Sue was gone when I woke up at 7:10 a.m.  I needed to sleep in because I was up until 1:30 a.m..  So was she but she had an early morning commitment to prepare breakfast burritos for the homeless on the streets.  She prepared 320 burritos with help of seven other people.  This group was preparing only one part of the  breakfast.  Someone else made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, another group made chicken salad sandwiches and another group made huge pans of a hot dish.  Cakes and dessert were made by another group.  Drinks were also provided to feed anywhere from 200 to 300 homeless.  They do this once a month on the last Saturday of the month to help the homeless because most of the people have run out of government assisted food stamps by the last week.  Entire families come.

Back on the home front I started the beans cooking and preparing the food to put in the soup later.  With the beans cooking Sue and I left for the downtown area for the Modesto Farmer’s Market.  Sue’s husband  is recovery from a very major back surgery and is currently able to walk around with a walker so he was home and able to turn the beans off at the appropriate time.  Sue’s husband was injured in Vietnam when he was working on a two story water tower on base and was blown off of the tower by a rocket.  He was propelled over three or four vehicles and landed on his head.  The injury eventually caused him to be permanently disabled.  In 2007 he became paralyzed. He had surgery on Feb 23rd.  His back was fused and he had cages, rods and screws put in his entire spine.  I saw the X-rays and they were painful to view.  He is now able to be upright and with the assistance of arm crutches or a walker can  move his feet and legs as he strengthens them in hopes of eventually walking again.

So what do you do in a new city?  Go shopping of course.  We hit some of the resale shops and had a good time just being together. But duty called so we went home to make certain Sue’s husband had what he needed.  Also, we  had to finish the soup we were cooking and eat lunch.  We ate our farmer’s market fare.  So good…

Again we left to hit the rest of the resale shops.  Didn’t quite get to all of them.

And again our stomachs called us home.  This time we had homemade soup that was really, really excellent!  (Even if I do say so myself).  After I cleaned up while Sue helped her husband we are both here in her home business office on our computers.  So…another special day with my friend is coming to a close.  We plan to take it easy tomorrow and go to the late church service so we can sleep in.  How the days get away so quickly I’ll never know.

When I arrived yesterday Sue brought out some old albums of pictures of us and a book I wrote for her  over 43 years ago.  I don’t have the awake power to share some of what I wrote but I hope I can do that tomorrow.  It is interesting for me to read what I wrote so many years ago.  It might surprise some of you.  I’ll try to write an exert of an essay I wrote for a possible scholarship for Bethany Bible College in Santa Cruz CA.  I had included the essay in the book I compiled for her.  I actually won the small scholarship but did not use it as I did not end up attending Bethany Bible College.  Since it is too long to write now I will leave you with one of my words of wisdom I included in her book “For every hour that passes a million are added to eternity and even then eternity has not yet begun”.

One more closing.  I met one of Sue’s closest friend, an 82 year old woman named Betty.  When asked what wisdom she would like to pass on this is what she said

“IF YOU HAVE A DREAM, DON’T WAIT.  START IT TODAY.”  As quoted by Betty.

And so I will…

My dream is to get into bed.  So I will do so.