Muenster -- "I love to go, I hate to leave."

We got to Muenster about mid-morning.  Muenster is a small town, about 1400 people, that has a solid German Catholic heritage.  It’s right on highway 82 15 miles west of Gainesville and was one of our very favorite stops on our journey.

We lived in Muenster from 1980 to 1983.  We found it to be a warm, tight knit, self-reliant community.  There were two small grocery stores, a couple of restaurants, two or three beer distributors and two churches, Sacred Heart Catholic and First (and only) Baptist Church.

Marty did her Speech Pathology thing in a small school district in a small Oklahoma town I can’t remember.  I did customer service for Texas Power and Light and Erin was born at Muenster Memorial Hospital.  We were good friends with a couple of the nurses in the delivery room and Marty sang in the Cooke County Chorale with the doctor who delivered Erin.  It’s that kind of town.

Matt being a blonde haired and blue-eyed kid fit right in and attended a Montessori pre-school there.  We were great friends with the owner and operator of the local newspaper, the Muenster Enterprise and it was painful to leave.  While we were there we immersed ourselves in the community and the civic organizations associated with the town and made fast good friendships.  Marty did not want to move when we did and she told me, “I love going to a new place, I hate leaving the old place.”

Every year in Muenster they hosted the German fest in April or May.  Some 80000 people would come and polka, eat sausage and drink beer.  It was a huge party and Marty and I waltzed and two-stepped with the best of them.

I also remember sitting in the majestic sanctuary of Sacred Heart with it’s high ceilings and huge gray beams rising to the ceiling.  It was Christmas season and I watched and listened to the chorus Marty was in sing the “Hallelujah Chorus”.  I didn’t know you were supposed to stand during the Hallelujah part of the chorus.  Some old lady explained it to me succinctly and I’ve been standing ever sense.

When we got to town that morning Skip and I drove to the park and let some of Marty’s ashes drift to the ground amidst some tall old oaks close to the creek that runs through the park.  I didn’t say anything, I let the memories of this place that was such an integral part of ours, wash over me.  It was just about perfect.  

After the park I drove us through the little town.  We drove past our old house.  It was the first new house we ever had, and we put in the yard and hung drapes.  It was here we decided if we wanted to stay married we should again hang drapes together.  Marriage lessons learned.

We drove past Rohmer’s Restaurant, Fischer’s Market and the little motel I stayed in for six weeks while we waited on our move from Paris.  I stayed in the same room that whole time and finally brought my own light bulbs, no one can read off 20-watt bulbs.

Skip and I stopped at small bakery that used to sell the best Apple Strudel.  We got a cherry strudel, stopped at the Muenster Enterprise, now on it’s 3^rd or 4^th owner since we left, got a copy of the paper and headed to Lubbock.

I met Marty in Lubbock.