Memoirous

I’ve learned that birthdays don’t mean a lot. In fact, they can be somewhat disappointing, a let down. Birthdays come and go. Since this blog is about memories, I’d like to share how I celebrated the 200 th birthday of the USA. 1976 found me at a Young Life camp outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I was a volunteer at an inner-city youth camp put on by an organization for high schoolers called Young Life. It was considered cool Christian. My high school allowed the club to post info in meetings on campus. I met through Young Life a life-long friend, Jane McSweeney nee Jarrell, from Dayton, Ohio. She was city mouse and I was if not country mouse at least Centerville-suburban mouse. She and I were recruited for the camp, where we met Mark Bruce and a few other Young Lifers. I didn’t work directly with the kids; I did laundry. It was a regular machine and took forever to do many, many loads. On the morning of the 4 th , I was aware it was supposed to be a monumental day—for the nation, not ...

I discovered a letter you wrote to me dated 8/6/83. It was slipped into the pages of an old cookbook. What was I doing thirty years ago—making gravy? You had just gotten married and were expecting a baby. I was still single. “Where does the time go?” you asked in the opening line. Your dad recently retired. That’s when your dad was still living as was mine. Before the fragile brittleness of mortality entered in. You say you’d love to come to Chicago, but your husband has a new job and can’t get away. In Lima, Ohio. “Well,” you write, “you have to start somewhere.” We’d become friends while freshmen in high school. Different schools. I still cannot remember the exact circumstances, but it involved Young Life and meetings with guitars and exuberant singing. “It Only Takes a Spark to Get a Fire Going.” We ended up sitting next to each other and at one point in the song you turn to the person next to you and “pass it on.” The summer before tenth grade we volunteered t...