Date Night Fright

So here's a funny horrible story.

Last night Mike & I went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary. We had a very lovely time visiting and eating tasty food. Our waiter even talked us into a triple chocolate dessert, even though we were really too full for that. We ordered one to share. Romantic, huh?

A friend of our's happened by our table. She stopped and chatted and, knowing it was our anniversary, asked how many years we'd been married. It was a pleasant little visit. She went back to her own table shortly after our chocolate whatever dessert arrived. I know, I know this does not seem like a horrible story.  Just wait for it, though.

When we were all sweetened up on chocolate, our waiter returned with our check. He said he'd overheard it was our anniversary so he'd "taken care of" the cost of our chocolatey dessert. That was sweet, don't you think? I'm sure he didn't actually have it taken out of his paycheck or anything. I know the waiters get to do stuff like that sometimes. It is meant to build up grateful and faithful clientele. This still doesn't seem like a horrible story, does it? Well, horrible things usually happen when you least expect them.

Our waiter then said something about the anniversary he thought we were celebrating.

He thought it was our 55th anniversary!

55!

I truly hope Mike and I get to celebrate our 55th anniversary, but not until we are 75 years old!

Mike and I were likely looking a bit tired, but did we really look to be 75 years old?!

The dumbest part of the story is this.

I worried that he would feel so embarrassed and bad about his blunder...

...I gave him a big tip.

This is a very sweet photo of an unknown couple.

It is NOT us.

(Photo from Google Images via homesforheroes.wordpress.com) 

They Have a Story to Tell

Something I was thinking about this morning was the simple idea of how we can live in a community of people without ever really knowing each other.  I live in an ordinary town in Wyoming and it is easy for me to think that we have all lived similar lives.  That notion would be so very wrong!

What brought that up this morning was an article in a Wyoming paper about a long-time local resident.  I looked at the photo of her and thought it possible that I'd seen her before, maybe passed her in an aisle of a grocery story or something.  She looks like an ordinary older woman to me.  Her story, though, is not ordinary.  Well, unfortunately it is not that uncommon, actually, but it is not an ordinary story for a Wyoming woman.

This woman, Inge Kutchins, was the youngest daughter of a Jewish widow.  They lived in Germany and she says she was about the same age as Anne Frank.  In her story Inge downplays anything she suffered as it is not comparable to those who were sent to the camps.  She doesn't seem to think of herself as a Holocaust Survivor, at least not in the way of others who were still in Germany during the worst of it.  However, she was sent from her family at age 8.  She was first sent to Switzerland to live with a Catholic family that was harboring Jews.  Later she was sent to the U.S. to live with a Methodist foster family.  She was just growing back her hair after having it shorn for de-lousing, she couldn't speak English and she arrived just in time to celebrate Easter, a holiday totally foreign to her.  She was just a little girl!

As I read the article I was amazed that she wanted to focus her story on those who helped her.  She didn't seem to want to discuss any cruelties she'd experienced, but rather wanted to discuss her gratitude toward all those who made her story have a different ending than so many other German Jewish children her age.  You see what I mean?  This is not an ordinary Wyoming life story.

I also came to know a little Japanese lady who ended up living out her life in Wyoming.  She had quite a story herself.  She told me of being in Hiroshima as a child the day the bomb was dropped!  Can you imagine?  She was pretty little but couldn't forget the fear.  She said her family had nowhere to go.  Ironically, she eventually married an American soldier.  Who would have thought a Hiroshima bomb survivor was living her life, raising her children, in small town Wyoming?

When living in Montana I once met the father of one of my friends when he was visiting.  He was a nice guy, an artist, but I am sorry to admit I didn't spend any time trying to learn about his life.  Later, I did get to know him more, but not personally.  I learned of a book that told his story.  That book,  Tears in the Darkness by Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman, is an eye-opener.

This gentle, elderly man named Ben Steele, lived through that Bataan Death March.  Although I'd heard of that, I'd never studied the horrors of it.  What he lived through is pretty much unfathomable to me.  He had a story to tell that I never even imagined.

So, you are wondering, what is the point of this post?  I don't know.  I wasn't planning this post at all.  I guess I just think I need to pay more attention to individuals.  It is so easy to overlook people.  Have any of you been surprised when you learned a story behind a person's life?