A Happy, Happy Visit

Who is in that unfamiliar green truck pulling into my drive?

I filed the copy of the Ward Diary I’ve been working on, put on my shoes, and walked to the door to see. I expected some lost stranger looking for directions; that happens a lot on this dead end street.

A beautiful young woman hopped down from the passenger’s seat and ran to meet me. The last time I saw this lady, she was a babe in arms.

Now she’s a bright eight.

Oh, yes, her dad tagged along too.

It was Mike, whom I have not seen in ages; he is my great friend and my eldest daughter’s ex-husband. He is now happily married and he and his wife gave the world their charming daughter, “Call-Me-Bug”.

What a great and happy surprise!

With joy, my mind jumped from the 16^th century to the 21^nd.

You see, Miss. Bug aspires to become a writer. She hounded her dad into bringing her to see a real live writer in his cage.

I think she will make a great writer in the future. I look forward to her first book.

Here’s an aside: The other day in a restaurant I heard someone comment that J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame, is richer than the Queen of England.

Her friend replied, “That’s because she writes better than the Queen of England”!

Anyhow, Miss. Bug followed every word as Mike and I caught up on family history and told each other how much we love our work. Mike is a firefighter. He recently returned from out west where he trained in how to care for Americans injured in a nuclear attack or radiation accident.

He has read an early edition of my book on the history of the Jacksonville Fire Department (a book I’m revising and updating as soon as I clear my desk). Mike is thinking of writing his own book with a strong emphasis on the camaraderie that exists among firefighters.

Miss. Bug, who is eight, tells me she wants to become a writer and study French and other foreign languages. She listened intently as I described my own life and work as a writer. I think she caught a glimpse of how important it is to work at something you love.

This concept permeated our conversation because as divergent as firefighting and writing are as occupations, Mike and I share the same love of what we do and we communicate perfectly on that level.

King Solomon said, “There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God”.

Mike and I are typical examples of this important Bible truth.

Eat. Drink. Find joy in your work. It doesn’t get any better that that!

Like a 50-pound sponge, Miss. Bug, absorbed our chatter as she feed Ginny’s love bird. I hope she learned something valuable. I think she found the visit and talk of writing’s joys educational.

If nothing else, she watched in fascination as I struck a match, fired up my pipe and puffed smoke; that’s something she’d never seen before.

Miss. Bug crinkled her nose at me.

She attached computer wires and cables for me (which I could not see to do) and hooked up my digital camera. Her Dad put new batteries in the camera for me.

I snapped a couple of pictures (Sorry, I don’t know how to do that red-eye thingy).

Miss. Bug is now on the Internet.

Maybe she’ll use one of these pictures on her book jacket someday.