Time is Never Wasted

I'm supposed to be at a workshop right now, "writing your family stories," sponsored by the Chattanooga Writers Guild, of which I'm a member. We tried to get a grant to have this workshop and the planning committee realized it was too late so we decided to go with the concept and see what happened.

Designed for Hispanics in the community to learn to write their family stories, the committee had translators, facilitators of small groups, and assistants (such as me) all lined up to help. But not one Hispanic signed up for the course.

But God works in mysterious ways and instead over fifteen people heard about the workshop and came to learn to tell their family stories. Men, women, young, middle-aged and old showed up, each on a mission to share their stories and pass them down to their children and grandchildren.

Since there were enough helpers present I decided to leave once we broke off to small groups, knowing that I will be there the last two Thursdays to help if needed. And in the meantime, the CWG Vice-president and I talked and decided this was a good lesson for us in that we need to find out why the Hispanic community was not interested and how great it was that there were so many others who were. This is important too because I am the president-elect for the CWG board which begins a new year next week.

Sometimes when I volunteer for things and then find I'm not needed, I become frustrated but this time I was not. Going downtown after dinner I was treated with so many different delights that I don't often have the pleasure of seeing that it was worth the drive. First of all I followed a line of cars driving slowly down the mountain behind a huge truck filled to the brim with recycled cardboard from the recycle center in town. Most people were being patient, however the car in front of me seemed out of sorts and then I realized they were on the telephone. At least they were not texting!

My son Jason sent me a You Tube video today of a reenactment of a crash that killed a lot of people including a baby, which tore him up. The driver who caused the crash was sending a text message to a friend.

As I crossed the Tennessee River, the cool breeze coming in from the open windows picked up the scent of the new tar the state was pouring on the highway under construction downtown. Oddly it was a pleasant smell. I was amazed at the number of orange barrels lined up along the highway and was reminded of the black kerosene lanterns that lit up the roads when I was a child marking a construction zone.

Coming home, I passed the National Cemetery and saw the symmetry and angles of the headstones lined up one hill after another. The sun setting behind them cast a shadow so that the number of tombs appeared doubled. Out of place were the satellite discs standing behind the offices at the cemetery - beautiful mountain stone building and huge gray discs?

And then I was driving toward town through the university and there was no car, no student, no one in sight but I kept to the speed limit and drifted toward downtown only to look in my rear view mirror and see a car behind me being pulled over by a Chattanooga police car. I guess 25 was too slow for the person behind me.

Happy I was paying attention, I was even more happy when I passed through town to be rewarded with a magnificent sunset. Yellow skies, low clouds orange on the bottom and purple on top and I watched as a breeze passed by me and picked up a group of birds that flew together first swooping down then up then down again all in rhythm as if it were choreographed just for me.

The last thing I saw before I made the climb up my mountain was a crowd in the stadium at the Lookouts baseball game. As I crossed back over the river, the stadium to my right almost close enough to touch I glanced at the scoreboard and heard the crowd cheer. Oh how I love a baseball game at night! And then I realized the last game I went to was over a year ago. How did the time fly? It was Jason and Laura's wedding announcement party and he threw out the first pitch - a treat Laura secured for him. What fun that was. The family laughs at me because I keep score of what each player does at bat. But I get the last laugh when they turn to me and say, "What'd he do last time?"

And so it wasn't a wasted evening. Time is never wasted. Every minute is precious and I'm thankful that I have special events, tranquil drives, beautiful sunsets, and special memories to remind me.