If ever there's a group worth burning a few gallons of gas and spending bridge toll on, it's the Tacoma Concert Band and the best location to watch any group is the Tobey Jones Home which is right by Point Defiance Park, so that's where I headed last night for an evening of pure enjoyment. The band and singer were great, but the conversation with the older gentleman leaning against a tree next to me was even more enjoyable. His wife is a resident at the home and is slowly dying. He lives in Ruston and comes each day to spend time with her...he holds her hand, feeds her and though she doesn't say anything, he thinks she knows him. I am still lamenting the loss of my friend, but I am so glad he was able to go so quickly and not linger on and on. As we talked, and granted he talked too much and even admitted that he knows he talks too much, we found we had both married a croatian...his wife grew up in Tacoma and he in Connecticut, they met while he was stationed at Fort Lewis, but he and my husband had both been stationed in Anchorage during the Korean war....thank goodness.
He had been great friends with my husbands cousin in Tacoma, because they both worked in law inforcement. It's a small world and we both knew a lot of the same folks.
His son plays in the South Carolina Symphony in Charleston and it was fun hearing about that. As I walked back to my car, I said a prayer that his wife can take that next step on her great journey and he can begin the next phase of his life, one of which would be to visit his son's family in South Carolina, but only when his sweetheart is at last free.
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