A Little Slice Life From the Adventures of Bill and Sheila

This was a strange Saturday.  My honorary uncle Sam Barnes had emergency heart surgery yesterday, so the first stop of the day after breakfast was St. John's coronary care unit. But, breakfast starts the story.

Since we were headed toward that neighborhood anyway, Sheila and I decided to have breakfast at El Rio Verde which is purported to be the best authentic Mexican place in town.  It isn't really, there are a couple of better places, but it is good and it does serve breakfast .... sort of at least.  I ordered decaf coffee.  So sorry, no decaf.  I ordered horchata.  I had to ask the waitress twice to get that and when she delivered the glass it was INSTANT made from powder stirred up in the glass.  I ordered a chicken fajita omelet made with egg whites and no cheese.  We waited while some Mexican customers who came in after us got their food.  When the omelet finally arrived, the waitress explained that the chef would not make an egg white omelet.  By then, we were running out of time and I didn't want to fool with sending it back.  So, I just pulled the eggs off and ate the filling along with some so-so at best tex mex hashbrowns.  No apologies.  So, as we were getting ready to leave I looked over at Sheila and slowly mouthed to her so the waitress could see, "UNO DOLARES PROPINO.  NO MAS."  THEN there was an apology.

We then proceeded to St. Johns.  I took my uke and my tablet with some old family pictures on it.  I also took Sam a small uke for him to play while he is convalescing.  I played for him a while and then we looked at some old family pictures.  Then we settled in for a nice long visit with Sam regaling me with tales about my ancestors.  It was a good visit despite the circumstances.  I enjoy old Sam.  He is a talker.  I just got a text from Sam's daughter telling me that he is doing well enough to go home.  So, Sam will sleep in his own bed tonight with two new stints to keep him going strong a while longer.

A friend of Sheila's died last week.  The funeral was in Nowata this afternoon.  We arrived in Nowata about an hour before the funeral and decided to have a light lunch at the Bliss Restaurant, which appeared to be the only sit down eating establishment in town except for Pizza Hut.  Sheila ordered the meatloaf.  I ordered the fried chicken.  Sheila and I then asked where the bathrooms were.  The proprietress explained to us that there were no inside toilets and gave us the keys to the gas station style outdoor bathrooms around back.  That was an experience in and of itself.

When we returned, our food had arrived.  My fried chicken meal was about two notches below a bad KFC but it was edible .... sort of.  But, Sheila's meatloaf was without a doubt the most disgusting thing I have ever seen a restaurant put on a customer's plate.  To start with, it appeared about two days old, dried out and burned on top.  The hamburger had apparently been heavily cut with some other substance. And, the taste was awful.  I used to feed my Dobermans far better dog food than that piece of meatloaf.  It was so disgusting we actually took a picture of it.

The funeral was held at a very nice little funeral chapel on main street that appeared to be a converted store front.  It was just right for a small service. Everything was handled very well.  It was all quite touching.

Bill Manning was a PHD engineer. Bill's brother Frank Manning is something of a legend at TU and has been like a member of the family to Sheila and I for decades.  Bill and Frank were twin brothers.  They were born in Barbados and educated in Canada before immigrating to the US.  Bill Manning was a mathematical genius with a true photographic memory.  He was also a formidable college athlete in his day.  There were only a few people at the funeral but it was probably the highest concentration of advanced degrees and college professors the town of Nowata had ever seen.  For many years, Sheila worked for Bill as an assistant proctor of the Registered Professional Engineering Examination in the Eastern Oklahoma testing region. Now that Bill is gone, Sheila will be the proctor.

It's a long way from the sunny beaches of Barbados where Bill was born to the little prairie cemetery in Nowata, Oklahoma where he now rests.  The path between the two places must have been quite a story.  My theology tells me otherwise but I would like to think that somehow old Bill's spirit is back on Barbados now, young, happy, swimming like a fish and basking in the tropical sun he was born under.  We did not get to stay for the graveside service.  I had a marriage counseling appointment with a young man back in Tulsa that required us to head straight back.

By sixish, Sheila and I were eating carryout hot wings and sushi on our deck.  Sheila had wanted me to play uke some more this morning when Sam wanted to talk.  So, I played for her a while this evening and then gave her a uke lesson so she could start learning to play for herself.  She did well.

It was a busy day, with a little bit of everything, bad food and bad service, lots of windshield time, a good visit with an honorary uncle I have come to love, the funeral of a truly remarkable man, an intense hour trying to save a marriage and at the end of the day a quiet hour on the deck with Sheila.  I guess you could call that a little slice of  life in the Adventures of Bill and Sheila.