40 Years -- A Long, Long Time

With memories ready to explode like the cork from a celebratory bottle of champagne, the 1973 alumni of Spring Woods High School gathered for our 40th reunion, gushing and bubbling with excitement as we greeted old friends long absent and gathered new friends now known.

40 years. A long, long time.

The reunion, however, wasn’t long enough to absorb the details of each other’s lives, but it was another new beginning, a time to remember and reminisce and recall how lucky we were to have played together, danced together, laughed together, cheered together, and struggled together for that one brief flicker in our lives called high school.

And thank you, Lord, for name tags, which helped light up those memories grown dim during the past forty years crammed full with life.   

When my mother moved us to Spring Branch during the middle of my freshman year, I was a lost country girl in a suburban school twice the size of my small hometown. I cried every day, spent the weekends with childhood friends in Bellville, and once staged an abduction, tearing off the screen of my bedroom window and hiding in the closet, hoping that my mom would have compassion and let me move back home once I reappeared. It didn’t work. I think her words were, “Becky, come out of that closet right now and clean up this mess!”

But then…God sent me new friends.

Of course, I didn’t realize it was Him. But it was.

And at the reunion, I had a chance to reunite with many of those friends, girls like Ginia Keen who helped me vault the overwhelming hurdle of change and Sharon Burns who was more of a sister than a neighbor and Lisa Jordan whose love of God glowed even then and Kim Tomes whose can-do personality continues to rub off on those around her and Susan Mann who is still one of the most sincere people I’ve ever met and Mary Harrison who faithfully sat with me at lunch that first year and Sally Cobb who looks exactly the same as she did 40 years ago (how does she do that?) and many, many others, an endless list of answered prayers in beautiful faces.

I was scared and shy when I moved to Spring Woods, and I didn’t think I knew a lot of people, but that didn’t matter at our reunion. “For crying out loud, Ian,” I’d tell my husband who insisted on introducing himself as Becky Finch’s husband, “they don’t know who I am!” But I made new friends that way and if anything, Ian helped keep at bay, as he usually does, the lurking shyness that still hovers behind my rather raucous laugh.

And it was “so much fun.”

I think those last three words were the most commonly used ones of the weekend even though it was a time for three-work-phrases that began many conversations:  “I remember when” and “won’t miss another” and “glad I came” and “that is hysterical” and “how are you” and “I can’t hear” or “I can’t see” and “we’re so old” and “no, we’re not!”

And then “thanks so much” to three of our fellow classmates – Denver Griffith, Danny Myhaver, and Neal Carmichael – who provided the fabulous music and “it was awesome” to the dedicated reunion team of Rick Church, Sarah Granbery, Trish Glover, David Standefer, Danny Myhaver, Michael Geffert, Sandra McPherson Smith, Jill Martin Nixon, Jim Campbell, Greg Koch, Leah Hamlin Blackwell, Sandra Guillory Squires, Melanie Smith Engels, Rob Peters, Daphne Simmons Templin, Cathy Tims Hager, Mary Blann Cooper, Sherri Osborne, and Barbara Schuster Morrison.

And a special thanks, of course, to Mitchell Wu, whose genuine enjoyment of our class was obvious even to my husband, a Bellville boy who had asked me for months who Mitchell Wu was!

By the end of the night, my gregarious husband, who had scratched out “Ian Bader” and wrote “Billy Gilly, Micky’s Brother” on his name tag, was approached by a woman who asked him who he was because he seemed to know everyone. At that point, I decided the Bellville-Spring Woods transition had been a success after all, and then I ripped off his name tag and noticed that there were many others on the floor, too, not because they were fake famous people, but because we had stopped being labels and had started being friends who had discovered and rediscovered common interests and heartaches and loves and concerns and struggles behind the name tags we wore.

And we were all grateful to be alive. In fact, the only thing missing from the reunion were those missing from life, not mere names highlighted yellow on a spreadsheet, but fellow friends and classmates remembered and cherished in our hearts like Steve Westbrook, our Tiger mascot and SWHS scholar who later became a successful attorney and who would have loved every minute of the 40^th reunion.

We laughed at our past, remembering monkey-masked boys scrambling out of the ditch at Blue Light Cemetery and crawling into the cars and scaring us half to death. We retold stories, driving through the ditches off Gessner while being chased by Mr. Van who spotted that bright yellow Volkswagon taking us to lunch, the only time we skipped and the only time we got caught. Well, some of us anyway. We talked about teachers, recalling the moment when one of them jumped in the trash can, yelling, “If you treat me like trash, then I’ll be trash!” We remembered. And like everything else, the remembering was great fun, too.   

