Expect the Unexpected?

Yesterday, I got up a littler earlier than usual because I had a meeting at 10 a.m....or so I thought. I arrived at the Old Courthouse for a meeting with the county building inspector and the president of the Union County Historical Society to discuss our plans to install a small elevator. However, I found that the meeting wasn't until 12:30 p.m. I had two and one half hours to kill.

No problem, I headed for the library to return some books and find some good reading for the week ahead. I also had some shopping to do at The Home Depot for electrical supplies to wire and install lights in our newly installed suspended ceiling in the basement. Then there was a deliciously unhealthy double stack and a "co-cola" (Georgian for Coca Cola) at Wendy's.

I arrived back at the Courthouse in time for our short meeting, which started a half hour late. We got the information we needed, told a few stories, and I was ready to go home and work. Not! The president of the historical society is a musician and singer. He had been asked to sing at the funeral of a 97 year old lady, whom I didn't know. The funeral was to take place in just over half an hour, and he had also agreed to video it for a relative, who wasn't able to attend. You guessed it. He asked me if I could help out.

Now, I was in jeans and a fleece because it was chilly out with temp of about 48 and a stiff wind blowing. Not exactly funeral dress. We rushed out to his house to get the camera and returned to the funeral home with about ten minutes to spare. I found a spot from which to film, spoke to a couple of friends who happened to be there and settled in to my job.

It turned out that the deceased had been married to my aunt Essie's twin brother, Esker. Good old southern Appalachian names, I suppose. Essie and Esker. I never knew Esker, but my aunt Essie was a trial. She married my father's brother way back when, and I hated to go to their house, because she was a kisser. You know the kind of aunt I'm talking about. She always needed some "sugar" from her nephew. Lord, how I hated to undergo that. All these memories flooded back as I listened to the pastor.

At any rate, it was soon over. Of course the service was underway, and my friend was singing the first song, when I discovered that the camera was on standby. It was a very small digital video camera and hard to hold steady for a long period of time. I hope the person who has to view it can figure out what was going on. Maybe it will appear to be a funeral.

The first thing my friend said after the service was, "I'll bet when you woke up this morning, you never dreamed that you would be videoing a funeral before the day was over." You can count on that. It was definitely a different experience, but what the heck, every day has to be an adventure or life would be dull.