Memories of Grandpa

Two years ago today, my grandpa went home to be with the Lord. I was reading Sister's reminiscent blog in memory of him and began thinking of all the great memories I had. Since many of them are different from hers, I thought I would post some of them.

Some of my favorite memories of our Grandparents Richardson include:
-Going over to their apartment in CR and playing with their "Herbie" car and toy dishes
-Birthday lunches with them at McDonald's or Taco Bell:-)
-Grandpa's witty jokes and spunky humor
-I think I asked him every time I saw him to do "There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly"
-I remember when they stayed with us while Mom and Dad were in Papua New Guinea. We were about to go somewhere and Grandpa was sitting on Mom and Dad's bed putting on his shoes. He looked down at his shoe for awhile and finally said "I can't reach down to tie my shoe," at which point I gladly volunteered to do it for him:-)
-that was also the time they stayed with us and he had to spank me 'cause I'd been bad. It was so mortifying! And he spanked hard...
-I remember sitting at their table having lunch and asking Grandpa what the French word for this or that random item was:-)
-I never did know which eye to look at when I talked to him (one eye being lazy and all)!
-I loved that, as much as he began struggling with his Parkinson's, whenever he prayed or sang hymns, he had no trouble speaking or thinking clearly

So many good memories of a wonderful man!

Jerry Jenkins Responds

After a month of waiting to hear back from Jerry Jenkins about Friedrich's Bill, I gave up. I went ahead and sent the letter without his signature on it, rather disappointed that my attempts had failed, but more so that he hadn't even gotten back to me as he said he would.

But all of that changed yesterday.

Stephen went to get the mail and called me from his cell phone. "I have got big news," he said, excitedly.

"What??" I asked, hoping maybe someone gave us a million dollars.

"I just got the mail, and you have a large package of something--"

"That would be my Meleluca from Sister" I said, pleased it had come in. I was wondering if my new Sense and Sensibility had come in, too.

"--and you have a letter from The Jenkins Companies."

My heart practically stopped. The Jenkins Companies? The one I had been waiting for?! "Run home as fast as you can!" I said and quickly hung up to ponder what it could be.

By the time Stephen arrived home, I had convinced myself it was a letter explaining that he couldn't sign the Bill for some reason or another. But I secretly hoped it was the letter, signed by him!

Upon tearing it open, I found that it was indeed the letter.

But it was unsigned.

In confusion, I saw a note written in the right hand corner. This is how it read:

"Ashley- How did it go? What was the response? JJ"

Now I was even more confused. Why hadn't he signed the letter? If he hadn't--why was he asking how it went? What did this mean?! Perhaps he signed a copy and mailed it straight to Jeff?

I immediately picked up the phone and dialed our RS, Jeff. He answered on the third ring.

"Jeff, this is Ashley Nicole. Do you happen to have a letter from me?"

"Yes, it's actually on my desk right in front of me," he responded cheerily.

Pause. "Does it happen to have Jerry Jenkins signature on it?"

"Nooooo....do you have one with Jerry Jenkins signature on it?!" Jeff asked, his voice raising with interest.

I explained to him my predicament and that I had a note from Mr. Jenkins following up on the situation. Jeff sounded quite interested.

"Well, if you wanted to follow up with him on that and get back to me...I mean, if he meant to sign the letter, or wanted to...well, that might turn a lot of heads. His signature would carry a lot of weight, you know?"

Yes, I knew. I told him I'd get back to him.

I mulled it over for the rest of the day and called lots of important people to ask advice. I think my dad gave me the soundest advice. He should know, since he's pretty important himself. I will respond to Mr. Jenkins and ask Jeff to continue running my request through the process. Hopefully Mr. Jenkins made a phone call or wrote a letter to some higher-up to support my request and it will come out at that time.

I'll keep you posted.

The Unfortunate Water Faucet

In one of the many rest stops on the trip, I was attempting to wash my hands. Having come down with a severe cold, I was not "all there" in the head, so I was somewhat groggily shoving my hands under the automatic faucet. It was not very automatic, because it barely ever sensed me, even after many attempts to wave my hands around underneath it. When it finally turned on, a few drops came out, and that was about it.

Ready to give up, I turned toward the air dryer and waited my turn. There were quite a few people around (most of them choralers, people dreaded seeing us pull up), and I found that I couldn't actually move away from the faucet for lack of space, so I simply stayed there.

This did not go over well with the large, older woman in line behind me for the sink. "Excuse me," she said, somewhat forcefully as she shoved in for the sink.

"Oh, sorry," I mumbled, semi-coherently, and moved over a couple of inches.

