Page 84 - MLD Book

a number of Calvary people, including Miss Myrtle the Turtle Abnia – remember that she left Maria money in her will – who always brought her lunch). Michelle went with Melvin the St. Francis in those early years and Maria with me to Calvary. Marion had rather poor health, and starting a couple of years before she died, I took them communion every Sunday after church. I always looked forward to going there and it was hard to say goodbye, She joined Melvin, LaNell, and a host of other friends in the Calvary Burial Ground. Poor Harold still grieves for her as he is now stuck in quarantine in a nursing home. Hard to accept such a fate for such a friendly, generous person. I will never forget when I took Lee to visit Harold after Marion died and he was giving away some of her things. He looked at Lee and said, “What size underpants do you wear?” That was their first meeting!
My 2011 blue car really started acting up at the beginning of the year, and I got stuck at Calvary more than once when it would not start. So on March 1, Walt Morris and I went to Wyler Honda and got a new one, this one red of course to signify my athletic allegiance to the Cardinals. The ridiculous salesman insisted that I should take out a loan to pay for the car, and when I refused, he had to get the manager who finally explained to him that when you write a check for the whole amount, you don’t need a loan! Duh! The car has done well mostly, except when I ran into a curb once and a garbage can another time. Another big expenditure for which I am grateful each day as Clara does her ablutions, was the building of a new fence enclosing our entire back yard. Before that, I had many adventures with both Maggie and Clara digging holes in the bottom rotting wood and escaping for greener pastures. So far, Clara has not figured the new one out!
Outreach continued to be the highlight of 2019, especially our regular Thursday visits to the Well. By now, we knew all the regulars at the viaduct, so when the city decided to crack down on them right before Derby so they would be out of sight for the big event, we tried to help the best we could. Kim Morrow had been a regular there ever since we started going in 2017, and she persuaded us to let her store her stuff in the Calvary basement “temporarily.” Tom Gift nicely transported tons of stuff to the basement. After a week, it was
apparent that she did not intend to move it, and of course the building and grounds
committee threw a humongous fit, led by Ruth and
Willy. (Note – Will Cary persists in calling me Margie,
which I hate, so I reciprocate by Willy, for which he has
thesameregard!). Timtooksomestufftohisplaceand
I took 12 sacks to my place (8 are still here!). I started
doing their washing and ended up doing 65 loads over 6
months, -maybeacoupleoftimestheysaidthankyou.
Kim and her friend Tonya began sleeping on the front
porch at Calvary. I’m leaving out a lot of details, but they ended up sleeping in the Calvary garden for a period of time, and spending the days hunkered down in our kitchen. They