Family Ties

Reunion.

 Some words simply explain themselves. What a delightful thing it is to reconnect.

If you had been spying on me the past few days you would have seen that I was glued at the hip with my good friend, Dianne. You would have seen a lot of smiles and a lots of hugs and if you could have heard, you would have heard a lot of encouraging words. We really do love each other a lot.

There are not very many people in the world who have known me as long as Dianne has. When she was six years old she saw me come home from the hospital. She remembers my very first house better than I do. My parents were like family to  her and her parents were like family to me. Our parents had been best friends for a very long time. Our dads went hunting together. Our moms went shopping together.We went to church together on Sundays and often out to lunch afterwards. Dressed up in our beautiful church dresses and shoes, we ate at places like 'Three Sons's' or 'Seddon's.'  Both had spaghetti and meatballs on the menu, which made me very happy.  The meals always came with salad and bread. The salads consisted of iceberg lettuce with the obligatory julienned carrot, a bit of celery, tomato, and purple onion. I loved thousand island dressing. My goal at each and every one of these meals was two-fold: don't spill my coke and don't get any stains on my pretty church dress. If I were successful with the latter, I earned a quarter, enough money to buy a whole roll of sour cherry hard candies, my absolute favorite. I usually failed miserably. My nickname, 'Spill-it, drop-it, Break-it', was well earned. Sometimes my dad felt sorry for me and gave me a wink and a quarter anyway. Oh how I loved that man.

Dianne was in high school and going on dates when I was still a little dorky thing. I imagined her sitting next to a cute guy in a hot rod car as he drove through the Fat Boy to show her off.  It was like having a big sister, but without the daily sibling rivalry. Jan, Dianne's little sister, and Roxanne, my big sister, were the same age, about eighteen months older than me. When we were little girls, Jan and Roxanne played together a lot. They liked dolls and playing make believe and girl stuff. I was the youngest child and apparently a hazard when it came to breaking things, so touching other peoples toys was off limits for me. Thankfully the Barnetts had a beautiful baby grand piano with classical music on display. Since I started playing the piano at the age of four, I found myself at home in their formal living room practicing music by composers like Beethoven, Mozart or Hayden. I truly was fine with that. At some point I came to realize that I didn't really like dolls anyway. I liked playing kick ball or tennis or kick the can or cards or board games, but I just never enjoyed dolls. I liked rock 'em sock 'em robots, vac-u-form, twiddly winks, erector sets,  and old maid. I liked climbing trees, playing in mud puddles, and jumping on my pogo stick. I loved riding my bike and anybody's horse. But I didn't like playing with dolls.  Dianne and Jan were artistic, and they were good at stuff like tap dance, jazz,  and ballet. Years later Jan taught me how to dance, and because of that I enjoyed two glorious years as a member of the Red Wing Drill Team.  It was good that we all had our own interests, as competition never entered the picture. Fun fact: Roxanne and Jan both played the accordion. And they were good. Unfortunately, in the sixties and seventies there just weren't a lot of opportunities to use that talent, so they both gave it up. Dianne painted the blue devil in the center of our junior high school basketball court. Every time I walked out onto that court to cheer for the basketball team, or for any other reason, I welled up with pride. I knew the artist. As far as I know it is still there to this day. When she came to visit she brought me a few gifts, one of which was something beautiful that she painted just for me. Amazing.

 Charles, Dianne's father, was our family physician, and my dad had been his best friend since they had a fistfight on the playground of Lincoln Elementary School. (I don't know who won, but I just assume it was my dad, of course.) My dad died before my wedding day, so Charles donned a tuxedo, (a huge deal,) and walked me down the aisle. He stepped up to the plate over and over again to help us after my dad died.  Both of our dads are in heaven now, and our mothers are approaching their ninetieth birthdays. Helen and Charles have a namesake: Helen Charlene. Yes. It's me.  I never knew them as Dr. and Mrs. Barnett, except to mail something to them or introduce them to others. To me, they were Helen and Charles. I never thought of it as strange. Jan and Dianne addressed my parents as Jim and Augie. I knew the Barnett's address and phone number by heart from the time I was tiny. I knew that if I were ever in need of anything and I couldn't reach my own parents all I had to do was call Helen and Charles.  Most people know me as Charlene, but new laws require that my driver's license and any official or travel documents be listed as Helen. So more and more people call me Helen these days, and I love it now. It always makes me think of my Helen. She has and always will be one of the most precious people the Lord placed into my life.

Regularly our two families traveled to Columbus for shopping trips (Lazarus!) and sometimes we would have dinner at the Kahiki, an exotic, Polynesian-style restaurant that was kind of like having dinner in the Tiki Room at Disneyland, minus the crooning birds and flowers, but including the thunderstorms and waterfalls. Dinner at the Kahiki was always so exciting that I had trouble falling asleep before such trips. Other stuff that we did with the Barnett family: We traveled to the mountains or the beach or the lake together. We went for boat rides on the Ohio River. We had picnics. We ate ice cream at Broughton's. We celebrated holidays, like Christmas and New Year's Eve. Charles loved technology. Long before anyone had ever seen such a crazy thing, he figured out how to make his Christmas lights blink in rhythm to his music. That was one of the 'neatest' things I had ever seen. That, and his really cool miniature train that went fast and let off steam and whistled as it traveled around and around the extra large Christmas display in their family room.

In 1970 we took a trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey to see the Miss America pageant. It was a very special trip because Miss West Virginia was our very own Dianne! Glowing with beauty inside and out, she represented our state with such poise. I remember wondering what it would be like to perform in front of such a large crowd and TV audience. I remember thinking that I would surely have scraped my leg or arm on something or have a bruise somewhere or maybe I would just trip and fall in my evening gown. I remember being so very proud of her, and also so glad that it was not something I would ever be required to do!  Years later she kind of suggested that I could play the piano and try out, but then I showed her my legs. I guess she had forgotten. They were made for athletic endeavors, not bathing suit competitions. It's okay. I knew I wasn't beauty queen material, but not everyone is. Years later Dianne would be there to support our friend, Patsy Paugh Ramsey, the 1977 Miss West Virginia, after her daughter, Jon Benet, was murdered. Dianne still mentors young ladies, and will do so again this summer at the Miss West Virginia Pageant at the Greenbriar Resort.

As easy as it has been for Dianne and I to stay close, it has been difficult on our sisters. They have drifted away from us and from each other, but a couple days ago, an amazing thing happened. As Dianne and I were here in Charleston having our reunion, our sisters got together in Parkersburg. It was a beautiful thing....more beautiful than it would have appeared to the casual onlooker.  Our mothers called each other and celebrated. They probably cried. I know we did, and we thanked our sweet Lord.

Yes, reunion is a good thing. A very good thing indeed.