Meeting the "D" Family

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Meeting the "D" Family
When I was around 20 years old I had my own apt. and was working for a taxi company. Horrible job but it paid the bills. I met a lady named Donna and she told me she wanted me to meet a friend of hers who lived in the country. Remember I was a city boy and the country was about 7 miles out of town. So we drive out to this lady's house. It's an old brick 3 story farm house at the end of a long lane. It was surrounded by trees and had a bunch of out buildings and a big old barn. There were a few junked cars around and an old school bus. Typical for a Pennsylvania farm. She walked up to the front door and just walked in. I was shocked and appalled. You never just walk into someone's house without knocking first! Hey I was brought up right! There was no one home and I was extremely nervous that they would come home and find us in there. Donna thought I was crazy and kept telling me it was OK. I didn't believe her. We sat awhile at this big yellow kitchen table and finally gave up and left. I was so relieved that we were out of there. We went back a few days later, must have been after Thanksgiving. I met the lady of the house her name was Colletta and she was this neat, down to earth, pixy like person and I liked her right away. We sat and talked at her kitchen table and drank coffee. I'd never drunk coffee before and didn't like it much. When we were leaving she said please come back anytime and believe me I did. I showed up a day or two before Christmas and I didn't leave until a few days after New Year's. She never noticed because the house was full of people. Of course I made myself useful and helped cook and clean up dishes etc., just like everyone else was doing. I slept in the living room with other people who were visiting from places like England, Penn State, Bellefonte, Natrona Heights and Sarver. I'd never met anyone from another country before. Turns out Colletta had a husband named Ed who was very quiet and worked for an Oil company. He was into computers and that's when computers were the size of a small car. He had a couple in the basement. She also had 4 kids named Dru, Jewel, Todd and Laurel and they had a dog named Fella, an Irish Setter and I seem to remember a few cats to. Over the years I visited allot, lived there for a bit and generally became one of her adopted kids. My mom once told me she was happy I found so many new friends and that she was never jealous of the time I spent there. She could have been but my Mom's not like that. That family moved to Houston in the late 70's and they're the reason I moved here in 1980. We're still friends to this day and I wouldn't have it any other way.
posted by Hannen @ 10:20 AM 0 comments
Wednesday