August, 1957. I had turned 21 in June and was in charge of everything that happened in a 6th grade class except music. Yes, even art and physical ed. Hold the laughter please. In that time, when lunch came, we lined up at our door, had a prayer, and walked to the cafeteria. As children were gathering, the child nearest me said, “Miss Wedgeworth, what do you remember about the Civil War?” At that point I realized no matter how young and cute I considered myself, to a large group of my world, I was old. From then on whenever someone asked my age, I just told them, thankful for years and what they had offered.
This very day I will have completed eight decades and five years of the next one. As it unfolds, I will open, maybe in small batches to be savored, cards and notes that have come from many of you. A son and I worked through several ideas of what would be the best ceremony. Having the neighbors come for ice cream and cookies down the driveway was an option until the heat rose in May. Closing off the street for a party that children could skate and draw expanded exponentially with each day until it imploded on itself. All I wanted was that contact with those who have walked various paths with me.
A few of you are still precious who knew the ten and twenty years of childhood and college. Five decades were in classrooms with ties to children who now have grandchildren and with peer teachers who have also retired. Past the age that I thought I could, I had opportunity to camp out, white water raft, and scratch the back of whales rubbing against a boat in Ignacio Bay. I spent fifty-six years being married and raising three children. I have sewed and gardened and put meals on a table to feed bodies and spirits. Underneath all since I came to Houston as a single has been a church that with music, teaching, and people has been everlasting arms each step of the way.
Absolutely perfect! Absolutely not! You don’t need for me to innumerate the dips below zero on the graph. No matter how I felt during those times, I have crossed the rivers and slogged through a swamp and scaled a mountain to look ahead to a half decade that leads to nine groups of ten. Sometimes it is scripture; sometimes poetry. Wendell Berry A Timbered Choir ” I go into the image of a design that mind can follow, but not know.”
And everyday, all of Psalm 139 except verses 19 – 22. I can leave His judgements to Him.
………..and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:24
Let Me Tell Ya 