Page 53 - MLD Book

The medical catastrophies continued on January 28, when Melvin fell over Boccherini, our unhospitable dog who loved us dearly but not everyone else. He broke his shoulder on that one. Then in February, suddenly he couldn’t see out of one eye. An eye doctor at Baptist East sent him to a specialist who literally pulled the eyeball out of the socket! Eventually it fixed itself! Weekly sodium checks at Tom Blanford’s also became the norm, due to the instability of the pesky Warfarin. For somebody like me who steadfastly avoids all things medical, it became an exercise in patience and reinforced my claim that I was not meant to be a nurse. We both began to repeat FOR BETTER-FOR WORSE, and made the best of it.
On the Calvary front, Dick Humke continued as the Priest Associate, thankfully and Ned settled in. I was required to write a job description (standard stuff, he wasn’t picking on me) but when this was brought to light, cries for me to do less started all the more, but nobody ever had a concrete suggestion as to HOW. It didn’t make for totally pleasant working conditions, however, especially with the home situation. Anita, Callie, and Leroy were special friends during all this.
In my annual report on outreach, I was rejoicing in the fact that we were having increasing numbers of food bags – that in 2006, we had given out a whopping 1036, and that had ballooned to 1288 in 2007. And NOW on September 4, 2020, in just 25 weeks, our number is already 2736!!!! (it is now double that in December!) Christ Church Cathedral came on board with First Sunday of the month donations back in 2007, and that has continued also to this day. So food ministry is flourishing, and remains a Calvary tradition – aided now by many others beyond belief. A further pursuit of outreach in 2007 came also with the reception of Jeffrey and Olivia as refugees, and we still are in contact with them.
Ah yes, and then there was Ginger Ray and my ongoing battle with her as to whether the north entry should look like her living room or serve the poor with clothing displayed there. We now had so many clothes to display that we had to bring in two more racks, although she had specified that we were only allowed FOUR, in the guidelines she had set forth. One afternoon she appeared and pulled all but two racks out, broke two, and removed all of the shoes and children’s clothing and put them in her car. It wasn’t a very pleasant scene between the two of us. That led to revised guidelines and a compromise on my part (more work too) that I would remove everything on Saturday and store it in Anita’s office or another place so it would look pretty for Sunday. That went on for a number of years in one form or another until John Allen finally rescued the whole thing by moving us to Parker Hall!!!! Ginger and two of her cohorts appeared every Tuesday to “beautify” Calvary, concentrating on the kitchen and parish hall and generally plaguing Leroy, randomly rearranging everything they could think of. Remember the rearrangement of the library books too, chucking the Dewey Decimal System in favor of the size of the books? The funniest thing was when Anita Richards disregarded our caution not to walk on some newly glued flooring in the Parish Hall. She did anyway and got stuck! I loved it! She was, however, themostcheerfulofthethreeladies. Thesethreeladiesareallnowrearranginginthegreat beyond!
And speaking in those veins, 2007 was the year that Don Allen died under very strange circumstances, having been run over by a van outside Krispy Creme Donuts by a lover, or so the story goes. Louise Senior also died a natural death – she was the one with 12 kids. I remember vividly that they left one at Calvary after church one Sunday and I had to call her to remind her that they had left Judy at church. They hadn’t missed her, and Judy was having a wonderful time with me! Her mother was Ruby Railey, who loved to volunteer to