Through the Back Loop

Adventures in knitting, fiber arts, and family.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Give me a Sign

We begged for one during the past year and a half as we completed more than 115 application packets. Which job would he get? Would he get any?

Before an interview, John would sit in his car and ask for a "sign" if this would be the job. Turned out that the sign he wanted was a song. "Play How Far is Heaven if I'm going to get this job," he'd say to the powers that be. Let me see a Buick Rendevous (the car that he would like to buy). Most of the time he was answered by silence. Nothing

At interview number 12, he didn't bother to even ask for a sign. It wouldn't work out, none of the first 11 had, so why should this be any different. Just as he went to turn off the van to go into the building, guess what came on the radio. Yep. Freaked him out. He hadn't heard that song in months. Very strange. Probably a sign, but quite possibly a coincidence.

After the interview (which was the only interview that all four of us went to), we went out to eat. The next day we went home and waited. We waited for over a week without a phone call, and finally John called to see what was going on. The school was letting the school board decide who would get the position in a few days. Two days after that we figured that John wouldn't get the job. We sadly moved through the weekend and Monday I headed back to school. John got ready to work as a sub again, until the phone rang later in the morning and he was offered the job.

He went up there a few days later, spent several days in the Comfort Inn, and found a nice apartment after Labor Day. The next weekend we went up to buy the furnishings for his new apartment. The signs were everywhere. They had actually started before he got the job. John bought a teacher planner to help him with working as a substitute. Turned out that the planner had exactly the right number of class periods that he would be teaching in his new job. He grabbed a book to read from the library that was interesting. The author turned out to be from northern Wisconsin, and her books are based there. Those books appeared in the tourist shops in town. But now that he was settled up in Minocqua, the "powers that be" have kinda been driving him nuts.

Turns out that there is an older German motherly type in his apartment building (John's parents moved here from Germany in 1950) who likes to check in on him from time to time. One of the teachers at his school is a huge St. Louis Ram's fan - she has decorations all over her room. John has been a fan of the Rams since he was 11. But the strangest "signs" came while the girls and I were up there for the weekend.

The first night, I wanted to do some cleaning in the apartment - or the "cabin" as we are calling it. We went to the local grocery store, and at the checkout a girl with a German accent rung everything up. We noticed her name. It was the same as our youngest daughter. Shocking, right? Well hold your hats because the bagger's name was the same as our oldest daughter. FREAKED US OUT! Our girl's names are not that common - Anna and Alicia.

We went out for dinner after working hard furnishing the cabin all day. The restaurant played John's favorite music (The Doobie Brothers) the entire time we were there. Over and over. An entire CD, not a song from the radio. We were shocked. John sat still through it all. Turns out that this has been happening to him every time he turns around. He's gotten his sign. Rendevous are parked at every corner, I heard How Far is Heaven as we talked on the phone minutes before he left for his first day of school. That song has been played almost daily.

The powers that be can take a break.

John is working, he is happy, and we miss him at home. But we know that this was the right decision. We've gotten that message LOUD and CLEAR.

Oh... and the sign that told John the cabin was truly going to be a "home" for him?

He told me, "It won't feel like home until you are sitting in the living room knitting." Well, I aim to please. Now it's a true home!

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