My wife and I just returned from a delightful trip to Grand Canyon, together with my niece, Marjorie. The weather was perfect. I got to take photographs at two sunsets and two sunrises – and many times in between, a total of about 300 pictures.
On my Sunset walk on the second night I met a couple looking down to the trees in Indian Gardens thousands of feet below us. I asked him if he had ever been there. Oh yes he had, but that was many years ago. So began a delightful conversation as we walked together back to the Village. I found that their names were Michael and Natalie, that they lived in Ohio and Florida, and that Natalie was a painter, going by the painting name of Vera. I love these chance encounters with such wonderful people.
We had a very different encounter the next morning as we drove eastward along the rim toward Desert View. As soon as we parked the car at Grandview Point my niece spotted a young man picking up a small child probably less than a year old, with an older child near by. She said something to the effect that he must have found the child in the woods, and if so he found a good one. The boy in question, now in his father’s arms, smiled broadly and waved a friendly greeting. The older boy, not wanting to be upstaged by his younger brother, looked down at the Colorado river, 4000 feet below us. He then remembered his super powers, looked up at us and announced, “I just jumped up from there.” We were all dutifully impressed and congratulated him on his prodigious feat.

There is more than one artist in our family. My wife, Louise, is not a painter but she is a musician, a talented writer and creates beautiful flower arrangements. On September 19 Anne Volz Fuller died. She was married to my wife’s first cousin, William Fuller. Bill and Louise grew up together in Glenview, Illinois. About twenty years ago Bill and Anne moved to Tucson and we renewed our friendship. To celebrate Anne, Louise created this beautiful arrangement for her memorial service at Sunrise Chapel.  The rock behind the flowers is the altar of this church, where I was pastor for 21 years.

My wife and I set off to go shopping. Before we had gone a hundred yards we noticed a woman standing beside her parked car, waving her hands. We decided to find out if we could help. I got out of the car and went to the woman. She was clearly in distress. She couldn’t get the car started, and asked if I had jumper cables. I did not.  I proposed that we call AAA. Then I noticed that there was a second person in the car, an older woman in the passenger seat. It turned out to be the woman’s 98 year old mother, getting kind of hot and bothered in the near 100 degree heat. After some discussion I learned that they were delivering a thank-you box of chocolates to friends who lived very near us (just three doors away as it turned out). Louise and I turned our car around, picked up the two ladies and drove them to the house they had been aiming for. The owners came to greet them, and I could see that their troubles were over. Louise turned to the mother and said: “You might live to be a hundred!” The mother looked back, scowled and said, in a strong gravelly voice: “ I hope note!”  Smiling, we went on our way.