laughter is beyond me…must be that military training!

Jim: Since the second session of the Fall Festival is a repeat of the first, we had an opportunity to hear the Cleghorns again, but our weary bodies opted instead to return to Big V a little early for once and we spent the evening working inside. Barbara is creating a DVD slide-show of our time here at Toccoa, and had a lot of downloading and editing to do.

Thursday, October 30

Today was pretty much a continuation of yesterday. As I said before, this week has been one of theme and variations, and the variations aren’t very striking. One thing that really helped us in the dishwashing room was that because of the smaller number of guests at this conference session, Barbara and a couple of the other ladies were able to break away from their regular dining hall duties and do “triage” on the trays before sending them down the line to us. They were able, in most cases, to separate and sort the items on the trays so we could more easily get rid of the trash, pull off the silverware, cups, and glasses, and send everything else down the line so someone else could reload it in racks to send through the automatic dishwasher.

I never thought about it before, but as soon as one meal is set out on the feeding lines, the cooks are preparing the next meal, using many posts, pans, and kettles. The net effect of this is that as the dishwashing crew is handed the dirty trays and dishes from the dining hall, we are also constantly receiving a large assortment of cooking dishes and utensils from the kitchen.

Barbara: One quick note about the 2nd photo on the left above...the halo over John was a reflection made by a ladle hanging on the wall, and I didn't take that one...Rene sent it to me.

What should have been a much easier day for the dining room attendants began with a splash and pretty much continued that way. First, Jere made it to the dining room ahead of everyone today and started the coffee and tea. While he was busy, tea began leaking all over the counters and floor. It seems as though someone replaced the tea urns last night and accidentally turned two of them upside down and Jere didn’t discover that until tea was splashing and dripping everywhere! Thankfully, I came in after he had the mess cleaned up and probably it didn’t help that as he recounted this tale of woe I was laughing up a storm!

My laughter soon died away though when we discovered that Jere, Gwen, Bill, and I were flying solo…no paid dining room attendant was there for breakfast or lunch! We were scurrying around here and there with never a chance to catch our breath! But, Deborah and Kayla had taught us well and we had no major mishaps, if we ignore the river of tea.

Jim: Thankfully, the smaller group of attendees at the second session of the conference has helped us maintain a schedule that gets us out of the dining hall at a decent hour in the evening so we can get back to Big V and enjoy some family time.

We did have a short meeting of all the volunteers tonight. About half of the group is leaving tomorrow and this would be the last opportunity for all of us to meet together. Nancy gave us our marching orders for Friday along with the welcome news that we would all have the week-end off.

Friday, October 31

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Today was bittersweet as we said goodbye to our new friends who would be leaving the team to return to their homes.

With the smaller group of guests, some of whom left soon after breakfast, we managed to complete all of our kitchen and dining room duties in record time, (only because Barbara and Lynn joined us in the dishwashing room and helped clear the trays) and were much relieved to hear Nancy tell us that we were through for the week after finishing the lunch run.

Barbara: One reason things went smoothly this morning on the dish line was that Gail and Joan were placing trays on the conveyor belt with everything arranged neatly for us. In fact, I even had time to grab my camera, call Gail's name, and snap the shutter as she looked through the tray window. (bottom middle photo of collage above)

Jim: We high-tailed it to Big V for what we thought would be some much needed rest, but Barbara started working on her newest DVD project and I got started doing dishes and scrubbing the bathroom. We didn’t have very many dishes; after all, we hadn’t had a meal in Big V in a week, but the house was in sore need of cleaning and straightening.

Bob and Nell came by later in the afternoon to invite us to join them and several other couples for Mexico food. Barbara said that would be fine as long as it wasn’t dining hall Mexican food. Nell assured us that wasn’t the case, and soon we joined Bob & Nell, John & Lynn, Mike & Renee, and Billy & Lillian for a real international dinner: Dutch-Treat Mexican.

After dinner we rode to Wal-Mart with Bob and Nell, our first off-campus adventure in a week. While we had a list going at Big V, we decided we’d just wait until another time to buy groceries and supplies and spent our time just looking around.

Back at Big V, we felt that we were just too tired to continue with the DVD project or listen to the Bulldogs football game, so we turned off the alarm clock and called it quits around 9:30.

Saturday, November 1

Today was adventure time…an opportunity to play tourist and see some of the sights of this beautiful state.

Bob and Nell picked us up around 9:00 a.m. and we drove first to Helen, Georgia, a quaint little alpine village nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the Chattahoochee River. This was the final weekend of Helen’s annual Oktoberfest, the longest Oktoberfest celebration in the South.

