Yesterday, after my visit with Roman at the rest home, I had lunch with Ozzie Bender. We first met in 1970 when we worked on the same floor at Weyerhaueser Company. From 1973 till 1984 we were practically neighbors in Tacoma. I am not sure why I lost track of Ozzie and his Belgian wife Liliane. We had a lot to catch up on. We stopped to see two of his three daughters. The oldest, Maureen, used to baby sit Lisa and Rose Marie in the mid seventies. Lisa has her 46th birthday today.
I went to 8.30 mass at my former parish church, Saint Nicholas, in Gig Harbor. It will probably be the last time I’ll see the familiar faces of my brothers and sisters there, for the next couple of years. It was a beautiful warm sunny spring day, after the fog burnt off. I rode Lisa’s bicycle to Federal Way and back. Tyler, my 14 year old and youngest grandson had a baseball game there. He played a good game and he is an awesome pitcher. The sun brought out the smells of the spring blossoms, in particular the sweet cinnamon scent of the cottonwoods, and sunday afternoon barbecues. Later this week I’ll be driving up to Vancouver and Bellingham again.