B-O-R-N There?
As we drove from Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Glace Bay, on a freezing, windy Sunday, we stopped to enjoy and to photograph the seaside.
While Terry and I stood outdoors and Ray and Garth stayed warm in the car, a man drove up beside us in a little gray car.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Tennessee,” we answered.
“B-o-r-n there?” he asked with genuine enthusiasm.
We told him that, yes, we were. Then he told us about the time he went to Nashville to play old timers ice hockey — and won. He offered to lead us to a place where we could get better pictures.
Terry and IÂ joined our husbands in the car and followed this Caper who is “still perfect after all these years” . . .
. . . to Big Glace Bay Lake. There he told us about what he did there while growing up in Glace Bay. We learned that he had spent his career years away in Toronto, but had retired back home.
When it was almost time to go for a tour of the coal miners’ museum, Blair offered to lead us there. When the tour was over, he was waiting for us and offered to lead us back to the ship. He said that his wife was cleaning that afternoon and had “kicked him out of the house.”
Blair led us back to the ship terminal and dropped us off before following Garth to the car rental office. Then, he brought Garth back to the terminal. He came inside and we snapped this groupie.
We four Tennesseans boarded the ship and began to unwind. “I bet Blair is still on the dock,” I thought. I told the others my thought and we hurried up to the deck; and there he was, just turning to go into the terminal. “Blair! Blair!” we called from the giant ship to the speck of a man on the dock. To our delight, he heard us and we all five waved goodbye.
I remember a song we sang in a round when I was a girl: “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” Both are blessings.
To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic,
brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;
not returning evil for evil or insult for insult,
but giving a blessing instead;
for you were called for the very purpose
that you might inherit a blessing.
1 Peter 3:8-9