Hello Again, and welcome,In the last installment, you read about the first time I laid my eyes on Trudy and the few weeks later when we actually met. But before that happened, some events, equal to the cosmic alignment of the planets had to fall into place. Pictured in the upper left, is Arthur and Effie Benoit and in the upper right is Noble (Buck) and Hazel Daniel. Prior to the fateful year of 1967, the chances of these couples and their children ever meeting had to be astronomically improbable. Yet by the fall of 1967, both families found themselves in central Louisiana.
Arthur and Effie were born and bred South Louisianians. Their families of origin had lived in the Jennings/Elton area for generations. After they met, courted, and married; they settled down on a rice farm half way between Elton and Jennings in a community called...wait for it...no kidding..."Hathaway!" Arthur was a rice farmer and together, he and his beautiful bride, Effie Manuel Benoit (of the Marvin and Maggie Manuel family) started their life together in 1949. On April 24, 1951, their marriage produced the first of their three children, Trudy Ann. The next year, Katy arrived followed two years later by Carlos. Rice farming in South Louisiana was a hard way to make a living and Arthur was just the man for the job. Conscientious and diligent, Arthur did everything well and effectively. While the rice farm was a tough life, it was also a life of great family times and great faith. The extended family assembled often for cooperative farming, meals and togetherness and worship. One of the highlights for the "city" cousins, were summer trips to Uncle Arthur's for some swimming and horseback riding fun. It seemed that their solid life in South Louisiana would only continue. However, after their oldest daughter had completed her Sophomore year at Hathaway High School, the thick, humid air of South Louisiana seemed to carry the unmistakable feel of impending change.
Meanwhile, far, far away, in the desert valley of Phoenix, Arizona; Buck and Hazel had become quite settled as citizens of the great and wild west. Having moved to Phoenix in 1951, only six months after the birth of their fourth son, Robert, it seemed as though they had found their true home. In 1960, the desert air and maybe the purifying chemicals in the piped-in water had the effect of producing a girl child to Buck and Hazel as Marcia Jeane completed their family and further seemed to cement their residency in the Phoenix area. Buck, though, had a job you just wouldn't think of for a desert city like Phoenix...he was a Saw Filer for a "Box Factory" that made wooden crates used to ship produce by rail. It was small in comparison to the huge lumber mills of S. E. Oklahoma where Buck learned this trade...but it provided many years of steady employment for Buck as he raised his family. About the time that the third son left the nest, and the fourth son completed his Junior year at Alhambra High School, change was also amassing in the arid air surrounding our Arizona family.
At virtually the same time, in distinctly differing circumstances, Arthur Benoit and Buck Daniel were confronted with gut-wrenching career choices that would trouble their very hearts and souls. Arthur was approached by his Brother-in-Law about moving to a community just below Alexandria, Louisiana, where he would be employed to operate a dairy for two brothers. His family would live in a house on the dairy and it would be his job to manage the milk cows, take care of the acreage, and make this enterprise a going concern. It was a job for which he would be a perfect fit...and it included a regular pay check, unlike the highly seasonal and iffy world of rice farming. Similarly, Buck Daniel was approached by his Brother-in-Law about coming to Alexandria, Louisiana...timber country...to take one of the saw filer positions at a large, local saw mill. It was a position with job security unlike the deteriorating and soon to be obsolete box factory mill in Phoenix.
For both men and their families it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. The new jobs were too good to not consider...but what of the stability of their families? Arthur would have to move his children away from their childhood home, their close family ties, and the friends with whom they had literally grown up in the closest of relationships. Buck would have to leave two sons and their wives behind in Phoenix. His oldest son who was married and a career military man who would be less affected than the others, but affected none the less. Buck also would be changing the environment for his second grade daughter to new schools and friends. But, perhaps most troubling, he would be moving Robert from the only home he'd ever known...right as he was to be a Senior in high school. Of all the issues, that seemed to be the greatest sticking point. My dad and I didn't hug much prior to that time, but I remember embracing him and earnestly telling him that I was for him and I was for the move and that he didn't need to worry about me...I just knew...everything would be okay!
Well, bless God, Arthur Benoit and Buck Daniel made the best decisions their children could have ever dreamed. Oh, I remember the emotional upheaval for me; and Trudy related the emotional upheaval that she also felt. But both of us, still two years away from the fateful day we met in the parking lot at LSU-A, had a secure...sort of...gut feeling, that our moving was going to turn out...just fine!
Over the years, we had several opportunities to affirm to our parents, dads especially, that we sure were glad that at almost the same instant they made life-changing choices to move their families. You see, God had orchestrated something so intricate that we could never have foreseen...that placed our lives on a hidden course for a divine intersection that would first be felt in a parking lot at a campus in Central Louisiana.
Thank you God, for bringing Trudy and me together. Thank you for working long before we would even have a "chance" meeting to shape us...one for the other. Thank you for our "Love Story." Amen.
Blessings,
Robert
And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh." This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
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