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The Big Five Oh Monday, Feb. 23, 2009 - 12:39 a.m. Yesterday, Sunday the 22nd of February 2009, John and I had the unprecedented pleasure of going to the Loma Rica Community Church, just outside of Marysville and up the hill a ways. My father's younger sister, Marcia and her husband Lonnie were getting married again on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Maybe this is an inadequate way to express this, and I realize there are other places equally as amazing -- but it has been a very long time since I went into a church that seems to have been populated with actual Christians. We got rained on and RAINED on, but it was still a scenic trip, especially when we took a wrong turn for about fifteen minutes. Finally, about ten minutes late, we scrunched into the church's gravel parking lot and started to gather up to get out and go in -- and I was relieved to see another driver arriving late like we were. And out of that car came my younger brother, Jon, whom I haven't seen in person since October of 2003. So, in we three went. --- From the moment we were seated, the atmosphere was one of peace and love and an absolutely astonishing sense of belonging. First, the wedding renewal, followed by people getting up to give remembrances on through to the buffet and the cake -- it was a really good day. --- Here's the pastor, Wayne Vincent, who welcomed everyone, and observed that he wished he could get as full a house like this at a regular Sunday service: Here I am with my little brother. He is four and a half years my junior, but fifteen inches taller than I am: And here are Marcia and Lonnie, cutting the cake: I saw Marcia & Lonnie's daughter Kimmy for the first time in thirty years; stood still for eleventy thousand skebillion photographs, and spent time looking at family photographs and listening to stories. Finally, it was just simply time to get going, and John and I and Jon headed on out and drove away. --- I accidentally scared the crap out of my husband by suggesting a shortcut, which turned out to be sparsely populated, and even more sparsley paved: Jack Slough Road goes left from the Woodruff cutoff. It meanders through farmland and sneaks back over a levee into the northeast part of Marysville, and saves about ten minutes of driving on Highway 20. The last time John and I had taken this road, about fifteen years ago, it had been sunny and the potholes were more easily discerned. The potholes on Jack Slough Road have never been that deep or car-endangering. However, they look much worse than they really are when they have two inches of water in them, and a car jounces through them. But we did manage to get back into Marysville and head through a McDonald's drive-through before we went back to the room. I will have a write-up of the room condition soon. Heh heh. Anyway, it was a wonderful day, and we traveled safely in the rain, and made old and new connections. --- That's it. Have a good Monday! ---
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