BILLY RHYTHM'S MEETINGS MI-5

Billy Rhythm says: "This MI-5 is inspired by the five meetings I had yesterday."

Meeting 1, the pastor: Tell us an interesting story about you and a playground.

Goodness. I don't know that I have one. I certainly well remember the playground at the Gilford Butler School in South Thomaston, where I spent Kindergarten through Grade 3. I really loved the swings, but what I loved most of all was playing "The Partridge Family" with Kellie Doyle, Judy Young, Becky York, and a boy who played "Rueben Kincaid". It may have been Brian Harjula, but I'm not sure. Actually, now that I think some more, it may have been Becky that played Ruben Kincaid. The Fire Department used to be housed under the school, and in that area, there was a concrete wall of some sort that used to be our "house". I played Mom Partridge.

Meeting 2, the insurance lady: What typical workplace benefit do you not have currently that you wish you did have?

The ability to work!!! Seriously, I'm temporarily unemployed, and I'd really just like to be able to earn my salary right now. Since I'm part-time, I'm not really entitled to any benefits, anyway. Dwane has just about every benefit you can have, so that's great. I'm not sure I would add anything to it, other than maybe have the employer pay the entire cost of health insurance, or maybe have his vacation time accrued to him all at once, instead of accumulating 6 hours here and 6 hours there. It makes it difficult to keep track of exacting how much vacation time you have.

Meeting 3, the real estate agent: Relate to us something about an experience buying/selling/renting a home.

When Dwane and I were engaged, we thought we wanted to buy a single-wide mobile home. (We figured that was all we could afford.) We actually ordered a home, and put a down-payment on it, but then we couldn't find a suitable lot of land to put it on. We ended not buying it and losing our deposit. Very, very shortly thereafter, we heard that Willard Brown had a house available to rent, just 3 miles from my parents' house, and only a 7-minute drive to my job. We lived there for five years until we could afford to buy our current home. That rental house served us very, very well, and I don't have one little regret in the thought that we "threw our money away in rent". God absolutely "opened the door" for our first home. (Pun intended.)

Meeting 4, the radio sales rep: What's your favorite radio station? What's the genre? Why do you like it?

I most listen to 103.3, which is the local country station. After 9:00 AM, it's not so local anymore, as it taps into some sort of national broadcast. The other station I like is KISS 94.5. When I started listening to it back in the late 1980s, they always had "Kiss in the Sixties" (oldies music) every Saturday night. As the decades progressed, the Saturday night music did as well. Now it's "Kiss in the Eighties". It seems funny to think that the music popular when I was in high school is now "oldies".

Meeting 5, the dessert loving banker: What's your favorite dessert? Why?

I think it really depends on my mood. I really like chocolate pudding cake, and I lreally love warm/hot homemade chocolate pudding on vanilla ice cream. I really look forward to Mom and Aunt Ginny's chocolate cream pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I'm also really becoming a convert to Beloved/Julia's homemade cheesecake (just plain--no fruit).