Dear Dougie

Always a clown.  Here he today trying on a new pair of reading glasses. We thought the price tag added a certain flair.  

I had a wonderful visit with my dear friends, Doug and Myra.  They were able to drive up from Manchester so we could have some time together.  It was so good to see them again after almost 10 years.  

Back in the early 80s, when my husband was Chief of Police in Red Lodge, Montana, he received a letter from Doug asking if Timothy would be willing to send him an arm patch or hat pin for his collection of police memorabilia.  Timothy did and Doug returned the favor with a collar pin from a British bobby uniform.  That began a correspondence that just kept going and then Myra and I soon got involved and well, it just got better and better and has lasted for 30 years (her letters over the years would make a delightful book). 

Doug and Timothy seemed to have the same kind of sense of humor as did Myra and I.  On our first visit to England in 1998, they took us all around Yorkshire and we had such a wonderful time that we went back in 2001.  Timothy was in the mid-stages of dementia then but he and Doug still spent the entire time joking and laughing.  Several years ago Myra suffered a stroke and then fell and broke her hip.  She has good days and bad days and I'm awfully glad today was one of the good ones. She and I have always had strong connection and think we must be soul-mates on some level.  Doug is her never-failing caregiver and still laughs and maintains his joyful outlook on life -- he'll celebrate his 87th birthday in July.

My extra pictures are a selfie of the three of us in the elevator mirror and Doug & Myra on the way into the garden center.