Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

My friend Polly and me

Saturday I drove back to Central Pennsylvania one last time in my 1988 Ford Ranger, Red Arrow. The trip had a twofold purpose: to drop off the truck at my dad's so that we can sell it in a rural area (where we figure buyers are more likely) and to attend a party celebrating 60 years in the ministry for a family friend, Reverend Musser.

My mom had also talked me into serving as the unofficial photographer, documenting the event for posterity. I took my digital camera along for that purpose, with my regular camera as a back-up.

My first few shots were actually accidental AVIs of a magician performing tricks for the guests, while everyone was arriving.

Reverend Musser is an amateur magician and has made magic part of his ministry for many years, so my mom (who helped plan the event), thought it would be nice to have a magician there.

Among my mom's other creative ideas was a photo wall containing photos and newspaper articles featuring Rev. Musser. This included, by accident, many childhood pictures of me, some of which I would have rather not had on display for the entire world to see.

I caught up with my old friend Polly, who had been in high school band with me and had been one of my closest friends in high school. I pulled her over to the picture table to point out the awful pictures of me and complain. Of course, the way I looked in those old pictures was the way I looked when she met me, so I suppose she wasn't surprised.

Before the dinner started, I went around and took pictures of all the guests at the tables. I thought it would be a nice idea for posterity's sake. But I was also unintentionally annoying the caterers, who saw my two cameras and figured I was on official business. They finally came up to me when I was on the last row and said, "Could you please finish up? We need to get these people through the buffet line."

I was a bit flummoxed, but I gave them a big smile, said "Sure" and finished my pictures.

The meal was a simple one: turkey with mashed potatoes, corn and gravy, along with a salad. Dessert was pie. It was exactly the sort of meal you'd expect in Central Pennsylvania for an event like this.

At dinner, we frightened the curator of a local museum. He brought up the subject of ghosts and mentioned that he had taken a class in ghost research. After he shared his sightings, mostly in historic houses in the area, we launched into Wilson family stories and regaled him through the entire meal. After awhile, all he could say was, "Oh, my." And we hadn't even told him everything.

After dinner was the program, which consisted of church members and officials congratulating Rev. Musser for his long years in the ministry, sprinkled with some musical selections. I took pictures of the speakers and performers. The idea will be to make prints of all these pictures for the church records and for the Mussers to keep.

When he stood up to speak, Rev. Musser was clearly moved. He told a few jokes, as usual, and then talked about how special he felt that so many people showed up to let him know that he'd touched them.

Looking at the wall of photos, I realized how central the Mussers have been to my family's life. Afterwards, I went up to Rev. Musser and told him how much those moments had meant to me. "You're like family to me," I told him. He got all choked up as he thanked me. I thought he might be about to cry.

Fortunately, I had already taken this wonderful portrait of him and his wife, smiling those smiles that are so well known in our community.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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