When you have had friends for years and years and years, you can be be pretty sure they are forever friends!
Dan and Linda Althouse came into our lives when they moved to Powhatan in the mid-seventies. Dan was a sales rep for New Holland Supply Company (who happened to be our animal health distruibutor) located in Pennsylvania and he was transferred to a southern market, landing him squarely in the middle of Virginia, rural Powhatan County making him our sales rep.
They attended our church so our social, business and spiritual lives were tightly intertwined. It was almost an instant friendship. Their third child was born about six months before our son and our children were were good friends and playmates. At first they lived in a rental house in the village of Powhatan and then moved into our rental house at the edge of the farm. These were special times having our friends so close. Several years later they built a house on Palmore Rd.
We have many good memories and I will have to share a few memorial highlights of our times together…..
The Althouses and us enjoyed playing Rook together. Linda was not a very confident player or aggressive bidder especially with the wild craziness of Dan and Gene. One time she went to the kitchen for snacks and the guys quickly dealt the cards and stacked her deck. She got a whole hand of all the top cards of each color plus the rook. When she picked up her hand she became visibly shaken. She went on a little nervous rant…. “I can’t believe my hand. I have never had one like this before.” Her hands started to shake and the little blue vein in the middle of her forehead started to pop! The men encouraged her to bid and they quickly stopped bidding so that she had to take the bid. We laughed and laughed. It was an evening to remember!
One day when their son Steve was around three or four, he decided to come to our house to play. He got on his tricycle and without asking or saying goodbye to his mom, pedaled down the road and was halfway in our lane when Linda missed him and discovered where he was heading.
I employed their oldest, Krista, for her very first babysitting job. We were gone for several hours and she had fixed Keith and Jill supper. She cleaned up the kitchen and decided to run the dishwaster. She asked Keith where my dishwaster detergent was and he pointed to the detergent sitting on the counter. She filled the soap dispenser in the dishwasher with a big dose of Dawn. Big mistake! We came home to a big mess with all three kids frantically trying to clean it up before we got home. The dishwasher had became a large soap suds-making machine spilling water and suds out on the kitchen floor. They used all the clean towels moping up the floor and they were in a pile in the bathtub. The problem was after they had cleaned up the mess they would restart the dishwasher. More mess. More suds. More water. They didn’t know how to correct their mistake. Apparently this went on for an extended period of time. This was one babysitting experience she or I never forgot!
When the boys were adolescences, Steve and Tim were here at the farm spending the day with Keith. They were playing in the woods behind the barn (where our store is) when they decided to build a cabin. They had the cabin about half built before we realized what they were doing. They had cut down saplings and were using log cabin design construction complete with mud dabbed between the logs. Their creative play was really cool and they had such a good time “working” together. A day or so later our older neighbor came to visit. His property line came right up within feet of the edge of our barn. The cabin was about 10 feet into his property and it was his saplings the boys had cut. I don’t know what little bird squawked to him about the boys activity because he lived on the front edge of his property a quarter of a mile away and we never, in all the years we were there, saw him walk back there to check on things. He even had to go through a swampy area to get there. The fence was long gone and it was an unused edge of woods that was not visible to anyone. It actually did not even dawn on us at the time that it was on his property. But, you have to have a happy neighbor. The boys had to learn a valuable life lesson about respecting your neighbor’s property and tear down the cabin. Sorry to say that was the end of their cabin building adventures.
Dan and Gene were both fast-pitch softball pitchers for our church in the county church league. They both could throw a mean fast ball and enjoyed the comradery and competitive competition. They still talk about those days.
We still enjoy keeping up with and visiting with Dan and Linda. For the past number of years, they have become “snow-birds” migrating south to Florida the first weekend in February for a month. Our place is their first resting stop on their trip south. Through the years, Gene and Dan have enjoyed bantering back and forth about their rivaling sports teams. Dan is a loyal Philly, Pittsburg Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles while Gene is a diehart New York Yankee and Dallas Cowboy fan. Gene usually manages to serve Dan coffee in one of his Yankee or Cowboy mugs when they are here. Linda and I are puzzle buddies and each year we enjoy fellowship over puzzle pieces!
Dan and Linda, we treasure your friendship and it is with great pleasure we call you old-time forever friends!
