It is strange the things that give you pleasure as you get older. I know I am getting older because every time I go to the doctor and he wants to explain what my latest malady is, he starts out by saying, “As we age…..” So, yes, I am getting older. Can’t say I really care, either. But I do know that little things have the ability to make me smile.

          This morning had just such a moment. I switched wallets.

          I know. So what? What’s the big deal? You switched wallets and you enjoyed that? Kind of a sad little life, isn’t it?

          Well, there is a back story to this story.

          November, 1995. Geneva, Ohio. A town very much like North Manchester, only without a University. We had a Great Lake, so we were OK. I had been the new pastor at Park Street Christian Church a little over a month. Sitting at my desk, I heard the side door open and then the clump, clump, clump of someone coming up the steps. I got up from the desk and stepped around it to greet whoever it was coming in. She stepped into the doorway (the door was open), put her hands on her hips and snapped, “So, you’re the new preacher we have to put up with now?” I didn’t know it at the time, but she was 85 years old. At the moment she looked extremely cross, even angry, and her tiny frame seemed to fill the doorway. “Yes ma’am, my name is Rev. Larry Wade. And you are….?” With that a beautiful smile lit her face. She brought her hand to her mouth as she giggled. “You called me ‘ma’am?’ Oh my, I’m no ma’am! I am Leanore Keener. May I sit down?”

          That started a friendship that lasted for the rest of her life, which would have been sixteen years. Far and away, Leanore was the most unusual lady I have ever met. She walked everywhere she went, even in the dead of winter. She didn’t want to ride anywhere. She wanted walk. What can you see from a car? Who can you stop and talk to when you are in a car? When you drive somewhere, can you stop and talk to the squirrels? Actually, we tried to get her to quit talking to the squirrels, but the squirrels enjoyed it, so there you go. Only when she went to the doctor did she get a ride, and as time went along, that ride was more and more often me. She wasn’t a member of our church, but instead was a member of the Methodist church. She told me once, when she was 95, “Reverend, I would really like for you to do my funeral, but you aren’t a Methodist. I am sorry?” I told her fine, I didn’t want to do her nasty old funeral, anyway! And I didn’t. I didn’t think I would have a prayer of getting through it.

          Towards the end of 1997 I was taking her to the doctor’s office. Once inside, I walked her to the office and then at the desk I asked if I could have my parking validated. For some reason, I had to show some ID, so I pulled out my wallet and produced my driver’s license. She had been watching this from her chair and when I went over and sat down with her she looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Reverend, you need a gentleman’s wallet.” She often said things that surprised or confused me, so I took this in stride. “And what, dear lady, is a gentleman’s wallet.” She looked at me with no smile. “We shall see.”

          Later, when I took her home, she asked me to come in. This was always something of a treat for me. Her home was right out of the 1940s. Her husband had been a doctor, so the first room you walked into had been the reception area. Off of that room were five smaller examination rooms and one office, the doctor’s office. Past that was the living area. Everything, from the reception area all the way through the house was just as it had been the day the good doctor suddenly passed away. He had been twenty years her senior when they got married in 1940 and had died ten years later. She wasn’t keeping things untouched because she was still pining for him. She just had no reason to get anything new. I loved that house.

          Anyway, we went in through the reception area and through the doctor’s office into the living room. “Sit there, Reverend. I’ll be right back.” Off she went further into the house. When she came back she held a small box. “I want you to have this,” she said. “I gave it to Charles on our wedding day. He has little need of it anymore.” I opened the box and inside was a jacket wallet. The type of wallet that goes in the inside of a man’s suit coat or overcoat. Nothing fancy. No lettering or special stitching or anything. But she had kept it for nearly forty years in that small box. I looked up at her and saw the tears in her eyes. I realized what an honor it was to receive such a gift from this dear woman. I looked back at the wallet and took it carefully out of the box. I looked back at her to see a small smile gracing her face. “Leanore, is there any cash in it?” She grabbed a sofa pillow and whacked me with it.