I was zoning out when I heard the woman grunt, "What did you do, use all the water?"

I came back to reality to see her vain attempts at getting the water to turn on. I had mercy on her. "Oh...you kinda have to, like put your hands under it, and like move them around a lot--"

She broke in "Can you say one sentence without using the word 'like'?" she said, sarcastically, snickering.

I blinked. I wasn't even actually sure what I had said to her at all, my mind was a fog.

"Uhhh...I guess not" I mumbled in confusion.

"I'll give you five bucks if you can," she continued, smiling cynically.

It was now my turn for the air dryer, and I turned away to brush my hands under it and stumble out of the bathroom. A choraler patter my arm in sympathy at the woman's outburst, and another followed me out with exclamations of "what was her problem?!"

I suppose I do use the word "like" too often...especially when I'm sick.

The NYC Surprise

We were driving past NYC on the way to a concert in New Jersey, so we stopped in for some "free time." We were dropped off in Battery Park and told to be back on the bus in 90 minutes sharp. One minute later, and we would be lining Mr. Edmond's pockets with change.

Never having been to the City before, Stephen and I weren't quite sure what to do, out of the million possible options. However, our time constraint whittled down those options, and we settled for a quick MCA ride to Times Square and back.

On the subway, and Laura and I in front of Broadway

After wandering around Times Square for twenty minutes, we had both had enough. It was dirty, loud, crowded, and way over-stimulating. And besides, I wanted to at least see the Statue of Liberty from a distance before getting back on the bus.

So we headed back to Battery Park for a quick picture in front of the Lady. However, Stephen wanted to buy a souvenir "I Love New York" sweatshirt, and I found myself in need of a restroom.

If you know anything about big cities, you know it's next to impossible to find a restroom. However, there was a McDonald's across the street, and Stephen entrusted Chris with walking me there and making sure no one kidnapped me on the way.

We had about 15 minutes before we had to be back to the bus and, already having paid a fine for being two minutes late, I had no intention of doing that again. We practically ran in to the McDonald's and located the bathrooms. It just so happened that Chris needed to use it, too, so he found the guys', and I found the girls' (and yes, this is significant to the story).

I opened the door to the bathroom and found myself second in line for one of the two stalls. That bathroom was tiny. We stood there uncomfortably, waiting...when a large, older woman almost crushed me walking into the room. She looked around with wide eyes.

"Is that person still in here?" she asked, none too quietly, looking around suspiciously. "That person has been in here for a long time. Something is wrong. People shouldn't use the bathroom for this long. I have been waiting for a long time. Why is that person still in that stall?" and on and on until the other girl and I felt quite sorry for said person in stall. After commenting on how she'd been waiting outside for a very long time, we had mercy on her when the back stall opened up, and we allowed her to budge ahead and go in.

But no sooner had she stepped into that stall then she stepped back out. "I can't do it," she said, shaking her head adamantly. "I can't go in that stall. Something is wrong. That person has been in that other stall for a long time!" and she promptly left the room.

The other girl and I exchanged curious and amused glances, and she tentatively walked toward the last stall. She poked her head in, looked around, then looked back at me and shrugged her shoulders. Seemed safe to her.

It was at that moment that the front stall's toilet flushed, and I thought, finally, this poor person is finished using the bathroom. By this point, I was also concerned about making it to the bus on time.

I was not prepared for who stepped out of that stall, though. The door opened, and I looked up...into the eyes of...a man.

I must have looked at him with very wide eyes. He ducked his head and mumbled "sorry...I really had to go" and shuffled quickly out of the bathroom. The other women who had recently come in began gasping and exclaiming, and I tried to stifle my laughter as I bravely walked into the stall. After all, I didn't have time to wait for the other to open up.

I was still smothering smiles and laughter when I walked out of the bathroom to find Chris standing there, arms crossed, waiting. He jumped up when he saw me, shock and concern on his face. "A man....just walked out of there! Are you okay?! What was he doing in there?"

I hurried him toward the door, still trying not to laugh out loud, and assuring I'd tell him everything. As we walked out, two policemen passed us, on their way up to the bathroom.

We made it to Lady Liberty in time to get two fast pictures and run to the bus. We were thirty seconds early:-)

Murder, She Wrote

Instead of spending a million dollars on housing us at hotels every night for two weeks, we spent the nights in "host homes"--the homes of people in the church's where we performed (save a couple of times where we were in hotels). It was a new family every night, which was fun (and also exhausting!). We got to learn about so many different cultures, hear many stories of how people met, married, and came to know Christ. It was amazing, the common bond that perfect strangers have in Christ!