And we made new memories. Grown women wearing our pajamas, faces scrubbed free of makeup, chatting until 3:30 in the morning. It wasn’t a Tigerette pick-up party, that middle-of-the-night traditional pajama raid which ended at the Tomes’ house every year, but it was equally fun and didn’t hamper us from arriving at breakfast the next morning with our make-up back in place.    

I remember saying “cheesecake” instead of “cheapskate” and noticing that others also mixed up their words and I remember not being able to find my room key because I had left it in the door while I was running around with girl pals and I remember how much fun I had hanging out with Leslie Crow, (remember We Three?) and informing her that I was updating the name to “We Three plus Me” but not telling her that I don’t sing very well.                           

I remember Kim walking through the lobby with the dirty, rusty sewing machine I’d brought her propped on top of her suitcase, a gift once hidden in our old barn and now finding a new home with a lover of antique treasures. I remember the puzzled glances on the faces of those watching and how pointless it was to explain and how hysterically funny I thought that was.

And then all too quickly, a goodbye breakfast of more sparkling smiles and bubbling laughter as promises to stay in touch echoed throughout the Westin and the reunion festivities, so long in the making, fizzled to a final close.  

We graduated from Spring Woods High School 40 years ago.

A long, long time.

For many of us, this was our first reunion. For me, the Good Lord willing, it won’t be my last.

'73 Reunion Website: swhs1973.com 

 

 

Answered Prayers

Thrilled over an answered prayer, I mentioned to Ian how happy I was at the outcome, which was so much more than what I had hoped for. “Thank you, Lord.”

To which Ian commented, “My prayers are answered all the time, every day:  God’s will be done, God’s will be done, God’s will be done. Amen.”

As Pastor Amy reminded us at church one Sunday, “God’s perfect will.” That's the best answer there is.

Our Father, which art in heaven,

 Hallowed be thy Name.

 Thy Kingdom come.

 Thy will be done in earth,

 As it is in heaven.

 Give us this day our daily bread.

 And forgive us our trespasses,

 As we forgive them that trespass against us.

 And lead us not into temptation,

 But deliver us from evil.

 For thine is the kingdom,

The power, and the glory,

For ever and ever.

 Amen.

The Cardboard Lady

          

I confess.

I am the woman digging in the recycling bins behind the dollar store, pulling out all the cardboard I can carry, loading it into a parked Honda Accord, and then driving off in my small, white car crammed with flattened, brown, cardboard boxes.

Yep, that’s me.

I did it. Over and over again.

I haven’t made the Bellville Times yet, nor have I been stopped and questioned by the local police. But it was me.

Granted, I had permission. I politely asked the manager of the store if I could have their cardboard. I asked her on so many different occasions that she finally told me I didn’t have to ask anymore, just take what I needed whenever I wanted.

The cardboard’s for my garden. It’s eco-friendly, easy to use, and free. Plus cardboard screams creativity and experimentation and excitement. And it’s good. It blankets the ground, disintegrating into the soil and actually making it richer in the process.

I use cardboard as the foundation for new garden beds for it kills the weeds without tiling or chemicals. I can plant new cuttings in cardboard boxes, too, and throw the whole thing in the ground. And when I finally finish stomping around outside in my new beds, I can give away plants in cardboard boxes -- decorated, of course!

I love cardboard.

I’ve always had an affinity for it.

When I was growing up on Concordia Drive, one of my favorite things to do was play in a refrigerator box. I remember once, while a bunch of us were playing in one, a neighborhood boy opened a jar full of grasshoppers -- not the little ones but those big, hard, nasty ones that we don’t see too much anymore (ironically, another reason for garden recycling and not pesticide usage). Grasshoppers swarmed in our hair and clothes as we screamed and cried and were overall traumatized. I still cringe whenever I see a grasshopper, regardless the size. But that didn’t stop me from loving cardboard boxes.  

When my boys were young, they, too, played in cardboard boxes, never tiring of what could be built from something so basic.

And yesterday, when I went to lunch with our older son, I discovered his office was filled with cardboard!

And then there’s my husband who was once a cardboard man.

Yep. He was the one.

Ten years ago, you would have seen him in the back seat of a BHS student’s car, tooling around the courthouse square, eating at The Hill, or attending a BHS theater production or basketball game. Normally residing in my high school classroom, he would periodically disappear with my students. Once they left Stone Cold Steve Austin in his place.

Cardboard Ian, however, hasn’t disintegrated. I keep him upstairs where he has been known to scare a visitor not expecting to encounter him in the dark.

