Terre Haute (Sun., Mon., Tues.)

Sunday was a pretty uneventful day, so we all got to rest a bit.  We went to church, then to town for lunch at Old Tyme.  In the afternoon, Joe took his mother back down to the parish hall to a graduation party, and we had our evening card game.

Monday was my Terre Haute day, and I got a pretty early start.  I left the house about 8:00, but the farmers are out in full force and I got behind a tractor pulling some kind of contraption right down the middle of the road.  I split off from it and went through the drive-through at McDonalds for a breakfast sandwich, but I caught back up with this guy just as I got off the 41 bypass.  Lucky for me, he went straight there where I took the exit to Terre Haute.

As I drove up Hwy 41 to Terre Haute and took Poplar Street across town, I saw some familiar buildings and many new ones.  One big surprise was a new Baesler's Grocery Store at 25th and Poplar.  When we first got married, Joe stocked IGA stores and Baeslers IGA was on his route -- at that time it was just a small store on 25th Street, but it was my closest grocery store so that's where I did most of my shopping.  Now it's a new, big store, and it has everything, and I was told that it is the only grocery store in town where you can buy Boars Head meats.

 My first stop was a visit with my college roommate, Linda Chiado, whom I hadn't seen for about 40 years.  We had a great time reminiscing, and she remembered things I had totally forgotten, such as our renting a bicycle built for 2 to ride around Terre Haute, and our attempt to rent a car to drive home (unfortunately, we didn't have a credit card in those days so we were unsuccessful in that endeavor).  She even had some pictures from our college days that I was not aware of.  These are circa 1967, during my Indiana State days.

Linda lives in a pretty brick house on the east side of town, and we made a quick drive past our old house when we went to lunch.  Linda and her husband have done extensive international travel, and since our retirement we've done a fair share of RVing in the U.S., so we had lots of travel stories to share.

From Linda's, I stopped by and visited with Audrey Williams, the "second mother" of my children and my babysitter for about 9-10 years.  We always enjoy catching up with each other and updating the news of our children.  Audrey bakes wedding and birthday cakes and I had brought her two bottles of clear vanilla from Mexico, which she was glad to get it because she said she had just run out of vanilla.   Audrey had crocheted a beautiful baby quilt for John and Bridgette, so we have another gift to deliver to Florida.   Audrey is anticipating double knee replacement surgery in June so we will be praying for her speedy recovery.

I drove over to Brazil for my last visit, which was with my old co-worker friend from our IMC days, Diane Braden.  As I left Linda's and turned onto what is now Hwy 40 bypass I guess, I saw my first live Indiana deer.

When I called Diane to tell her I was on my way, she said she was her grandson's "meals on wheels" and had to run over to the high school with some food for him because he had a baseball game after school, but she was home when I got there.  We shared old memories and laughed a lot.  It's always a pleasure to spend time with her.

With a threat of thunderstorms and possible tornadoes in the area, I headed back to Terre Haute for a White Castle hamburger stop, and then on to Vincennes.  Poor Joe hasn't yet had his White Castles -- in fact he seriously considered accompanying me today to Terre Haute just for the White Castles.    I made it home safely, it didn't even rain on me, and arrived at the house to more company -- Lori and Jim had driven down from Ft. Wayne.  Judy had cooked dinner tonight (stir-fry) but they had dinner over and the dishes all washed when I arrived (so I didn't have to circle the block for a while).  Everyone was tired so I don't think we played cards that night.

 When I walked in the house, Lori said, "Aunt Wilma, grab your camera, I'm going to make your blog."  So I did, and she took me outside.  To this empty crate.

The story is that Lori spotted a turtle crossing the road here at Lucille's, and Dixie told her to go rescue it for me.  However, the turtle, affectionately now named Houdini, escaped this "jail" and was no where to be seen.  But, Lori says it was this big.

We had thunderstorms during the night but nothing too alarming, and I believe Lucille's weather alarm has been unplugged (thank goodness!!!).

Tuesday I had lunch plans with Barbara and Sandy Ivers, another lifelong friend from my childhood days that we had seen briefly last week.  We took up space for a couple hours at "P Fections" and had a great time. Growing up, I spent a lot of time at Sandy's, both as a visitor and as a babysitter.  I rode to many basketball games with her family (she was a cheerleader my senior year when she was a freshman year, and she even remembered (which I had forgotten) that her parents allowed her to go to Junior Prom with her future husband, John Ivers, only if she rode to the prom with me, and then her mom picked her up (this was also during her freshman year).  My how time flies!

From there, Barbara dragged me into a Urologist's office (she said she made us an appointment), and once inside I learned that Sandy's sister, Jackie, worked at the front desk there, so we had a nice visit with her (and they didn't do any examinations on me).  After a drive through the cemetery to say hello to Barbara's parents and the many friends that she takes care of the graves of, we went back out to the house and Barbara came in to visit for a while and share her sunny nature with our family again.  Barbara now is a "front door" friend and no longer comes in the back door -- not sure if this is a step up or a step down, but she seems to think it worthy of note.

Lori cooked a delicious lasagne dinner for the 8 of us tonight, then Mike called and asked what was for dinner and did we have enough, so we stretched the meal out to take care of 13.  I've had that experience before -- I started breakfast last year for 5 and ended up with 19. We just never know how many we are feeding, but sometimes we end us with lots of leftovers.  Mike, Rachelle and the kids visited for a while but they still have 2 days of school left so they headed home and we started our nightly card game.  I picked up a package of coasters the other day with the suits of a deck of cards to help all of us remember what trump is.  Lucille is not overly willing to glance over at the coaster to see what suit is on top (she doesn't ever want us to think she might make a mistake) but we all tend to forget what trump is so it seems to be helping.  Since we lost all three games to Joe, Dixie and Judy, I'm thinking it might be helping the competition more than the other team (Lucille, Fred, and me).  But tomorrow night's another night, so maybe we will even the score.  We are scheduled to go back to Monroe City to Clayton and Mallory's baseball game on Wednesday evening, but the weather report is not very promising.  However, Bobe's Pizza is on the agenda for Wednesday, Lori's last night before she heads back to Ft. Wayne, so we will be going to town then.

For those wondering about last weekend's huge power ball lottery, Zephyrhills is just north of Tampa, Florida, and John and Bridgette live just east of Tampa in Seffner.  But he tells us they did NOT purchase their lottery ticket in Zephyrhills.  We will be heading that way next week (to arrive probably 3 weeks later) so we will see if he is holding out on us.