A Phone Call

“Hello?” I answered the phone confidently.

“Yes, hello.  Is this Victoria Wade?” the masculine voice asked on the other line.

“Yes, that’s me,” I replied cheerfully.

“Excellent.  How are you today?” he asked.

‘Should I say that I’m great or that it depends on how this interview goes?’ I thought.  I settled for the standard, “I’m good. And you?”

“Excellent.  So why are you interested in joining the Torrey Honors Institute?” the Director asked, jumping through the formalities and to the heart of the conversation.

Flannelgraph Faith

It was a day like every other day, a night like every Wednesday night, yet heaven reached down to earth that day – January 19, 1994. 

I was a giddy eight year old attending my local AWANA club with my Bible memory book in hand and my little red Sparky vest ironed and buttoned neatly, bedecked with all the crowns and jewels that I had earned over the previous two years.  In fact, I had just turned eight two weeks before, and my dad was to turn thirty-seven the very next day.  Even so, the evening had been like many others.  I arrived just before 6 o’clock and played with my friends until the whistle blew.  I had recited the Bible verses to my leader, Mrs. Campbell, which I had memorized the previous week.  Now I sat eagerly, awaiting the beginning of “Council Time," as we called it.

Mrs. Peggy, as she insisted on being called, rather than Mrs. Berry, was like a grandmother to all of us.  She was our favorite leader, and it was her time to share the lesson tonight.  We cheerfully heard the news and quieted down, sitting up straight with our legs crossed.  We were arranged on colored strips of Velcro by on our color team.  I sat on the blue line, hands folded, as Mrs. Peggy approached the front of room.  She smiled and greeted us, encouraging us to jump up and join her in singing “Father Abraham.”  The entire room echoed, as we sang as loudly as we could, then as softly as we could, left arm and right foot in, turning around, and finally sitting down, laughing and smiling.  That’s when she retrieved the felt board from behind the podium and propped it up beside her stool.

Noontime Nachos

Delightedly munching on another cheesy chip, fingers covered in nacho sauce, I reached for a sip of my ice cold Dr. Pepper. It was Friday and that meant that my mom had given me a respite from ham sandwiches and carrots; instead, giving me two dollars and fifty cents with which to purchase my lunch. I don't know what she expected me to buy. Perhaps she envisioned a cafeteria-made lunch such as meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas, but those little white trays always looked gross, and the smell in the cafeteria often kept me from desiring to enter it. From time to time I would enjoy the French bread pizza or burritos that they kept stocked under the heat lamps, and I loved it when McDonald’s came to campus, but that was usually on Thursdays when I would walk by some of my peers standing in line for those coveted yellow wrapped burgers, while the rest of us walked by with our brown paper bags. Today, however, was Friday.