RADIO CONTEST WINNERS

Last night Debra’s phone rang.  It was 14-year-old granddaughter, Baylee.  Baylee was pretty excited!  Her mother, Josie, had just called a local Christian radio station.  The third caller to the station was going to win two tickets to a Chris Tomlin / Tenth Avenue North / Rend Collective concert.  Josie was the third caller and the winner!

The radio announcer stated that two more tickets were going to be given away in the next fifteen minutes.  So, Baylee called Debra (aka Nana) and told her to listen to the station and try to win the next two tickets.

Debra turned to me and said, “I never win anything”.  But in order to let Baylee know that she at least tried, she tuned in to the radio station.  Again, the announcer announced that the third caller would win two tickets to the concert.  

Debra was the third caller right after Josie was the previous third caller.

Debra called the station, the phone rang and Debra waited.  It rang several times, nobody picked up, so she decided to hang up.  But just as she was about to hang up, a voice came on the line and said, “You’re the third caller!”

Whoa!

While talking to the announcer, Debra mentioned that the previous winner, Josie, was her daughter.  The announcer said that nothing like that has ever happened in his thirteen years working at the station.

So, it looks like a girl’s weekend getaway will be happening in April.  The combined four tickets will be shared by the four females most interested in attending the concert:  Debra, our daughter Ashley, and granddaughters Baylee and Rylie.

And I will never again hear the following words uttered in our home, “I never win anything”.

Five years ago, on Valentine's Day 2010, seven related females posed together for a Valentine family photo.
As destiny would have it, four of those seven would end up going to a concert together in 2015.

Three months ago, in early December, ten of us gathered together to celebrate Dee's birthday.  As destiny would have it, four of the ten would end up going to a concert together in 2015.

Not all of the family females will be attending the concert.

DAVENPORT 20570

Last Thursday night, I attended a meeting with a group of men from my church.  After listening to a challenge from our pastor, eight of us gathered around a table to discuss the pastor’s message.  I did not know three of the men in our group.

As we made introductions, I noticed that one of those men, Craig, wrote down the names of those he was meeting for the first time.  I was doing the same thing.  I wrote the words Darrell, Craig and Pat.  I knew that if I did not write them down, I would have forgotten them by the next morning.  That’s just how my aging brain functions with short-term memory.

I have been doing this for years.  I meet someone.  I write down their name.  I review their name and associate it with their face for a few days, until it sticks.  It’s like a third-grader memorizing his multiplication tables by using flash cards.

As Craig and I continued conversing, he mentioned that he sometimes has trouble remembering yesterday, but he has no trouble remembering his phone number from when he was five years old.  Then it occurred to me that Craig and I share the same trait. 

I don’t always remember what I did yesterday, but I can remember my phone number from when I was five years old, nearly sixty years ago.

Davenport 20570.

Standing beside my grandmother's car in 1956 with my grandmother, my big sister and my little brother at the house where our phone number was Davenport 20570.

Three siblings in front of the fireplace at the house where our phone number was Davenport 20570.

The whole family in the back yard at the house where our phone number was Davenport 20570.

Three siblings with two friends on the patio of the house where our phone number was Davenport 20570.

A first grader who was destined to remember his phone number nearly sixty years later.