Meet Ron Johnson. I’ve know Ron since about 1943. We did grade school together - and junior high - and high school. Ron bussed in from the rurals between South Prairie and Buckley, Washington. I walked to school unless I was staying at the paternal home of my grandparents. That’s him on the steps of the Wickersham Grade School building. I photo-shopped and cut him out of the group. In real life he was surrounded by the rest of his class member. We took a lot of classes together over the years. I was always good at English, Writing and History. Ron did well in them but excelled at math, algebra, geometry. It was like he was born understanding mathematics as a second language. Me? I still can’t find X. When it came to mathematics, I was as dumb as a bag of dog hair. So, in all my math classes, I always tried to sit next to or close - to Ron. I cheated. Despite all that, Ron is one of the people with whom I have shared spiritual experiences with many conversations about Scripture, world religions, the multi-folded brands of Christianity, and, of course, many hours gossiping about people we know in common. Today we are Skypers. After high school, Ron worked a bit for the bank of Buckley. He attended the University of Wisconsin - Madison . . . and ended up working for a bank in Tacoma (I believe it was called First National Bank of Tacoma - in those days) that was co-founded by my Mother’s brother, my Uncle William L. Brown - or ‘Doc’ as we called him (I think that bank is now called ‘First Interstate Bank’.) Ron has always been the kind of person who is careful and gentle with his friends and ideas. He’s a good thinker, a good provider, a good husband, father and friend. Ron’s wife’s name is Carolyn. Aren’t they beautiful in that early photograph. Well, they’re actually just as beautiful in the second photograph - but I never think of Ron as being old - even though we’re the same age. They still enjoy a rural life, although the city and polite society are no strangers to either of them. My Uncle Doc and his wife, Maggie (she was always referred to as Margaret Brown in the Tacoma News Tribune’s Society page. “Margaret Brown poured at a special tea for the wives of the officers of her husband’s bank. The tea was held in their spacious home overlooking the Sound.”) Maggie and Doc lived in what had been the governor’s mansion. Ron and Carolyn were part of that branch of society and probably as at ease with it as they are in the country home in Snohomish I find it so interesting that while Ron and I began our spiritual journeys from different places (I was unbaptized, but was essentially Roman Catholic - Ron was Full Gospel (Perhaps Assembly of God). I attended his church from time to time but never knew what denomination it was because the structure was called ‘The South Prairie Temple of God.” It seems to me it was right next door to a tavern along the river road to Lake Kapowson. It was the kind of country church where traveling cowboy evangelists with singing wives held revivals. I loved some of the music but preferred the lessons I received from Father Horn’s pulpit at Saint Aloysius Catholic church in Buckley. Born and raised on a small family farm, Ron still loves the outdoors, horses, and nature in general. Hard to believe, but we’ve known one another for nearly seventy years. Seems like only yesterday we were playing Mother My I with Jimmy Woolery and Eva May Maris on the grade school grounds at recess.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 13:26:11 +0000