I would like to thank God for the nine years He has given to my wife and I in serving Him and the Trenton community. This is a WONDERFUL town and we have been blessed as we intentionally sought out a community that was best to raise our five children in. I would like to thank my colleagues in the Trenton Council of Churches who have valued teamwork and focusing on what we have in common in Christ, rather than our differences. I have no doubts that when we come together, we are able to accomplish more than we can separately! I believe that when we pool our resources to do “kingdom work” to advance the kingdom of God... our Heavenly Fathers smiles. For those of us who are mistakenly viewed as “religious”... we are not ... but our efforts are motivated by the love that our Heavenly Father has placed in our hearts. We see ourselves as “devoted” rather than “religious.” We are devoted to growing and serving Him with our heart, mind, soul and body. Thank you Trenton for tolerating and maybe at times, enduring us in our zeal to serve the Living God. We pray that you too will find the peace and satisfaction that comes from walking with Him daily. Over a period of time, no doubt we have misunderstood at times or have been misunderstood.... and if you have ever been offended by our actions, words or deeds, we apologize to you... for our only motive is to serve God and God alone.

New Baden “meals on wheels” volunteers come through

Thanks so much to all those who have volunteered to deliver meals on wheels to New Baden seniors. With the assistance of the Trenton Senior Meal Center, Margaret Conley, Phyllis Satterfield and those who coordinated the New Baden meeting, we currently have enough drivers.

It is a pleasure to live in a small community such as New Baden where people are willing to take care of one another. Anyone who is still interested in volunteering can contact Kevin Ogden at 960-8213.

Thanks to all who are willing to serve the seniors in the community.

Driving somewhere over the weekend, I saw Sandy Glanzner riding her bicycle through a driving rainstorm.

I guess I probably laughed and made a mental note to put it in the Cracker Barrel.

In retrospect, I should have offered her a ride.

Had I done so, I would have been repaying a favor from nearly 30 years ago.

I didn't really remember the incident I'm referring to until a day or so after seeing Sandy pedaling her heart out in an attempt to escape the rain.

It's funny the small things you remember from the course of your life, but being rescued from the rain by Sandy is one of the things that sticks in my head, although I doubt she remembers.

I've known her since I was a preteen I guess, when she was a friend to my parents and a partner with my mother in a women's clothing store, The Ms. Shoppe, which was once located in the very building where the Sun now resides.

The Ms. Shoppe operated in the late seventies and early eighties, first under the ownership of my mother and Sandy, and later my mother and Jeanette Kunz. We retain some vestiges of the fashion sensibility of the era, things like orange and purple walls and a few scraps of lint from the most godawful ugly green and yellow shag carpeting ever manufactured. They must have gotten a deal on that carpeting, I swear.

I guess I was 13 or 14 when the Ms. Shoppe first opened for business, and I can still remember that there was a certain resentment against the new enterprise among the pre-teen and teen set, because it replaced the "teen center" a pinball palace and greasy spoon that had been operated by Allen Davis, who also owned Jim's Men's Shop at the time.

The Ms. Shoppe didn't supplant the teen center--the arcade died its own natural death--but happened to be the next business in the building.

That didn't change the fact that some perceived that the new dress shop had forced out the teen center.

They made a go of things for several years, probably not making much money but at least holding their heads above water, which is an accomplishment in itself in the start-up small business game.

I guess my mom and Sandy were still in business together when I found myself caught in the rain, but I can't be sure.

In any case, it was a Saturday morning, and I was probably running late for work at the old Koch Candy Company (not the original site on Broadway but the second warehouse near the Trenton farm cooperative).

I worked Saturday mornings, filling and delivering "town" orders, and if I wasn't always late, I was probably always in danger of being late.

That was probably the case on this particular Saturday as well.

I was on my second car by then, and it was a 1966 Ford Mustang. Lest you have any inclination that it was one of the "classic" Mustangs, let me quickly disabuse you of that notion. It was a piece of junk, a rustbucket my sister had bought a couple of years before for six hundred bucks. My parents signed loan papers for her, and she was paying it off for like fifty bucks a month or something, and somehow I ended up taking over the payments when she left for college.

That car was always an adventure. It had cruise control before its time. The accelerator used to stick at highway speeds, and sometimes you seriously wondered if you would be able to "unstick" the damned thing before the engine exploded.

When I hopped in on this particular Saturday, the ‘Stang wouldn't start, not that unusual an occurrence, honestly.

I guess my mom was something of a late sleeper at the time, although I think she gets up at like 4 a.m. or something now. Anyway, I went into the house and tried to get her to take me to work.

She rolled over--and I've used this as a guilt trip against her ever since--and yelled, "It's only a couple of blocks! Walk!"

To be fair to her, I don't think she realized that rain was coming down in sheets at the time; I mean a toadstrangler of a rain.

I'm not really smart enough to be much of a manipulator, but something must have told me that I might be able to parlay that particular moment into a lifetime of martyrdom for myself, a lifetime of "Hey mom, remember the time you made me walk to work in the monsoon? (pause) Would you make me a grilled cheese sandwich?"

It's worked pretty well, too.

So instead of protesting that it was pouring down rain, I quietly turned and left the house and started to trudge down Oak Street toward Koch Candy Company.

I got about to the Medical Arts building (where Dr. Floreza and Dr. Horenkamp had their shingles hung at the time) when a big Cadillac stopped next to me. I don't mind telling you I was a little nervous. It was a bit like a scene from The Godfather. Through the rain bullets that were pelting my face, I was relieved to see that it was Sandy.

"Get in!," she said in that matter-of-fact way she has, and I did. My resolve for martyrdom had left me about the time I turned the corner at Fourth and Oak, and I was ready to get out of the rain.

She never said a word, but I remember feeling especially bad because I'm sure I soaked the upholstery of her Cadillac before she dropped me off at work.

Remembering that made me regret the missed opportunity to rescue her from the rain, but it also made me feel good about something from my past.

It gave me a chuckle to think about it, and I hope it gives Sandy and my mom a laugh too.

We could all use one now and again.