Ran with the devil, Walked with angels: Went to church

7/8/06 Sunday
We are planning to go to church at the Baptist church I attended back in 1975 just before I went to the Bible college I met Cherie at. Part of the motivation for this is to continue the process of getting us introduced to the community. Out here folks watch. One of the things a lady we met told us was that in Stanton everyone knows everyone else’s business. I also hope to find some kids to help us with the heavy work that Cherie and I are quite frankly unable to do. That is to move the four big pieces of furniture out so we can fumigate the place.

We have been unable to find an access point to the crawl space under the house. So much of this place has been pieced together and then pieced again. There are plugged metal water lines next to PVC pipe water lines for the washer and drier.

8:08 PM - We went to the Baptist church this morning. I wondered how things would be. Would anyone recognized me from thirty years ago when I attended here? Would I recognize anyone? As we went in there were some questioning looks but in retrospect that is because we are new and there is little new here in Stanton. Everyone seems to know everyone else which is to be expected in a town with only 3000 people in it.

Here Cherie was my memory. She pointed out Billie Pinkerton, who did Minnie Lee’s taxes and whom I had known thirty years ago. This is one of the strange parts of the memory loss. I won’t recognize someone’s face but I can remember some events involving them. An older lady came up who obviously knew both Cherie and I. Cherie whispered to me “That’s Peggy Creech, we met her at Minnie Lee’s funeral”. As we talked I remembered that she had given me pictures of Minnie Lee at the funeral. When Billy Pinkerton walked by I said “Hi Billie”. She only stopped to give me a perfunctory reply and after asking when we came to town said she had to get going. I hoped to talk to her after church but she disappeared.

After the service Peggy came by and introduced us to another older couple (If you guys are reading this don’t get upset about me describing you as “older” OK?) The guy went to school with my mother and shared some stories about her. I explained that I never really knew my mother so appreciated learning more of her. Peggy invited us to lunch at the old Dairy Queen, which is now Luchi’s Smokehouse.

As we walked in a woman seated near the door looked up and said “Hi! How are things going”. Cherie looked at me and said “This is the lady from Cap Rock Electric that we saw to get the electric turned on”. As I looked at her she smiled and said “That’s ok. You said you probably wouldn’t recognize me”. She asked how things were working out at the farm and we visited briefly and then had to find a table and order our food.

Now I know that later I will recognize people but only after I have seen them a few times. For now though Cherie is my memory and this morning is a good illustration of that. Without her I would have been a bit lost. We ordered brisket and it was impressively good, at least to me. We had a real good time with Peggy and the other two, who’s name escapes me now. Peggy insisted on paying for our meal which of course is greatly appreciated. We talked about lots of things and stayed long after most of the patrons had finished their meals and left.

About halfway through I started having a slow down. I am sure no one noticed though I had a hard time getting out to go to the bathroom as my right leg wasn’t working well as is often the case with a slow down. I didn’t say a whole lot after that so no one would notice I was slow.

After this we headed for the farm. I told Cherie that I didn’t think I would be up to working not only because of the slow down but I needed to use a bathroom again. Having the runs with only the little potty Minnie Lee had to use didn’t sound to appetizing so we came back here to the hotel room.

They have cable TV here like most hotels do. The movie “Fifty First Dates” was just on. The movie is about short term memory loss caused by a traumatic brain injury. I have seen it before and talked about it in my comment section with Byron, one of the regular readers. However when we watched it this afternoon it was all new to me. This is not unusual as I seldom remember movies till I have seen them several times. I knew Adam Sandler was in it but thought he was the one who had the short term memory loss. No, it was the woman he was falling in love with. Watching the movie again brought up many emotions as I related with the issues she was going through. I am no where as bad as she was portrayed and they showed folks at a medical center for brain injuries who were in real bad shape. Cherie looked at me and said “That could have been you. Your lucky you know”. Yeah I know. I am lucky and blessed.