          It was that wallet I switched to this morning. I’ve used it for twenty years now, ten years longer than Charles. The wallet is sixty seven years old and is perfectly good in every way, although it is getting worn. I only use it now in the colder months. On those rare occasions when I buy a cold weather jacket, I make sure it has a pocket on the inside for my wallet. I can’t use it in the warmer months because it is too long to go into my back pocket and I don’t wear a sports jacket or a suit coat every day. But I still really enjoy using the wallet because it came from Leanore.

          To say that Leanore was eccentric would be like saying the Pope is Catholic. Because she walked everywhere, she was known by everyone. Any kind of weather, right up to the time she was 100 years old, she was on the move. And her mind! She was so sharp! Always had some comment that carried a lesson in it. But, her mind was a little odd. She was in her own personal orbit. Trying to figure her out was sometimes pretty hard.

          Although she went to another church, she came to our church for Bible studies. She said she liked the way we prayed better than the Methodists. At one we were in the book of Acts and were talking of the early church. To help the less fortunate Christians in the early church, those with money were giving it freely and those with land were selling it and giving the money from the sale to help those in need. For whatever reason, this struck a cord and we had people in the church begin to do these very things. It was inspiring, but has to be another story for another time. Leanore came into my office one day (she never knocked, just came in and sat on my sofa and started talking) and told me she would like to help. Since she didn’t drive, she wanted to donate her car. I looked at her and smiled. “Leanore, you do not have a car.” “Of course, I have a car. It’s in my garage!” “Leanore, you don’t have a garage.” “Of course, I have a garage! It’s right there in my side yard!” “You mean the shed?” “Why, that’s no shed! That’s my garage!” It was about 300 yards away, so I asked her to show me. Walking over, I asked her when she had last driven the car. Oh, it hadn’t been long. She had bought it to go to Florida, Florida being too far to walk. When had she gone to Florida? Oh, the first time was in 1979. Went again in 1983. You bought a car to drive to Florida? Oh, yes, just needed it for Florida.

          She opened the shed and there sat a car. A 1979 Buick Regal. Looked like it had sat there forever. Tires were flat, battery was dead. It was covered in years of bat and bird droppings. “Think you can use it, Reverend?” “I am sure we can.”

          I pushed it out of the shed and looked it over. She said she had never really driven it anywhere but to Florida those two times. The interior was showroom. However, on the dash there was a large compass mounted. Right next to that was an equally large altimeter. Both looked like something I had seen mounted in a small plane when I was a boy. “Leanore, I understand the need for a compass, but why the altimeter?” “Well, I was going to Florida! I didn’t want to get to high in the mountains on the way.” I didn’t say anything. Her mind just worked that way.

          She liked talking to Marsha, whom she called Mrs. Reverend. Their minds were on the same basic wavelength. Marsha liked Leanore’s phone hang up. When she was happy, Leanore would squeal out, “Yippie skippee!” Whenever she had enjoyed her phone conversation she would say good bye and then as she was putting down the phone you could hear her say yippie skippie and then the phone would make contact with the windchimes that sat on the same table as the phone and you would hear those chimes. It was weird and it was sweet.

          Our youth were always helping the elderly in our church with their yards, so I arranged to take them over to Leanore’s. I walked around her house having her point out what she wanted done. We got to the back of the house and she said, “Reverend, something is wrong with my back door. Something’s not right. Could you check it?” I stepped up to the door and turned the knob and gave a little push. The knob came off in my hand and the whole door fell in and crashed onto the kitchen floor. “See what I mean? I don’t think it’s supposed to do that, is it?” We fixed her door. Yippie skippie!

          She was a true hoot. But the time came, when she was 101 years old, that her life ran out. Now I was working at the funeral home as staff clergy. The former owner of the funeral home (he had sold it to his son) was kin to Leanore and had handled her finances (quite well, too) for several years. Knowing how close we had been, Ford (his father had been Wilford, and everyone called him Wil, the son was also Wilford and everyone called him Ford) did not want me to be involved with her preparation. Ford was handling the funeral and all preparations. Leanore had requested cremation. As she had said, if she was cremated she could be buried in the same plot as Charles, and they had had so little time together. But, before cremation, she wanted a full funeral at the Methodist church. She had requested I be a pall bearer. She also wanted me to drive the hearse. She felt that since I had carted her around for several years, she would trust me for her last ride.

