Gracious Hosts

When I think about my brother, Wayne, and his wife, Barbara, I think about how much fun it was to be in their home with their family. There was lots of commotion of kids and their activities but there was always room for you to be a part of things. I so admired Barbara that no matter what the circumstances, she acted like you were the most important thing in her day. It was a good place to tell your stories and get acceptance and love (with a lot of advice thrown in for good measure).

We didn’t have girls PE in the Duncan schools, so unless you were on a team, you got nothing. I was not athletic in any sense of the word. In my first ever PE class at Eastern Arizona College my first semester, my grade was looking very grim. Wayne was the Athletic Director and I think he was concerned about HIS reputation if I failed that class, so he took matters into his own hand. He took me to his basketball hoop and he made me shoot baskets for what seemed like days until I could get a reasonable percentage to go in. This allowed me to get enough points in PE to pass the class. We were all relieved.

Alan and I also got to spend the weekend with Wayne and Barbara in their home in Gilbert at the end of the summer of 2005. This was a tender, delightful, fun, chatty, laugh-filled weekend for us to have as our final memory with Wayne.