Serendipity
By PAT WICK
Another Day in the Country
It seems that Sunflower Journey's played a rerun the other night which included a small segment about the California Sisters coming back to Ramona from California. Among other folk who had tuned in to watch a Lawrence Welk rerun and stayed tuned for Sunflower Journeys were Lois and Robert Hodge from Emporia. When Bob heard about the old Ramona switchboard that was donated to our Dirt Gambler's Museum in Ramona, he exclaimed, "Lois, remember that poem I found about an old-timey switchboard? Let's find Ramona, meet those girls and give them that poem this weekend."
Serendipity: An aptitude for making fortunate discoveries accidentally. Lois and Bob certainly had serendipity in their lives and they were about to introduce some into mine!
The Hodges had to make one stop before coming to Ramona. Their task was to buy Lois a new dress. Once the dress was purchased, they set their sails north. Robert and Lois didn't know much about the town of Ramona — they had barely found it on the map — so they got here too late to enjoy eating at the Ramona Café but Reign and Marlene were still on Main Street cleaning up after Sunday dinner when these strangers rolled into town.
Shortly after their arrival the phone rang at The Ramona House. It was Marlene calling. She said, "There's someone here who has something for the Dirt Gambler's Museum." No more said than done, I was meeting this charming couple, married for more than 50 years and still obviously delighted with one another. In the past five years, however, Lois has started to lose her sight so she began to learn Braille. Going blind has complicated her life immensely since Lois has been deaf all of her life and depended upon extremely skillful lip reading to stay in the mainstream of any communication going on. She's so good at lip reading that, even with her diminished sight, she could join in our discussion and I would have never known.
"This lady is receiving an award," said her husband Robert with obvious pride and delight, "in Chicago! That's why we had to buy the new dress on the way over here today — so she can celebrate her achievement in learning Braille in fine style. Coming to Ramona was next on the list."
It's folks like Bob and Lois who define serendipity. These two met at Emporia College years and years ago. "She sat on the front row and got straight As and I sat on the back row and looked at her," said Bob with a chuckle. "I was so shy and I was trying to get up nerve to ask her for a date."
Finally, Bob invited her to a basketball game and she said, "No." Bob didn't know that Lois was deaf and had misunderstood what he said. She thought he'd asked her if she played basketball. Eventually, the star-crossed lovers got together, married, lived in Virginia where Bob's work took them, and when they retired they returned to Emporia — their home roost.
For five years Lois has been practicing her Braille reading which has an alphabet of its own and short forms similar to the short forms in shorthand (just in case any of you learned that dying art form in your youth, like I did). "To keep her on her toes," laughed Bob, "I've been bringing home Braille books for her to read that have other languages in them."
"Like Yiddish," exclaims Lois, "Can you imagine the fun I had with that?" Congratulations, Lois, on your award! Any woman who raises three boys deserves an award for that, let alone learning Braille in her retirement years.
"The boys used to try to cover their mouths when they were talking if they didn't want Mama to know what they were saying and she could still figure it out," laughed Bob. "She told those boys it was Momma's intuition, so they might as well not try and keep secrets from her."
Meanwhile, I'm convinced that there is no where that includes more serendipity in 24 hours than when you spend another day in the country.
