More Highland stories

I posted a little while back about experiences at Highland Church early on in our family saga. It was a seminal time for Barb and I, being part of a church that had almost as many members as our home towns had citizens. Well, my hometown at least.

This was our church home when both our children were born. When the ladies from Bible Class came to clean our house and prepare it to receive our first-born (while I was trying to get some sleep after being at the hospital all night).

This was also the place where the ladies in the nursery embraced Rob in loving arms from day one. He was still in the nursery when we moved to Austin; the ladies refused to promote him to the Toddler's Class. They assured us that those older children might run rough-shod over Rob, and it was much safer to keep him right there with them. That was only the beginning of many such acts of protectionism in Rob's life; most at the hands of older women. Just saying.

And that was the church where one Wednesday night after class a good friend named Bill Gray, owner of Mackey's Sporting Goods, was playing "gotcha" with Rob just after the boy had learned to walk. Bill would crouch down around a corner in the corridor, and whenever Rob came near the edge, Bill would reach out and grab him and yell "Gotcha," and both of them would laugh like crazy.

As toddlers are prone to do, however, Rob got distracted and wandered off, leaving Bill to wait... and wait... and then, hearing someone approach the corner, he jumped out, grabbed one of the Elder's wives around the knees and yelled "Gotcha!". She took it in good grace, saying only, "Hello Bill. It's good to see you, too."