BINGO night last night at the Holy Catholic Church in Mansfield. It was such a hoot! We sat next to this nice and very helpful lady, Jean. Charles made me laugh so hard at him while he was "re-learning" how to play! He had never used the big tear off sheets that you use the dabbers on and he said he wanted to start with the big one! That is 18 games to watch at one time. He did not know that. He thought that each single square was one game. Then in the heat of the number calling he couldn't keep up with the marking. The numbers were being called pretty darn fast, but still...he should have been able to view all the columns and put a dot on the correct number. But all he was able to manage was three rows of games off the whole sheet. I was too busy watching my own cards to be able to help him-who knew that BINGO could be so stressful! But there was a kind gentleman sitting across from me who was keeping an eye on Charles and finally figured out that he was looking at every column in each card for the number! He had forgotten that if "B4" was called all you had to look in was the "B" column. He was looking at each column on each card when a number was called! He gave the whole fellowship hall a laugh! Sadly, we didn't win anything except a very fun night out and being welcomed to the community by some very nice folks.
One of my friends on FB made a comment that where we are living now sounded "fun and magical". It is true! This area has turned out to be a little bit of heaven for me. There isn't really a ton of stuff "happening" in and around the town, but we are finding plenty to keep us busy. Case in point-last weekend we had read about a BINGO night during the week, just up the road a piece from our house. So after work, we headed there for some fun. We got there, walked into the community center only to find out that they had stopped playing BINGO there 8 months ago-no need to tell the newspaper though only us out-of-towners wouldn't get the grapevine news! So we were stuck...all dressed up and literally no place to go. NOTHING was happening around Mansfield or Covington. Wellsboro is about a 20 minute drive and we didn't want to go there 'cause we didn't know what would still be open there on a weeknight. So we were stuck. The only thing we came up with was pie and ice cream from Eddie's. That was yummy, but no BINGO! But I have to say that it is the people here that make it so "magical"! Another case in point. At last night's BINGO game, Jean, Charles' table neighbor was so helpful. I told her when we sat down that we hadn't played in quite awhile and she made sure she helped us. Watched over what we were doing, told us about the good brownie sundae they were serving, made sure Charles was keeping up, etc. At the end of the evening she wrote her name and phone number down on a piece of paper and said that if we needed anything at all to give her a call. HUH? I asked Charles later in the car if she really meant for us to call her and he said he was sure of it otherwise why would she give us her phone number. Oh! And when I needed some help with our satellite TV, the man who came out gave me a hug when he was leaving after his service call. A HUG! How nice is that?! When workers came out to fix something at the Tampa house I was happy when they didn't swipe anything!
You know, with all the political battle-royals that are going on these days, people are so angry about new ideas that would/could ultimately help some folks out, I am very happy to have settled in a place where people still look out for one another. Still care about what happens to their community and the folks who live there. I saw the Mayor visit a local shopkeeper the other week just to check on her after her surgery. He even offered to drive her to and from work since she couldn't drive for awhile. I think that there are still pockets of people like this everywhere, it is just the way of life here that it makes it very noticeable and for me, very welcomed!
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