Psalm 46:10

"Be still, and know that I am God;  I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."


Time to catch up a bit with the past.  I met my North Dakota man by one of the lakes in The Land of 10,000 Lakes.  I had just broken off a relationship with a man from Northern India, and I was done with men.  When I received my hand-me-down of a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down invitation to the lake cabin, I went for the lake, not the social experience.

To explain the "hand-me-down" bit; I was part of the Josten's Catalog Card Company (CCC) group of single people.  The other local groups were the Concordia College graduates group and the Unisys group.  Some people belonged to two of the groups, thereby creating an overlap.  For example, V. belonged to the Concordia group and the CCC group, and J. belonged to the Concordia and the Unisys groups.  J. was going to use his parents' cabin in northern Minnesota for a weekend with his friends.  He invited people from the Concordia group and the Unisys group.  M., who knew J. from Concordia got invited, but she could not go.  She recommended that J. invite V.  V. could not make it, so she suggested that J. invite little ol' me, from the CCC group.

We, the invited, were to rendezvous at M.'s Minneapolis apartment and then head to the cabin together in a caravan.  All in all a pretty amazing event in the days before cell phones.  We waited and waited, but ended up leaving Minneapolis for the lake sans one invitee.  It was dark and the mosquitoes were ferocious when we arrived at our destination.  And there was the missing member of our merry band.  A. said he had been at M.'s apartment and he had rung the bell several times and nobody answered.  He made the executive decision to head north alone.  We caught him just before he was going to give up and go home.  Turns out the doorbell was broken.  O dear.

Since we were all present and accounted for, our next goal was to transport our luggage from our vehicles to the rowboat to the cabin.  This took some teamwork on all our parts.  I knew everyone else from the group except A.  I was totally done with men and wanted to get any introductions over.  As we passed one another, hauling and loading our gear, I said, "Hello I'm Susan, who are you?"  I said this with all the warm, engaged, excited interest I would presently grant a vampire bat.  No, I am not fond of bats.  He said his name was A. and we continued our quest.

Eventually our meld of Concordia, Unisys and CCC people were settled into the cabin.  Turns out they all were avid card players, except me.  I perched on top of a nearby bunk-bed and watched the action.  How very odd.  A. was winning all the games.  He had a haircut that faithfully mimicked the bowl someone must have place on his head and used as a trimming guide.  A. had long bangs that came straight down to his blue eyes.  Despite winning every game, he still had time to peek up at me.  Pretty often, too.

To be continued!!  Today's treasure was any part I played in helping an autistic second grader to stay in his classroom, rather than running in the hall, out to the playground, or, heaven forbid, away from the school.