Divine Appointment

Wednesday night, during a rare respite of quality family hurling time, Team Sabo traipsed up to PDX to pick up Brenton from his trip "home" to Virginia. It's always something of a circus when we go out in public en masse, but in this case we only had 8 kids with us. Plus a friend from School of Ministry who wanted to get a feel for driving in the van with a majority of the Sabos. About 6 of my kids were standing there in the airport waiting for Brenton -- I was seated nearby with Ezra -- when I noticed out of the corner of my eye this skinny dude walk by our family and stop and smile. He started walking again, then turned around and stopped and stared, still smiling. This is where the radar went up and I started paying attention, wondering if this dude was going to snatch one of my little kids or something. Next thing I know he's walking toward my wife and saying her name. By this time I get a good look at him and whoa! It's Pete Julian! Aka "Pookie!" Aka "Pierre Suave!" Aka "Rico Suave!"

Pete rented a room from Julie and me for a year at this shack of a house in North Portland (see the January entry on "My Best Worst Diaper Story") during my senior year of college. We ran cross country and track together and he's like family, though I couldn't tell you the last time we saw him. To this day he thinks of Brenton as a thief. Here's why: In the morning Pete would make his lunch, put it on his bed, then hit the bathroom to get ready for school. Brenton was about 1 1/2 back then and more often than not would toddle into Pete's room to check things out. Well, like any good forager he figured out where to find the grub. He'd climb up onto Pete's bed and help himself to a p.b. and j. sandwich. Many times I'd hear Pete walk into his room and holler out, "Hey! That's my lunch!" Judging from how warmly Pete greeted Brenton in the airport, I think he's gotten over the loss of his sandwiches.

Pete is married to Colleen and they have a 4-year-old son and live in Denver. Here's the amazing thing about all this, though. He actually invited us to stay with them on our drive home to Virginia in June. Perhaps he was "in the moment" when he made the offer. Hopefully he's not waking up in a cold sweat and/or breaking out in hives at the thought of 14 Sabos piling into his casa ...

Here's a link to a story on Pete: http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_5152864