A Phone Call From Baltimore

Every once in awhile something will happen which will cause me to think something like if you had told me in 1989 that in 2009 this that or the other thing would happen, with my 1989 imagination being unable to conjure a scenario where this that or the other thing would make sense.

Like if in 1989 you would have told me I would be living within walking distance of the gravesite of Lee Harvey Oswald I would not have been able to imagine how that scenario could come to pass.

Like about an hour ago. My cell phone rang. I saw it was Chris. Chris is one of my all time favorite people. We've known each other since grade school. We've lived together, we've traveled together, we've done all sorts of things together. Chris and her family moved to Ada, Oklahoma about a month before I moved to Texas. Last July Chris moved back to Washington, leaving me stranded, almost alone, in Texas.

Chris was calling me from the airport in Baltimore. She was flying alone. To go to an army base in North Carolina where her son's wife is getting ready to have their 4th baby.

Now, in 1989 if you had told me that in 2009 I would be in Texas getting a call from Chris in Baltimore en route to help with her 4th grandkid, well, I would not have been able to make sense of that scenario. Just Chris flying solo is not the Chris I have always known.

That picture at the top is of Chris and Nancy (Chris on left, making that Nancy on the right), up in Oklahoma, sitting under Chris's big oak, I think it was an oak, tree. That was in October of 2001, a bit over a month after 9/11. Nancy had flown in the day before and I drove her up to Oklahoma so she could spend a week. Then they all came down here for a couple days, where we did the tourist things. Except Six Flags. Six Flags had been done on a previous visit. No need to repeat.

2001 does not seem all that long ago. But it has been long enough that the little girl you see in the picture, Megan, under the Fort Worth Stockyards sign, has now graduated at the top of her Oklahoma High School class and is now a freshman at the University of Washington. While her big brother, during that same time frame, has graduated from, I think, Oklahoma State University, got married, joined the Army, served a tour in Iraq and is now back home about to have his 4th kid, with his mom flying across the country to help, and calling me from Baltimore.

I remember my first visit up to Ada to see Chris. She was being totally overly worried about tornadoes. There had been one of the worst ever touch down near Oklahoma City, a huge one. I think Chris and family went up to see the damage. I remember driving around Ada and asking Chris if she saw any tornado damage. So, not all that much time later, Chris had totally adjusted to living with tornadoes, to the extent that when she experienced her first one, up close and personal, she stayed outside and took pictures. But yelled at Megan to get into a closet.

Anyway, it was nice hearing from Chris today. I miss talking to her. One of the nicest people I've ever known. Smart with a sense of humor. And a good cook.