We were fortunate that we got to Helen before the large crowds started arriving and had time to walk around and see the sights without bumping into everyone. Bob and I bought a couple of cups of coffee and sat outside by the town fountain while Barbara and Nell began their trek through 250 of the town’s 200 shops. But, we soon joined them and did both some shop-looking and some buying when a couple of items screamed out, “Buy me…buy me!”

Around one o’clock the crowds and traffic started getting very heavy, so we made our way back to the car and drove to the outskirts of the town where we stopped at a series of shops that specialized in mountain crafts and foods. We found a few items of interest there and were separated from a little more money when we found some fresh pork skins and I located some cane sorghum syrup, along with a few other regional delicacies.

From Helen, we drove to one of the premier mountain sites in the state, Brasstown Bald. Set deep in the Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia’s highest mountain (4,784 feet above sea level) lays claim to the most inspiring vistas in the state. Brasstown Bald offers commanding views of the unique environment of the Brasstown Wilderness. In the distance, the visitors to this beautiful place can look into Tennessee (I even saw the famed “Rocky Top”) and both North and South Carolina. On a clear day a keen eye can even see the tops of the skyscrapers in Atlanta.
Brasstown Bald is part of the U.S. National Forest System, which maintains the wilderness area and the observation deck on the visitor information center at the summit of the mountain. The center has one of the most comprehensive groups of exhibits that we have ever seen, including interpretive and interactive exhibits of the area’s geology, ecology, climate, weather, history and culture, all housed in an 8,000 square-foot hall.

Of course, we were just blown away by the multitudes of colors that we saw among the trees. This weekend was considered to be the “peak time” for the fall foliage tours, another reason for the many visitors at each of the places we went.

All the viewing and driving made us hungry, so we drove from Brasstown Bald to the little community of Hiawassee for lunch, electing to stop at the local Hardee’s restaurant for some hamburgers.

When we finished our meal, we started the drive back toward Toccoa, but had to make one more sight-seeing stop, this time at Tallulah Gorge, where we stood looking down 700 feet at the Tallulah River as it cut through the mountains. The gorge’s claim to fame, aside from its remarkable beauty, is that Karl Wallenda of the Flying Wallendas, once crossed the gorge on a tight rope, bringing great crowds of people to this remote part of the state to observe his death-defying act.

Barbara: Just as a side note…I found the Gorge the most awesome place for photos…I have not doctored these photos at all…these are the actual foliage colors I was able to capture. Once again, we say…God does great work with His paintbrush!!
Jim: We left the gorge and drove on back to Toccoa and our campground, weary, but greatly enriched by all we had seen and done today. Bob and Nell were great tour guides, and are obviously very proud of the sights that their state has to offer.

Tonight was campfire night again. John had prepared the firewood, and after dark John, Lynn, Barbara, and I were joined by Bob and Nell as we sang, talked while enjoying the beauty of the night and the great outdoors.
When everyone had left, Barbara and I returned to Big V to watch the second half of the Texas and Texas Tech game from Lubbock. I cheer for Tech in all of their games but one, but tonight my cheers for the Longhorns just didn’t hold up as Tech won a nail-biter, scoring their final touchdown with one second left on the clock. Oh well, you can’t win them all, and I guess this was an opportunity for me to demonstrate my good sportsmanship in a losing cause.

During the week we received some photos that we wanted to share. The first is of granddaughter Randi and step great-grandson Rhett in San Antonio. Rhett got his first pony ride and got to walk/run through a hay bale maze.

Next, is a photo of Barbara’s great nieces (sister Nancy’s grand-daughters) Keylin and Eva. They are casting for High School Musical Part IV.


Nancy also shared what we call a Keylism...

Keylin: Do you know anything about Indian Symbols, Nanny?

Nanny: Well, as a matter of fact I do.

Keylin: Do you know what this is…

Nanny (very proud to be so smart and know something a 2nd grader knows): I sure do – that is the Indian sign for “sun.”

Keylin: How did you know that?

Nanny: Well, honey… I went to school in New Mexico with several Indians and we studied the Indian Symbols when I was in school.

Keylin’s eyes flew open as she leaned over to get closer to my face, and she looked so very excited as she said…

“Nanny, I had no idea that you knew the Pilgrims and the Indians… WOW!!! That is too cool.”

Needless to say that took the wind right out of my “smart” sails…

Finally, to close, we received our official family picture from Mike and Kelly’s wedding.
“Instead of counting your days, make your days count.” – Church Signs

From beautiful northern Georgia,

Jim & Barbara