A Magical Mystery Tour

Blogs are good.  Willyne is in Boston visiting the Ragozzines.  I really, really wish I was with her.  But I'm not.  I did a good, diligent day of work.  Now I am tired.  My relaxation of choice when I want to wind down at days end is to read, and if I have some unique music going, that makes the reading and relaxing even better.

You know I like a good magical mystery tour.  Turns out that's not limited to discovering new roads.  I find it relaxing to start looking for something and see where it takes me.  Sarah sent me an e-mail yesterday that said among other things that she didn't make my blog reading list (the one in the right column rather than the left column you are now reading).  She realized it was probably because her blog is private.  I think that is mostly true, but I'm not totally clear how blogger works on that.  She in fact is on my blog reading list.  So are a couple other private blogs.  I pondered that and remembered that one of the private blogs is still visible on my list, while the other two aren't.  And even that seems to change from time to time.

So tonight I clicked on the mysterious private blog that appeared on my list to see which one it would be this time.  Rachel, you have to check this out, if it will let you in.  I hope it will.  Why do I single out Rachel when I would actually recommend "In The Beechwood Forest" to each of you?  Because Rachel asked me about my Uncle Wally earlier this year.  It was a renewed affirmation that the world really is small, and it is a story worth retelling here.

Rachel has a friend named Sarah.  Not her sister Sarah Ragozzine, but I think several of you know this friend Sarah.  Sarah knew someone whose life was changed by someone named Walter Beecher.  Sarah asked Rachel if she was related to Walter somehow.  Rachel asked me.  There are probably several Walter Beechers in the world, but I just know one and to me he's always been Uncle Wally.  At 10 pm that night, I sent an e-mail to Rachel with his address and phone number to give to Sarah.

In this amazingly small world made smaller with the Internet, Rachel forwarded me this answer a short time later,

"Dad you are never going to believe this!
"I just got an update from my friend Sarah about Uncle Wally, I am copying and pasting you the part with the update

"i thought i would give you an update on uncle wally...

"so my dad called uncle wally and sure enough it was the one that woman was looking for. so my dad gave him her number and they were able to get in touch. here's the cool part.... this woman spoke in stake conference on sunday and she told the story of how when she was 19 she was drinking and driving and she killed two people. she ended up going to jail for 3 years. she was inactive, and started going to the prison branch and uncle wally was the branch president. he and his wife helped reactivate her. well one fast sunday uncle wally got up to bare his testimony and told that his son had been killed by a drunk driver when he was 6 years old, and that being the branch president and knowing this lady helped him forgive the person who killed his son. when she spoke in my parents stake she said that your uncle wally and his wife helped her learn to forgive herself. can you believe that??? so then the stake president got up and told the story of my dad texting me, me texting you, you talking to your dad, you giving me the info, me giving it to my dad, my dad calling uncle wally and then uncle wally calling her. what a small world. it made me even more grateful to have you as a friend. this woman told my dad how much it meant to her to get in contact with him. cool story huh? so you can spread the word to your family that uncle wally is an amazing man that has blessed the lives of others."

Uncle Wally is indeed an amazing man that has blessed the lives of others.  I got to know him better tonight by jumping around some of the early entries in his blog, hoping to get some of his history that I hadn't been aware of.  I wasn't disappointed.  Plus he provided a bonus, some thoughtful music.  I've now made a mental note to check out playlist.com because of it.   Take some time, have a good read and a listen.  You'll be well rewarded for it!