Cardboard must be our family quirk. I wonder if we’ll pass it on to our future generations. For now, we’ll just enjoy its benefits.

My name is Becky Bader. I was once a public school teacher. Now I’m the cardboard lady!

  

Time to go Inside

The horns didn’t blow but one wife shouted as her husband’s barns came tumbling down in the back pasture. I was happy to see the barns go; I wasn’t thrilled at the junk that somersaulted out of them. My husband, however, had more fun than a kid at the Austin County Fair as he stumbled across toys and tools and memories long buried in the barn.

The barns fell, but so did Ian’s disposition when I “encouraged” him to let our helpers carry off the junk -- encouraged, then begged, then whined -- bad move for a woman married to a man who has lived on the same corner for most of his 60 years, the land of his father and grandfather and so on. Proud of his Old 300 Stephen F. Austin connection, he loves his land, and he has a hard time letting go of the stuff even if it’s rotten and mildewed and broken. Sorry – not stuff, treasures. It’s all perspective, right? Thirty years ago when Ian and a friend were cleaning out the house we were to restore, they traveled one morning to the dump to unload and were not seen or heard from for the remainder of the day. Something in the water, I used to say. Bellville boys and their toys and treasures.

So encouraging Ian to throw it all away was a bad call. By now, I should have known how to deal with the junk in our lives.  

“Surely this could go,” I pleaded, picking up a rusted, smashed, tin-like contraption even as I picked up on the whoosh of air escaping from his lungs and the look of shock on his face. “That’s the meter I used for a space helmet!”

In other words, get out of here. His immediate thoughts, I’m sure, thoughts soon articulated as he looked at me and sternly stated with the Ian-look that I know too well:  “I think it’s time for you to go inside now.”

Enough said. I did. I love my husband. I’d like to make 35 years.

It took a month. A month of remembering. A month of looking and sorting and tossing and saving before he could do it.

He had to do it in his own way and in his own time.

Bugging him about it made it worse. Presenting logical reasons on why it should go made it worse. Worrying about the neighbors made it worse. It was his junk, not mine. He had to do it in his own time and in his own way. I just needed to go inside and let him deal with what needed to be done.

Sounds a lot like praying for others, doesn’t it? We want to help. We share and reason and worry and sympathize and even get mad. But the junk isn’t ours; it’s theirs. And going inside to pray is one way God lets us truly help.  

A few minutes ago, Ian walked into the room and asked me what I was writing about.   

“You, of course!” I said.

Our joke has always been that if I wasn’t married to him, I wouldn’t have anything to write about! And luckily, he doesn’t mind. We have lots of junk to share.

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8:26-27 NIV).

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18 NIV).

“If you, then, thou you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11 NIV).

 There it goes!

Time to Pick the Vegetables

I enjoy my gardens. I watch the plants grow and weed the beds and water them daily. But I never pick the vegetables. For some crazy reason, I wait for Ian to do it, and then I wonder why we don’t have any squash or bell peppers or tomatoes.

For crying out loud, why don’t I just gather the vegetables? I’m out there anyway – weeding and watering and working!  

Reminds me of the son in the famous story found in Luke 15. Not the infamous son who squandered his money and slept with prostitutes and partied hardy until he ended up wallowing with the pigs; but the other son, the good son, the son who never left but stayed and labored diligently and dutifully his whole life. The one who was furious and resentful when his father loved on the worthless and the drop-out and the sleaze and the mooch of the son who finally returned home.

And why shouldn’t he be mad?

He had stayed and slaved for his father. His words.

He never disobeyed his father. Also his words.

And his father never even gave him a goat. Again, his words.

The older son looked at his compassionate father like an abused slave perceived a demanding master -- as one who didn’t appreciate him, as one who kept things from him, as one who didn’t reward him. As one who owned him and owed him.

The older son saw his father as someone other than who he was. So he refused to go in and join the celebration.

But while he was outside, his father saw him just as the father had seen his younger son.

And his father went to him just as he had gone to his younger son.

And his father listened to his rants of resentment just as he had listened to his younger son’s pleas for forgiveness.

And then his father called him, “My son.”

And he told him the truth:  “You are always with me” and “everything I have is yours.”

The older son had been waiting to be given something he had always had access to.

Mmmm…..Maybe it’s time for me to go pick the vegetables myself.

The Parable of the Lost Son

Luke 15:11-32 NIV

¹¹ Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

¹³ “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴ After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶ He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸ I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ ²⁰ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

²¹ “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

²² “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

²⁸ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.

²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

³⁰ But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

³¹ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.

³² But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”