My 39-year coaching career took my wife and I into six different communities. It has been a wonderful experience and journey. We have dear friends in each of those communities and I must give my wife, Gerry credit for making such terrific friends. She is absolutely a peoples' person...she loves folks...me?...I'm a tad more guarded but that's a story for another day.
On more than a few occasions, my wife's love for friendship gatherings has created lasting memories. I share this: The year was 1965. We had moved to Mason City, Illinois the summer of 1964 in preparation for my first varsity basketball coaching job. Our son, Steve was three years old. After we moved to the home on Tonica Street, Steve made good friends with a kid named Bruce. Steve had pee peed on Bruce's head while playing and suddenly their blood-brothers or something. Bruce and Steve were worthy of watching. One afternoon, they teamed and collected neighborhood mail and brought it to our house. Needless to say that was a rather unpleasant way to make new-neighbor introductions. A few weeks later Bruce and Steve put a wet kitten in our clothes dryer to 'fluff him up." Thank goodness Gerry quickly rescued the feline.
Our next door neighbors were Charles and Ethel. They were late-seventies and Charles never knew Gerry's real name. He insisted on calling her "Gertie." Ethel had advanced dementia if not Alzheimer's. Wearing two dresses at once and sporting hats, Ethel often took off walking to some imaginary meeting. Everybody took turns gathering her back home. She and 3-year old Stevie sat together frequently on Ethel's backyard swing. I wish I had a recording of those chats.
One Sunday after church, Gerry insisted we visit a 60th Wedding Anniversary Party next door in honor of Charles and Ethel. Against my better judgment , I reluctantly agreed. While sitting on a sun room chair with a group of seniors, I noticed Stevie moving towards a dinning room table sporting a large array of Anniversary gifts. Gerry was preoccupied with gibberish-jabber. Suddenly, Stevie grabbed the table cloth and began pulling it. I yelled, "Gertie!" (Hey that was her name in that house!) I then saw my wife sprinting across hardwood floors in her high-heel shoes. As she attempted to stop, she slid and fell to the floor catching a crystal punch Bowl. Spinning around on her butt with her legs spread gave an interesting underpants view to the 'sunroom boys.'
Over the next three years, Gertie was popular with Charles' buddies.
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