          For the funeral, Leanore was prepared and then placed in what is called a rental casket. When someone is to be cremated but a regular funeral precedes the cremation, the family will rent a special casket. The deceased is placed in a special box inside the special casket. When the casket gets to the crematory after the service the foot end of the casket is opened and the box is slid out and the person is cremated in that box. The foot end of the casket, when opened, is actually a little ramp that helps the box slide out. In this case, the rental casket we used was wood, and quite heavy. I pulled the hearse up to the church and got out and opened the back door. The pall bearers stepped forward, under the direction of Ford, and we brought the casket out. I was having a hard time with it because she was so dear to me. I was one of the rear most pall bearers. The steps into the church were unusually steep and taking a casket in always was a problem. We started up the steps. In this case, because it was a wooden casket and very heavy, Ford took the end of the casket to help us up the steps. At the moment when the casket was at a 45 degree angle I felt a little lurch and heard Ford grunt. I looked back and the only outward reaction on the long time professional funeral director’s face was his eyes were much wider than normal. He looked at me and said very quietly, “The back broke open.” “I’ll fix it at the top,” I said back. I didn’t know it at the time, but whoever put her in the casket (it would normally have been me, but not this time) had failed to tighten the clasps on the foot end of the casket. The ramp had opened. If we had used a metal rental casket, much lighter, Ford would have gone ahead and prepared everything at the top of the steps. The ramp would have opened and no one would have been there to hold it closed. Leanore would have been in the street.

Grief and sadness can do strange things to you. That image hit my mind and I started to laugh. Leanore would have loved it! I dropped my head and kept lugging the casket, trying not to laugh out loud. It seemed half of the town was on the sidewalk, there to pay respects to one of the most loved women the town had ever produced. Evidently, with my head down and my shoulders shaking, they thought I was weeping. Several made comment about how broken up Pastor Wade was. That made me laugh harder. Not only that, but now Ford was laughing the same way. Head down, shoulders shaking. The people on the sidewalk and just inside the church saw how overcome we were and real tears started. Which made it even funnier.

At the top of the steps, just inside the church, awaited the bier, which is the wheeled thing the casket sits on. The pall bearers placed the casket on the bier and Ford stood tight at the foot to hold it together. He asked the folks to go on in the sanctuary and told them we would be right in as soon as we made sure Leanore was presentable. The people filed in while I stood at the head and Ford stood at the foot, with heads bowed. Some would reach out to us and touch our hands in sympathy. It was horrible. It was so funny. At the moment I didn’t know if I could fix the casket or not, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

Finally, we were alone. Ford looked at me and said, “Fix this #&@** thing!” I had never heard him swear, so now I really was pretty useless. We opened the casket and Ford made sure she was presentable and I saw what the problem was and secured the ramp, and we went in. Wonderful service.

About a week later Ford came into my office and sat down next to the desk. “Tomorrow meet us at the cemetery at 8 AM with Leanore’s urn. You have the graveside.” “Oh, Ford, I can’t. She told me I wasn’t a Methodist, so I couldn’t do it. I’ll bring the urn…..” Ford reached into a pocket and pulled out a paper and showed it to me. It was her final instructions. In her own handwriting it said to have Larry do the graveside. Now I was choked up. Leanore had never called me anything but Reverend.

Next morning, with just family and Ford and his wife Debbie in attendance, I carried the urn to the grave and handed it to Ford. He placed it on the pedestal, which was next to the wind chimes that Leanore had kept next to the phone. Leanore’s only child, daughter Vera Mae, had brought a holder for the chimes and they were making a sweet, soothing song for us in the morning breeze. I read a few Scriptures I knew Leanore loved, asked anyone who wanted to share to do so, and then I said a few words and prayed. As I said ‘Amen,’ Ford said, “And all of Leanore’s people said…” and all together, not even having planned it, we said “Yippie Skippie!” I let my hand brush the chimes and we heard her old hang up.

          I love this day each year when I change wallets. Makes me smile.