Happy Birthday My Friend!

George turned 89 years old today. Brooke, Amanda and I took him out to On The Border for dinner. Below the picture is a blog post I wrote in 2005 talking about meeting George. For the past seven years now, George and I have been friends and have gone out for lunch once a week. What a dear friend!

I Met George Last Week (repost from June 6, 2005)
Last week during Vacation Bible School, an older gentleman came to the church asking questions about the church. He said his name was George, he has only been in Arlington a couple months and he was looking for a church. We talked, I told him about the church and he said he'd be back Sunday. He was back Sunday, I said hello and we talked some more. He said he'd like to come meet with me or Pastor David this week, so I told him to give us a call in the office.

He called on Tuesday and came to talk to me. We talked more about the church and a little more about ourselves and then George told me he felt very welcome Sunday morning and at the Life Group he visited on Tuesday night. He said he was not much for sitting around at home by himself and he'd like to volunteer at the church. I told him I'd see where we could use some help and give him a call.

Today, I had a good hour-and-half worth of errands to run, so I called George to see if he was busy (he volunteers at a shelter twice a week and is building up his list of other places he wants to volunteer). He said he was free in the afternoon, so I asked him if he wanted to go run some errands with me and we could just hang out while we ran errands. We went to the auto supply store, Lowe's, Best Buy and Costco. It took at least an hour-and-a-half like I thought it would, and I really enjoyed getting to know George a little. One of the first things I asked him was what he prefer I call him...George or Mr. __________ (his last name). He said he preferred George, but I told him I had to ask because growing up, my parents always taught me to refer to adults (or my elders) by Mr. or Mrs. Nowadays, I settle for Mr. or Mrs. and their first name, but it's still a matter of respect. Anyway, George (81 years old) said he preferred George.

I don't know if I have enough to keep George busy for half a day every week (in my department), but I'm going to talk to other people on our staff and see what we might come up with on a regular basis. Next week, George is going to come help me clean out our pantry behind the stage at church. It was #4 on my clean up list after the attic and two PODS outside. After cleaning the other three spaces I was not very motivated to get to the pantry, so it was good timing to have somebody come along who wanted to help do whatever needed to be done. So I'll see George again on Sunday, and then we'll work together on Wednesday. He's only been to the church once so I hope he still likes it after coming a few more weeks, but I've really enjoyed getting to know him a little bit and spending some time with him this week.