In 1975 I was living in PeEll, Washington, and selling life insurance for a living. &nbsp;I had two little kids, a troubled husband, and a mortgage to pay. &nbsp;When Western Electric shut down a manufacturing plant and laid off 800 people over a six month period, my district manager for The Equitable asked if I would go to Vancouver, Washington, to let those soon-to-be-former employees know about their rights to convert their group insurance policies to individual policies.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let&#039;s see now. &nbsp;How easy could this be? &nbsp;I&#039;m expected to go sell life insurance to people who have just lost their jobs. &nbsp;No problem, right? &nbsp;But that&#039;s what Paul Huntington asked me to do, and that&#039;s what I did.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On Monday mornings, it would take me 27!!! trips back and forth to the car to get my stuff for the week, the kids&#039; stuff for the week, the high chair, the potty chair, the car seats and the kids loaded into the car. &nbsp;Then I drove 25 miles to Chehalis where I dropped the kids and their stuff with a babysitter. &nbsp;Then I would drive to Longview, have lunch with my manager, and then go on to Vancouver. &nbsp;Once there, I&#039;d set appointments for Monday evening, all day Tuesday and all day Wednesday. &nbsp;On Thursday morning, I would reverse course. &nbsp;I&#039;d drive back to Longview, drop off my applications, pick up groceries, go get the kids, and go home where I would immediately start running the washer and dryer which ran pretty much non-stop all weekend long. &nbsp;Did I mention, weekends weren&#039;t much fun?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once I paid for the babysitter and the mortgage, there was very little left over to handle my living expenses or for anything other than a flophouse type room on those nights I stayed in Vancouver. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One day, while reading the local newspaper, I saw that the Orchards United Methodist Church was welcoming a new minister, Reverend Mary Ann Swenson and her husband, Jeff. &nbsp;There was no rule that said I was only allowed to sell insurance to people who had lost their jobs, so I tracked her down, and set up an appointment. &nbsp;She wasn&#039;t buying, but at the end of the appointment, I said, &quot;I have to be in Vancouver three days a week. &nbsp;Is there anyone in your church who would be willing to take in a boarder three days a week?&quot; &nbsp;Mary Ann looked at me, smiled, and said, &quot;You could stay with Jeff and me.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And so I did. &nbsp;For six months in 1975 and early 1976 I slept on the hardwood floor in their guest room. &nbsp;They weren&#039;t being mean to me. &nbsp;They were just starting out. &nbsp;Their guest room didn&#039;t have ANY furniture. &nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Those were tough days. &nbsp;I would go out on evening appointments. &nbsp;Driving past lit dining room windows, I would see families sitting down to dinner together and I would burst into tears. &nbsp;Those people were all sharing their evening meals together. &nbsp;My children were ninety miles away. &nbsp;When I got to the appointment, I&#039;d often have to stop long enough to fix my makeup before going up to ring the doorbell.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;During that time, Jeff and Mary Ann&#039;s home was a little island of sanity in a world that was flying apart. &nbsp;I&#039;d come back from my evening appointments, we&#039;d watch Johnny Carson and M-A-S-H. &nbsp;And when Thursday came, I would leave sanity behind and return to chaos.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Eventually I went back to Arizona, got my divorce, and finally started writing. &nbsp;Years later, when I went to write the first Joanna Brady book, Desert Heat, I created Joanna&#039;s pastor and her husband, Marianne Maculyea and Jeff Daniels, by modeling them after the two good Samaritans who had been so kind and caring to me when I was in a world of hurt. &nbsp;And when you read the dedication to that book, you&#039;ll see that it mentions the REAL Jeff and Mary Ann.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For a few years Mary Ann and I lost track of one another, but when we finally reconnected after Bill and I married, it was wonderful. &nbsp;Bill and Jeff hit it off. &nbsp;Bill had recently retired from working &quot;outside the home,&quot; and Jeff Swenson willingly gave Bill tips on surviving house-husbandry. &nbsp;(He&#039;s a guy who bakes his own bread, by the way.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then life happened. &nbsp;Mary Ann went from Vancouver to Wenatchee and from there to Pasadena, California, where she serves as the UMC Bishop for Southern California. &nbsp;When our ailing son-in-law and our daughter wanted to do a renewal of vows in honor of their fifth anniversary, Mary Ann (the real one) flew to Tucson from California to officiate. &nbsp;Doing a renewal of vows for a couple, one of whom was a cancer patient, wasn&#039;t an easy call, Mary Ann did a magnificent job of it--not a dry eye in the house. &nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When Jon was in the U Dub Hospital, Mary Ann visited him there when she was in town. &nbsp;When he was in hospice, she visited him there. &nbsp;And when he was gone, she flew into Seattle to speak at Jon&#039;s memorial service. &nbsp;In other words, Bishop Mary Ann Swenson is family.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Last weekend, in honor of our twenty-fifth anniversary, our daughter&#039;s twenty-fifth anniversary, and our friends&#039; twenty-third, we had a renewal of vows celebration of our own here in Bellevue, and of course, Mary Ann stopped by on her way home from Chicago to Pasadena with a five hour layover here in Seattle to officiate. &nbsp;More than once, in introducing her, I mistakenly called her Marianne Maculyea, because when I write about that character in the Joanna books, that&#039;s the person I visualize.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It was a wonderful party--sort of a first and last gasp of summer, with close to seventy people wandering around our re-landscaped and recently completed back yard garden. &nbsp;&nbsp;We ate wedding cake and sipped champagne after the ceremony. &nbsp;We had a band playing music. &nbsp;Our son Tom roasted a pig; our daughter-in-law, Kathy, supervised the hors d&#039;oeuvres. &nbsp;After the feast, we finished up by roasting countless marshmallows for some-mores at the outdoor fireplace. &nbsp;Luckily, the rains held off until the last marshmallow was roasted.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lots of people came to the party, some of whom were guests at the original ones twenty-five years ago, but of all the people in attendance, other than my daughter, my sister, and a single stray cousin, Mary Ann Swenson was the person I&#039;ve known the longest--longer than my husband or our joint kids or our grandkids. &nbsp;And what she said about the importance of renewing vows when you&#039;re no longer blinded by love and when you know that marriage is a process of give-and-take was just as inspiring when she spoke of our marriage vows as it was years earlier when she did a similar ceremony for Jon and Jeanne T.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And now, as I sit here in the aftermath of that wonderful celebration, I know that the old Girl Scout song had it right. &nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make new friends but keep the old.&lt;br /&gt;One is silver and the other gold.&lt;br /&gt;