The funnest nights are when you get those...unique people:-) Our first couple was one such experience. We were staying in Tennessee, and this couple, around eighty years old, had the thickest southern accent I had heard in quite some time. They brought us into their home around 10pm that first Monday night of tour and were so excited to show us every detail in their large and bedecked home. They used to own an antique store, and their whole house was full of antiques! Their favorite thing to show us was their master bathroom (that was awkward), and their antique, secretive roll top table, which mysteriously and magically unrolled when they both pulled on the ends.

However, the most interesting thing that happened that night occurred when they were telling us about their four, grown children. Kelver (the man), had mentioned before that their youngest daughter had died, and they had moved to escape the bad memories.

They stopped in front of the wedding pictures of their children, explaining the life story behind each. I was beginning to droop with weariness. When they got to their youngest, Linda said, "and this is our youngest who is now gone."

Kelver took a long look at the picture then, "Yes...her husband unfortunately had her murdered."

I woke up quickly, waiting for them to expound. Since neither one offered more information, I let the subject drop. I must admit, I didn't believe them. I figured, at worst, they were the sad parents of a woman who had had an unhappy marriage and died suddenly and they blamed her husband. I was in for an unpleasant surprise.

As they finished up the tour, Linda spoke up again "Oh, Ashley Nicole" (you have to imagine the accent) "I wrote a book after our daughter was killed, about the healing of our family. I'll give you a copy." She went to the shelf, pulled out the book, and handed it to me.

It was entitled simply, Judy; the murder of our daughter, the healing of our family. Now I was starting to get curious. If she's published a book about it, there had to be something to the story.

We visited for awhile and then turned in for the night. I eagerly picked up the book and began scanning through it quickly to see if there really was truth to their claims. Unfortunately, there was. The short story is their daughter was indeed brutally murdered by her husband...and all for $250,000 in life insurance. He, of course, did not receive the money. He is serving a life sentence + 20 years without parole, in jail.

I didn't know that when I went to sleep that night, though. Needless to say, I was a little on edge.

East Coast Shenanigans

As many of you know, Stephen and I recently toured with the Moody Chorale in their annual Spring Break, two-week, whirlwind tour. And I do mean whirlwind...perhaps more like a tornado. Allow me to enlighten you.

We left at 7 AM, Saturday morning, March 9, We boarded a bus for the six-hour drive into Lousiville Kentucky. We made the trek in a large charter bus and an accompanying van. We were all a little apprehensive since it was said we were driving into a 12-inch snowstorm, and it had already started snowing in Chicago.

We were relieved, however, when the snow quickly died off, and our drive to Louisville was fairly uneventful. But when we got there, we were seriously disappointed to be met with the ten inches of snow that had falled on the unsuspecting (and unprepared) city the night before. I had been looking forward to green grass, sunshine, and warmer temperatures.

It was around 20 degrees as we carefully stepped off the bus over a puddle of slush and headed into a beautiful catherdral for that evening's event. It was a concert in honor of the highly esteemed Dr. Hustad, former Moody chorale director, writer, conductor, performer extraordinaire. It was his 90th birthday, and we were there to sing some of the beautiful songs he had written.

All in all, the evening was a success, and we were off to a good start. It's a good thing we didn't know then what lay in store for us. Here is a brief itenerary of the next few days:

Saturday: 7 am, on the bus in the bus for 6 hours, concert at 7pm
Sunday: concert at 9:30am, on the bus 3 hours, 7pm concert in Nashville, TN
Monday: 5:45 am, on the bus for a 7:30 breakfast concert at the Opryland Hotel, back on the bus for 4 hours, 7PM concert in Virginia
Tuesday: on the bus at 8 am, 8 hours in the bus, 6:30 concert in WV
Wednesday: on the bus at 8 am, 8 hours in the bus, 7:00PM concert in Williamsburg

This was the beggining of our tour. Needless to say, we were all so exhausted by day 4, that when we arrived early to a church, Mr. Edmonds (esteemed conductor, shown here)

would order us all to lie down in the empty sanctuary in pews for power naps.

Other places of interest we hit included, but are not limited to the following: New York City, Washington D.C., Falls Church, Maryland, New Jersey, and Ohio.

Further stories are detailed in more posts:-)

At one church, the pastor walked in to the sanctuary, then promptly walked back out. A friend was in the hall, and he commented to him in bewilderment "they're all in there...asleep!"

East Coast Trip Stories Coming Soon...

For those of you waiting to hear some great stories of our trip out east...you will not be disappointed. I've got some good ones. They will be coming this week and next--I promise! Complete with pictures...and anything else I can think of.