Angel Award

I have a wonderful neighbor!  Thank you, God.  She's terrific.

For years, while she was raising her family, she owned a beauty shop in a small town in North East Texas.  Then for whatever reasons she started selling Tupperware.  That's how I met her.  I sold Tupperware too, and she and I were in the same unit - The Dixie Babes.

Those were the days when being a "Tupperware Lady" was fun and could be profitable if you wanted it to be.  We both acquired our own units and that meant we got a "company car" to drive.  Naturally, it was a station wagon.  We had to have room to carry our unit members as well as several orders of Tupperware that had to be delivered.


Rita stayed with it much longer than I did.  She was very good as I remember.  Even when she stopped being a Unit Manager herself, she helped our distributorship by training new Unit Managers.

She's 85 years young now and lives next door to me, much to our mutual surprise when I moved into this community.  You'd probably guess she was 85 if you did nothing but glance at her; she has very pretty white hair and doesn't get around as easily as she used to.  That doesn't stop her, however.  Her car is out of our parking spaces much of every day of every week.

She plays Bunco, 42, Bingo - you know... all those really fun games that children today have never heard of. She does more than play games.  This woman has contributed something to society since the day she was born, and she has no intention of stopping now!

She volunteers at our local museum.  She loves it when the kids come by to see part of the history of our city and our heritage as Texans.  She is also a tutor for the Literacy Council helping adults learn to read.  I would respect her for that alone.

She received notice today that she has been named Tutor of the month.  She is so excited, and I am excited for her.  She accomplishes a great deal with her student, and it is a very satisfying endeavor for Rita.

But I'm not finished with her accomplishments, and this is the part I like the very best.  She's an excellent cook!  She makes homemade yeast rolls so regularly that it sometimes takes me all month to eat a whole loaf of bread!  With some of that dough, she makes cinnamon rolls or sticky buns.  She's also good with banana pudding and pies of all descriptions.  Except lemon ice-box pie.  She doesn't care for that and wouldn't you know that's my very favorite?

She doesn't make only sweet stuff.  She makes a mean pot of cabbage!  She's good with chicken spaghetti and many other dishes as well.  I contribute what I can, but I am a long way from being as good a cook as she is.  I do a lot of veggies so we both eat fairly well between her main dishes and my vegetables.  And we're not shy about sharing with each other either.

A pot of homemade soup will feed us both all week.  Cornbread and  rice are shared freely.  I love holidays.  She always cooks a great big ham, and I benefit from that as well.

Am I finished with her accomplishments?  Not even close.  We share rides to places, and I see her taking other people with her somewhere.  Let's face it - Rita is a loving, caring and giving person, and I feel very blessed to live next door to her.

Rita gets my first "Angel Award."