Old Shoes

I own a pair of Converse tennis shoes that I ABSOLUTELY-WITHOUT-A-DOUBT-LOVE-EVER-SO-MUCH. I got them in 2006. I know this because the heel of one of the shoes Maui chewed up right after I bought them. Tanna got Maui in 2006.

I have worn these shoes EVERYWHERE. They fit so good. They are comfortable beyond words. LOVE THEM. I have other Converse tennies, however, no pair provide the comfort that these specific shoes have given. Time has taken it's course and they are DESTROYED. I still have them. Can't bear to part with them. My birthday rolled around this year and I was given some money. I bought new Converse. I love them, but they aren't quite the same. So I keep my old ones and still wear them periodically.

In the Movie "All about Steve", Sandra Bullock wears a pair of red boots ALLTHETIME. Of course people give her grief about her boots. She sunnily ignores them. At one point, Sandra's character says:

"They make my toes feel like ten friends on a camping trip"

Describes my converse to a tee.

In April, I received a Facebook message from my friend Sunnie. She was coming to Utah in June for a conference and I would get to see her. Sunnie lives in Vermont. I haven't seen her in 28 years.

I was 18 years old. I was newly married to a Navy man. And found myself in Norfolk, Virginia. You have to know that I came from a TINY town in Utah with NO stop lights and not many people. To move to a city filled with stoplights and teeming with people was (needless to say) a bit of a culture shock.

Oh! the stories I could share. I went through TWO hurricanes. Trust me, we didn't have those in Utah!  A pimp lived in the apartment above me. (I don't think we had pimps) and his prostitute wore her red dress EVERY SINGLE DAY and stood on the corner out my front door. (I'm PRETTY sure we didn't have that in Orangeville). Definitely an eye opener for a small town Utah girl.

Mark and I were the only white people in the apartment complex. One day, my neighbor gal came beating on my door. As soon as I opened it, she placed her hands on her wide hips and demanded to know if I was racist. I paused a moment then answered as honestly as I knew how. "I don't think so."  That was the beginning of a good friendship. However, "good" is an interesting choice of words. I don't recall her name.  I don't even know if she still remembers me. The Navy is transient. People come and go as husbands were drawn back to "normal" life and away from military enrollment. Our friendship fell victim to the "normal" world.

I had only been in Virginia a few weeks when Mark was called out on a cruise and would be gone for three months. Dirt poor is a way of life for beginning military families. We didn't own a phone, a car, or even a television. I spent endless time reading and walking the beach across the street from my house and MUCH time was spent smashing the cock roaches living in my home. Yeah. Gross.

I met Janine Powers. We became FRIENDS. Janine came from Tennessee and had the COOLEST accent. We spent many hours together swapping life stories and enjoying the company of one another. Janine taught me to make fried chicken. Southern style. To this day, my family is grateful for THAT lesson. AND Janine had a television. A COLOR television.

Janine and Sunnie were friends. That's how I met Sunnie.

The three of us did everything together. When we were evacuated for one of the hurricanes, Janine, Sunnie, her son Crory (no, that's not a typo. His name is Crory), myself and Tyson went together to the shelter. We went shopping together on the Navy base. We watched the Miss America pageant together on Janines COLOR television. We mourned the leaving of our men to the sea and anticipated their homecoming. "Back then" there was a ship return phone number you could call. When the men pulled out of port, it wasn't as if we knew the exact date and time the ships would arrive back into dock, so we called and called and waited to hear the ships name. The dates and times were subject to change, so as their arrival date approached, we phoned more frequently for fear that we would miss the arrival. I remember walking to the pay phone by my house and calling the number just to hear the name of Mark's ship. "The U.S.S. Canisteo AO-99 will be arriving on this date at this time and docking on this pier" brought comfort beyond measure.

When Sunnie told me she was coming to visit, I was thrown into these memories. 

Wednesday evening, Sunnie took the Frontrunner from Salt Lake to my home in Provo. We sat outside and talked and talked and talked. We laughed and laughed and laughed. I miss her SOVERYMUCH!  I didn't realize the depths of the missing stuff until I saw her again.

It was as though the past 28 years hadn't happened. We told stories of our new children and filled in the gap of the ages of time that had passed. But it was like picking up right where we left off. 

Sunnie knits. She brought me a prayer shawl she had made. She had written some of the prayers that she had said while she knitted me the shawl. I can't describe the beauty of these prayers or of this woman. 

Thursday found me in Salt Lake where I took her to Temple Square and to the Arts Festival downtown. More time for talking and laughing and comfort.

As with any hello, there comes a goodbye. Ours came following dinner Thursday evening.

Janine and Sunnie are my old shoe friends. There might be a day when the three of us can reunite. Maybe not. It would sure be nice, but it really doesn't matter. My friends shared a past with me that is confusing and weird to some. THEY know the stories that I know. They shared the pride, the joy, the loneliness, the despair, the excitement, the highs and the lows...all the wonder of being a Navy wife.

Introducing:

Sunnie Joy and Janine...

