YCGL - Day 20 - Friday, April 19, 2024 - Childhood Friends - Final

 The trip to Little Rock had two parts.  The first half of the drive was on a lot of back roads, twisty, hilly, narrow roads, narrow bridges, until I got to Texarkana, when I hit the Interstate that went the rest of the way into Little Rock.  The second half was much easier than the first, but the first was more scenic, if you can take your eyes off the narrow road and look around.  Really, everything was fine until the fuel light came on again and I had to look for a station.  After yesterday's adventure, I decided I wasn't going to be cheap and I would just look for a regular ole truckstop.  

I saw there was a Pilot station on a highway sign  so I decided I would go there.  But when I pulled off the Interstate, the station was not along the frontage road and, indeed, I couldn't see it at all.  OK, don't stress it.  There's got to be something along the frontage road.  But there wasn't.  But I did see the Pilot sign on the other side of the Interstate.  So I took the next overpass to get there.  Only the road over the overpass ended at a stop sign where everyone was turning left onto a crowded two way street while I needed to turn right.  I sat in that line for over five minutes.  I finally was able to get onto the service road going passed the Pilot, only it didn't have an entrance on the service road, so I turned into the parking lot before it.  There wasn't an entrance that led into the parking lot.  So I ended going through a crowded parking lot to make a left turn onto a street that had a long line turning left, which I needed to do also.  Someone let me in, I finally made the left turn and then had to make another left turn against traffic into a short filling station when I passed the truck entrance.  There was one pump out of the six that had diesel, but the car sitting there was empty.  The owner was obviously having lunch made.  And it was the most expensive diesel I've purchased.  The whole process took over 30 minutes for a five minute job.  

On the other hand, I drove right to Phil and Miriam's house.  The HOA doesn't want people parking on the curb, especially with a pop-out slide, so I needed to back into their driveway.  Which I do in my own driveway.  Which I do when I have to back into an RV site.  And I did the worst backing job I've done in a while.  They have a three car garage and driveway, but I needed to be as far over to the right as possible so Phil can get his car out between the trailer and the pickup, which was parked as far to the left of the driveway as possible.  I think it took 5 tries to get it in the right location, and then some jimmying back and forth to get it in position to level.  It ended up within a foot of the edge, and Phil maybe had a little over a foot on each side to snake through.  Of course, not being able to pull the steps out was a benefit in this case.  But, finally, it was done and we could visit.  

I've known Miriam Lien Clifford since third grade.  Her father, Jacob Aall Ottesen "Jack" Lien, was the mission pastor that that was called to the Lutheran church that dad and mom helped initiate in west Houston, Memorial Drive Lutheran Church.  We both remembered laying linoleum tile in the first sanctuary.  She remembers our third grade teacher putting her next to me since we "knew" each other and also remembers me giving her some sheets of my Big Chief tablet since she didn't have any.  We obviously had the same Sunday School teachers, including my mom and her mom (Virginia),  and confirmation class.  Then, after we had gone off to different colleges, my dad and mom wanted to start a new church in Conroe.  It ended up that Jack was available again, and he was the first pastor at Grace Lutheran.  (The third pastor at Grace was Mike Reinhart, who is now the Bishop and will be leading the Greece tour this summer!)  

I was in Houston when the movie "Woodstock" came out.  I saw Miriam at church and asked if she wanted to go.  I picked her up at her folk's house.  Jack had a wonderful and wild sense of humor.  He was kidding us before we left about how wild student's were getting on college campuses now.  He said, "Yeah, on campuses, students are masticating out in the open and  are freely having premarital interdigitation."  Miriam was appalled that he would say that until I explained "Yup, we're eating and holding hands."  

I think the next time we saw each other, I was in Milwaukee with an American Society for Engineering Education annual meeting in 1997 and they lived there at the time.  I can't remember any other time we've seen each other, but one of Sally's favorite quotes was from Miriam, when she was explaining real life to some of her remedial math students, "Life isn't like a basketball game with referees running up and down the sidelines."  I don't remember how Sally knew that, maybe it was from a phone call.

Then, we were going to see them when Jere's son Robert and Liz got married in Chicago.  Phil was the Dean of Research for the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Medicine.  We were going to meet them for dinner the night that Sally's sister Sandy died, February 11, 2019.  

In the mean time, Jack and Virginia became interested in genealogy and learned that we are related, which I'll talk about tomorrow.

Needless to say, it was a joyful reunion for the three of us.  We talked and reminisced all evening. It was good to see them.