A sweet blessing today

Today I covered a technical meeting of the Board of Construction Appeals in a little room tucked in the back of city hall. The handful of board members were considering adopting changes in three building codes to comply with International Building Standards. There are bunches of these codes, ranging from plumbing to electric to who knows what all. They are updated every couple of years or so, usually when better information becomes available as standard practice in the construction industries.

Anyway, I was the first to arrive, and was fiddling with addressing a letter to a friend to drop in the mailbox after this meeting. The clerk who would be taking the minutes was next in, and behind her was a nice-looking gentleman about my age.

He was a field inspector for the state's construction industry board, attending the meeting to give some explanation to some of the changes in the codes. His main office is in the state capital, just a couple of miles from the house I'm now trying to sell.

Either she or he mentioned his name -- Buddy O.

"Buddy O!" I said. "Did you go to school here?" I asked.
"Yep," he replied.
"Jefferson?" I asked?
"Yep."

I sat there dumbfounded, trying to get my mind around this chance reunion. Three weeks ago I wasn't even in this town, but here I was today, in this little room with Buddy!

He and the clerk took their seats and he looked straight at me, then turned to the clerk.

"Bxxxxx Sxxxxx" he called me by name (no, my name is not Bxxxxx Sxxxx, but pretend you know my maiden name if you don't.)

"She was my first grade sweetheart," he explained to the clerk, with a beaming smile.

My breath left me suddenly. I was flooded with wonderful sweet memories of our early years, playing on the playground, sneaking to the edge of the school lawn, sitting holding hands and k-i-s-s-i-n-g the way 6-year-olds used to do before they ever had a real clue about grown-up kissing. Such joy just started running like hot water through my blood vessels.

I couldn't believe he so readily remembered my name and could place it with this face, some 46 years later. (I guess my kisses back then really carried an impact, you know what I mean? LOL! When I kissed 'em, they stay kissed for decades!!!)

Oh my, I can't tell you what happy thoughts have filled me up. And to see how well he's done, and to know how well I've done, I was thinking how proud Miss Bradshaw would have been of those 6-year-olds, if she just hadn't had to tell them to cut out that mushy stuff.

*Sigh*