“If you can get me Barry’s accomplishments no later than Sunday afternoon”, Senator Larry Alley (Winfield), told me on the phone on Friday, “I can recognize him on the Senate Floor in Topeka on Tuesday. It’s our final day in session until next January! Here’s my personal email…”
“Holy Smokes! Seriously? Uh…you bet! I certainly didn’t expect anything like this…” I stammered into the phone. We were heading up to Kansas City on Monday anyway for a personal week off. We chose KC so we could see the boys and Liz. Topeka would be an easy trip to squeeze in since we’re already that far north.
Little did I know just how amazingly the LORD was lining up the blessings for us. The Senate recognition was only being used as a tool to get us to where He was waiting.
On Tuesday, we intentionally arrived in Topeka around noon so we could grab some lunch before our scheduled meeting at 1:00pm with Senator Alley. So, we choose a little coffee shop not too far away from the Capitol building. At around 12:15pm, my phone rang with an unknown number displaying a (785) area code. That area code represents northwest Kansas, so suspecting it was a telemarketer, I usually would let it go to my voicemail. However, this time, I slid it over to Bear and mumbled with my mouth full of upside-down cake for him to please answer it.
“Hello?...Yes, this is Barry…Doug Henkle? ...Why sure I remember you!...Um, We’re at a coffee shop about six minutes away from the Capitol…Yes…yes, got that…underground parking at the Visitor’s Center… In about twenty minutes..Okay…Thanks, sounds great, see you then.”
“Who was that?” I asked while wiping off my mouth with a napkin and making sure I hadn’t drop anything on my dress.
“Doug Henkle”
I snap my head up and look into Bear’s eyes.
“THE Doug Henkle? From Garden City? THAT Doug Henkle?”
“Well, yeah, I think so…”
“How in the world would that Doug Henkle know we were going to be at the Senate session today?”
“I don’t know…”
“But wait, is he meeting us there? Inside the building?”
“Yeah, he said he’d be waiting for us right after we go through security and then he’ll escort us up to the Senator Alley’s office…”
“I don’t get it! Is Doug Henkle a Senator? An aide?”
“Geez! Vic, I don’t know! What does it matter?”
“Because this doesn’t make any sense at all! I’ve not seen Doug Henkle for over twenty years! (actually, later I figured it up to be closer to twenty-plus years!). I don’t even know what he looks like! I won’t be able to recognize him! Oh boy, we need to stop and pray!”
So, we did. Even though that made us a little bit late, it was the what we needed to do. Well of course me telling Bear NOT to turn into the underground parking entrance that looked like a one-way exit instead didn’t help our time crunch either.
Sure enough, once we parked and checked last minute in the mirror to see if we had anything stuck in our teeth, we walked into the building and found security. On the other side of the security area stood a tall, distinguished gentleman in a business suit watching us and smiling.
I smiled back and gave a little wave hoping it was Doug Henkle. Immediately, my mind flashed back to our meeting the very first time we met face to face some twenty-odd years ago. That’s when I revealed to Doug Henkle that I knew his name, where he was from, and where he was at on June 13th, 1976.
That was the night he was involved in a fatal car accident that took my oldest brother's life…
(to be continued in Part 2)