Abby and I travelled to Baltimore, where we spent four days with Abby’s daughter Chele, her husband Tom, and their new baby, our new grandson Paul Thomas Reeves. The occasion was Paul’s Christening into the Roman Catholic Church, at the same church where Chele and Tom got married two years earlier, the Sacred Heart Church of Glyndon, Maryland.
It was a short visit, though I can say with confidence that we all had a great time. It was my first time to lay eyes on the actual baby, and he and I took to each other. Apparently I have a very interesting face.
After the actual Christening, we had a reception at the house of Tom’s sister Rose and brother-in-law David, where everyone had a great visit.
Later at Tom and Chele’s, we played Wii sports, walked Tom’s dog Toby, made deep dish pizza, and even visited my favorite Baltimore Diner, the Bel-Loc.
The trip home was unusual; our Southwest Airlines flight from Saint Louis to Oklahoma City was diverted by weather to south of the Dallas-Fort Worth area before finally flying north, due to a line of thunderstorms that resulted in several large tornadoes in the western suburbs of Oklahoma City.
Even after the diversion that added an hour to our flight time, the descent in Oklahoma City was so rough (“Rough as a cob,” my flight instructor used to say) that the senior class on their traditional class trip in the back of the airplane were screaming when the biggest bumps hit. When we finally touched down, everyone burst into applause.
Despite a constant pain in my lower back, I was able to enjoy my visit very much, particularly getting to know Paul Thomas. As I mentioned, we also had the opportunity to visit the Bel Loc Diner, which became one of my favorite Baltimore locations two year earlier when Tom and Chele got married. If you ever visit the Bel-Loc and are a meat-eater (which I am not), try the scrapple.