Tonight, my parents went to the 70th birthday part of a member of my parents' Sunday School class, Floyd. I've met him and his wife, Becky, before at church and at a few get-togethers at my parents' house, but I don't know them very well. I could tell my mom wanted to spend more time together (we got our nails done and poked around antique stores this afternoon) and that they expected to not know a lot of the people there. Floyd is a car enthusiast (he drove his Edsel) and his car club was most of the people there. So I went, mainly to keep my parents company.
No need, of course. My parents never met strangers (my sister and I come by it honestly) and enough of their Sunday School class was present that they were kept socially happy the entire time. I settled in to ignore people after wishing the birthday boy happiness, only to be bombarded by his wife (who might be one of my favorites). Soon I was talking to people there about tracing family lines, NYC, and other various topics. We stayed around after everyone had left to help clean up and chat with Floyd and Becky.
It struck me, later, how something I had no interest in doing produced some beautiful moments. An elderly couple told me how they were both from OKC, but he had moved to California as a child. Incredible happenstance brought them together, back in OKC as young adults. His parents were welders during WWII. His mother was so small, they put her in the tight places to weld since she could fit. We discussed how my maternal grandfather couldn't join because he was so small, all his uniforms would have had to be custom fitted, so he made A26 Invaders in Tulsa, where he met my grandmother, who was a wing inspector for the B24 Liberator made in the same factory. It was just a lovely moment.
So we go to things we don't care about, but if we go with an open mind, sometimes we'll leave with a beautiful new moment.
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