As anyone who read last Friday's quick takes knows we are packing up and leaving Idaho. It will be hard to say goodbye. This is the place our two kids were born, baptized, and have lived their whole lives. Tommy's had amazing medical and social care. I have seen the hand of God in why we were here and in why things have gone certain ways, but it is definitely time to open a new chapter....
This is also the state where I went grouse hunting for the first time. Fun, hardy, birds that just obliterate the quiet when they take flight...Plus they are delicious...I will definitely miss trekking up Moscow Mountain looking for them...But I hear Minnesota has some grouse to be hunted so I will definitely be going out there...
I will miss St. Mary's Church, in addition to being the place where the boys were baptized it has been a wonderful Spirit-filled parish, with good leadership. Fr. Joe who has now retired was wonderful. And Fr. Brian has proven to be a wonderful priest, who demonstrates God's joy and love marvelously from the Altar. Deacon George has been a great friend and has always had time for my questions, no matter how inane. It has been nice having a parish that has always felt like home, from our first Mass, till this weekend when we go to our final Mass there as parishioners...
Too many wonderful people in this place have demonstrated to me that no matter their persuasions they can come together to help when one of their own needs it. I will never forget being handed a $100 check, for an ancient Hi-Ho Cherryo game, at the benefit rummage sale after Tommy was born. Brings me to tears even today to think about someone being so generous for a family and a baby they didn't know...How do you ever repay an entire town's generosity. Because that is one example out of many of the things this town did for us as we struggled to find our way out of the shock of Tommy's beginnings.
I'll probably even miss the Vandals a little. The reason we came to Moscow was for me to take a job with the U of Idaho. After it didn't work out I took perhaps a little too much pleasure in seeing them fail. Now that things have shaken out and I realized God's Hand was in all of it, I can root for them to a certain extent. Never against my Aggies, but against other teams, sure why not.
I'll miss the old rolling hills of wheat, seemingly always brown, seemingly always with a little stubble on them. This place has gotten into my soul a bit, I'll admit it.
But come on...Look at it...
Hot Stove time for MLB. Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder will be the top dogs on the market this year. I wonder if new Cubs GM Theo Epstein will try and make a splash by luring one of them to Wrigley Field. I mean it's a band box of a field and either one of them could literally leave the yard with some of their monster shots. Plus I think Theo wants to find something to show Cubbies Fans he is serious about doing for them what he did in Boston.
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