Frank and Betty – I don’t remember their last name – were sitting by the window, waiting for their clothes to dry.

Thursday, March 30, 2000

Frank and Betty – I don’t remember their last name – were sitting by the window, waiting for their clothes to dry.

"You’re the fellow who writes for the newspaper aren’t you?" Betty asked me.

Usually, I flinch when someone says that to me in public. You just never know how many relatives those Mower County Commissioners have.

This pair looked safe, so I told, "Yes, I am, but don’t hold that against me if I’ve misspelled your name or misquoted you."

Suffice to say, they weren’t enemies and for the rest of the time, while their clothes dried and mine washed in the laundromat, we talked.

Betty was more outgoing than her husband, Frank, but soon enough he opened up too.

They live in Lansing. Frank is retired from Hormel Foods Corporation and I forgot how many children they have.

We talked about a lot of things, or I should say, they talked and I listened. First, there were more public topics that everybody is talking about. Then it got personal and it was Frank who told the story.

One of their children went with them on a vacation and when they returned home, their other children had completely remodeled their home’s interior.

Frank and Betty were surprised and delighted.

Among all the things one stranger could say to another, Frank of Lansing told how his children had made him proud.

When I left the laundromat, Frank and Betty and Yours Truly were stranger no more.

That was the same day, a snowy Saturday, when Fred Pickett invited me to his home.

Fred is the retired J.C. Penney Store operator and his wife, Sylvia, is a retired school teacher, who played with the Austin Symphony Orchestra until a year ago. She continues to teach music.

Fred cut a wide swath through the community both as a popular North Main Street businessman, but also as a public servant. His years on the Austin Housing and Redevelopment Authority’s board resulted in housing and redevelopment projects that changed Austin forever.

They didn’t name that apartment building near the Austin YMCA Pickett Place because Fred Pickett sat on his hands.

It was a reward for a community service job well done.

Fred is 95 and doesn’t drive anymore. "My reflexes aren’t what they used to me," he said.

Sylvia may have stepped down from her position with the Austin Symphony Orchestra, but she still gives music lessons.

Brian Larson is one of her students. The son of Greg and Lynee will be a featured soloist in the next Austin Symphony Orchestra concert.

Like so many other talented young musicians, Brian has made teacher Sylvia very proud.

Sylvia served coffee and cookies and Fred and I talked.

He read with interest a story about Roy Harrington, the oldest living railroad man in Austin. Mr. Harrington recalled a ‘storm of the century" in 1951, which brought life to a halt – the train he was engineering from Calmar, Iowa to Austin, too, on St. Patrick’s Day.

Mr. Pickett had one to top him.

A sister of his sent him a clipping about another mid-March storm in 1920.

The storm extended from Montana to Wisconsin and from Manitoba in Canada to Nebraska.

It was a blizzard that interrupted communications, tied up rail traffic, isolated farm families and communities and caused death and injury.

What Fred and Sylvia didn’t know and Frank and Betty earlier that day was that I was in a hurry.

Wash the clothes, dry them, run errands, get home, clean the house and other things-to-do.

"You’ve got places to be and don’t stop for nothing and nobody," my selfish self demanded.

Well, let me tell you, Frank and Betty and Fred and Sylvia taught a lesson people in a hurry so quickly forget and that is that people are still the best thing the Good Lord made.

Forget stopping to smell the coffee or the roses.

Take time out to listen and share.

Thank you Frank and Betty and Fred and Sylvia.

Lee Bonorden’s column appears Thursdays