Fellow Farewell Lunch

During an earlier point in our marriage, Mary and I spent a brief time when we were separated. It was about nine months which coincidentally corresponded with the selling of our house in Ogden while I worked in Cedar City. When the house suddenly sold, it was a crazy hurry to find a place to live in Cedar City. While there were lots of places to rent, none that I could find were immediately ready. In hindsight, I did a lousy job looking, but let's just imagine that I'm not incompetent as an apartment searcher.

So Mary finished packing our earthly belongings and drove to Cedar as I secured a apartment. The one that I found was a wonderful three bedroom - two bath unit that would be rented to college students once SUU got back into session. We were going to be there only about nine weeks. It seems crazy to move to an apartment only to move to another apartment, but that was our lot in life.

We were part of the Cedar City 17th Ward. The ward was delightful - the choir was fabulous and we even got to speak in church. The only hiccup was that as people were welcoming us, they would stop mid-sentence when explaining how much we would love the ward knowing that we had a death sentence looming.

I fully expected the same thing from the staff in the Office of the Governor. Folks were going to be nice enough, but I was starting the job with an end-date already defined.

"Don't waste your time being nice to Scott; we'll be rid of him soon enough already."

I found that the opposite was true. Without fail, everyone was sweet and kind and more than tolerant of my neurosis. When describing my daily events to my sweet Mary, she was aghast that people put up with me. Her oft repeated advice was to try not to talk too much.

The staff took me to the new Red Iguana to wish me bon voyage back to the dispatch center. The food was wonderful; the friends were more wonderful.