The Weight Of My Mistakes

At times I am haunted. I'm not necessarily proud of every single decision that I have made in my youth, teen years and now adulthood.

Am I to be pitied? Is my soul black? In my quiet times, these are things that run through my mind.

I spend mounds of time and oodles of energy searching within myself to discover if I am a liar. Is the "face" that the world sees the true me? Or is the image I see in the mirror a better reflection?

When I was young, I spent countless hours watching families and people and kids and parents and random strangers. I took note on what I liked and what I didn't think was too cool. I was determined to be the "good" that I saw. Does that mean that inside I am foul?

When I was young (I don't remember how old, or what grade, but I had to be in elementary school because this story involves recess) there was a boy. I don't remember his name. I remember him having dark hair and being a large-er boy.

Each recess we went to the playground and along with my friends, I would spend the 15 minutes kicking him. And laughing. Granted, he came on out and took it like a champ. He would laugh with us. This empowered us more, so, we would kick him harder.

Then we would walk in the school and move on to math, science or reading as if we hadn't just bullied some poor kid and justified it because he was a willing participant.

I want you to know I felt NO remorse. None.

One day, after recess, (I wish I could remember his name) came to me. He was crying. He told me he didn't like us to kick him and that it hurt his feelings. It hurt his legs. He wanted me to stop it.

I was mortified. For some stupid reason, it didn't gel in my thick skull that I was HURTING him. It was all fun and games. Right?

I am relieved to say that it stopped that day. We remained friends. I moved. I lost contact. However, I'm ashamed to say that it took him pointing out my bad behavior before I even attempted to make a change.

Was I instrumental in forming a sad, lonely life for this boy? Does he understand that I am appalled that I did this? Does he know that if I saw that behavior now, I would come UNGLUED and stop it INSTANTLY?

Sometimes, I think it doesn't matter that I changed my ways. It matters most that I hurt him.

Bad decisions and mistakes gather on our shoulders and we stoop and sag from the weight.

I want to hold my head high. I long to look in the mirror and view the reflection with pride.

Where the sidewalk ends

Summer has taken it's hold on me.  Because I can't hardly stand to sit at the computer when the sun is out, I've slacked on my blog. This is a really cool story, though, so I thought I'd sit down and get it out.

As with every story, there are many facets. This is my version. It goes like this:

A couple Friday nights ago, Mark and I were sitting in the family room when Jaden came up the stairs to tell me to call Tanna at work. It drives my family bonkers that I never have my phone on me. I hate hauling it around and I swear that if I'm upstairs? My phone is down. If I'm downstairs? It's up. This time, it was charging in my room.

I grabbed my phone and called Tanna to see what-the-heck was going on.  Tanna answered and immediately said, "Before you say anything, hear me out."  Not a good sign. This means "I found a kitten and can I have it?" or some sort of I-don't-want-to-deal-with-it  question. Instantly I had "No. Absolutely NOT" on the tip of my tongue.

Tanna said:

"There's an old man here. He's lost. His family is coming to get him but he needs a place to stay the night. Can he stay with you?"

What?

"He's harmless, mom."

"I'm okay with it, I guess, but you better talk to your dad and see what he says."

Thomas was our guest that night.

Thomas has Alzheimer's. He walked into Tanna's store and said "Have you seen my wife?" Tanna told him that there was nobody in the store and let him know that an older lady hadn't been there. She could tell that Thomas was confused and asked him if he had a phone. He did.

This is where I stray in knowing EXACTLY what happened. Somehow, Tanna got hold of Linda. This is Thomas' daughter. Are you ready for this? Thomas had been missing for a couple of days from COLORADO. Yep. You heard me correctly. Northglenn, Colorado.

The police got involved and told Tanna that they could:
A.) Put him in a hotel until the family came. But there would be nobody with him to guarantee that he would stay.
B.) Put him in the Psych Ward at the hospital.

Nuh uh. No way. "Mom! Can he come to our house?"

Thomas and Mark swapped Navy stories until late that night. I rested on the couch while they talked and laughed like old friends.

Morning came. Tanna jetted to Salt Lake to grab Linda from the airport. While she was gone, we took Thomas around Provo. We showed him the LDS temple being built blocks from our home. We took him around BYU. The entire time he regaled us with both humorous and heartbreaking stories.

Soon enough, Linda and her husband arrived at our doorstep. They were jumping in the car with Thomas to take him home.

Linda shared that Thomas had told them that he was on University Avenue right by Deseret Bookstore. It just so happens that in Northglenn there is a Deseret Bookstore on University Avenue. For Thomas to describe his location as such, it raised no warning flags.  Linda told him to go to the nearest gas station and she would come pick him up. That's how he arrived at Tanna's work. She was the nearest gas station.

The police in Colorado ran a search for Thomas' phone. Imagine Linda's surprise when she found out that Thomas was indeed on University Avenue by Deseret Book...in UTAH.

I did ask Thomas where he was heading. He told me: "I was going for a drive. I followed the road and this is where it ended."

Simply because my beautiful, kind-hearted daughter refused to let this sweet little old man be alone for one more minute, we added new branches to our family tree.