Lil and Morse

I was off campus today for a meeting so I actually got out of work at 3:45 this afternoon. That is the time I am allowed to leave school each day but it just does not happen. So I took care of ordering my new glasses and then I called Lil.

Lil and Morse, a couple I know from church. She is almost 89 and he delights in being the younger man. He is almost 87. Morse is a native Texan and he is a hoot-an-a-half. He was a teen during the depression and he served in World War II. Lil is also a native Texan and she is a class act. As my father would say “she is a real lady.” After I took care of my glasses I stopped in to see Lil and Morse.

I had planned to stay for a half-hour, forty-five minutes at the most. Almost two hours later I was still there. Morse does not get around as well as he used to so he does not get out much anymore. His mind is still as sharp as a tack and there is so much history in that man’s brain it is just amazing. He was also quite the artist in his day so I love looking at his WWII sketches. When I wrote my essay to get into graduate school I interviewed Morse and wrote his story into my paper. He was an excellent primary source. I also used him as a sounding board for several of my papers especially if I was not sure I had made my point in a concise manner. Morse was an editor for a newspaper after the war so he also caught my typos and such. I know we have spell check and grammar check on the computer but it does not catch everything. Morse on the other hand still catches everything.

Lil remembers the depression and her grandmother feeding the out-of-work-men that jumped of the trains just outside of Fort Worth. If they got off the trains in Fort Worth they would be arrested for riding the rails without a ticket. The engineers actually slowed the trains down outside of the city so the men could get off. Many of the men had come to Texas looking for work. Texas was not as hard hit as other states.

Lil and Morse have been together a long time. Lil still gets out she comes to church on Sundays Morse can not so when company comes Lil sits quietly next to Morse because she “knows” he need the conversation more than she does. Morse always asks her to “fill-in-the-blanks” of his story because he “knows” she has a lot to add to the conversation.There are a handful of married couples that I admire. Lil and Morse are one of those couples and hope that my husband and I will be like that when we are in our golden years.

I have known this couple for 12 years now and my life is richer because I know them.