Adventures at Rasa Ranch #35

[Guest guest]

8/11/02 "New Old Friends"

 

Today Ananda and I accompanied Jim on a small electrical job in town.

He had said that we would really like the folks he was working for and

he was right. Shirley was eighty and she looked like if you hugged

her you would totally disappear into her big softness like a dive

into a fluffy cloud. Henry was all of ninety-nine (!) and he was

very tall with half a head of snowy white hair and the largest, most

tender hands I had ever seen. Both of them had bright blue eyes that

somehow stopped time when you looked at them.

 

Ananda offered our new friends some really plump raspberries that we

couldn't pass up on our way over and the four of us sat on their

shaded porch and munched while Jim went to work. Henry described

some of his adventures while mining for gold in Alaska in the 1930's.

He said, "You know, there was a depression going on in our country

about then." He paused to chuckle, "You might've read about it in

school." Then he continued, "And when I got the opportunity to go

ANYWHERE, I said 'Yes!'" His words took the history right out of the

books and directly into my own experience. It was great.

 

When Jim had finished and we stood to go, Shirley commented that I

looked like I was going to give birth very soon. She wanted to know

how far we lived from the hospital. I told her that we were planning

to have our baby at home and she furrowed her brow. I looked over at

Henry, touched him on the knee and said (in high volume), "I'll

betcha you were born at home." He laughed out loud and said, "Sure

was! Ten pounds and breech!" Boy, did he get a smile out of me with

that one!

 

We said goodbye and wished each other all the best. On our way home

in the car Ananda announced, "This is the nicest day." "Why is

that?" we asked. "Because I 'yove' everybody today, that's why."

[Guest guest]

8/11/02 "P.S."

 

There was something that I didn't mention in the last Adventure about

our new old friends. Henry had taken a fall the day before and more

than half of his face was severely bruised. It looked monstrously

swollen and black and purple and green and spotted and his eyeball on

one side showed no white at all, only blood red.

 

Jim and I were reflecting this evening on our brief experience at

their house. We thought it was pretty neat that Henry's face,

gruesome as it was, had been so utterly insignificant to us (even to

our four year old) that none of us had thought to bring it up ever

since we saw them.

 

Jim said, "The impact of that visit is still here and it's still in my

heart." I said, "Yeah, I feel it too." We remarked that it was as if

something most unusual had taken place, that we had each enjoyed a

deeply religious experience in a most unexpected circumstance.