​Too often, I tell people, "The next time I'm in town, we'll get together for a beer." Then when I get to town, I'm so busy, there is no time to meet with all the people I want to see.
 
It's always good to chat with my friend Alan Stubbs, whether in person, by phone, text, or social media. Our conversation often closes with, "The next time I'm in town, let's get together for a beer." It's mutually agreed we'll do that, but again, I get busy, and it doesn't happen.
 
A few weeks ago, I was in town on a work trip. After a day filled with completing tasks, I was ready to call it a night, but instead, I decided to show up at Alan's house – unannounced. It was after eight – maybe closer to nine, in the evening.
 
I parked my van across the street, in front of his house. Alan has German Shepherds, and I don't know if they play well with others, so I gave my dog June a rub on the head, "You wait here; I should be back in a bit." I grabbed two cans of New Glarus Moon Man from the cooler. On the way to his front door, I noticed how well-groomed his lawn was. I didn't hear the bell ring when I pushed the button, but I knew it did because his dogs sounded off. 
 
Now, German Shepherds have a deep, throaty bark that will definitely get your attention, and these puppies were barking in stereo. "I hope he doesn't release the dogs on the unexpected intruder," I said to myself. I was having visions of a police canine officer in training, taking down a fleeing suspect wearing those oversized protective sleeves. I envisioned myself lying face down in the grass, being apprehended, pleading for mercy while soiling my shorts right there on Alan's perfectly groomed front lawn. "How embarrassing is this going to be? Maybe, I should have called ahead."
 
There was a commotion on the other side of the door; Alan commanded the dogs to back up and be quiet. The heavy inside wooden door opened; now, just a thin pane of glass separated me from my potential demise. The dogs wanted to see who was outside or perhaps who was for dinner. While he wrestled the dogs, I intentionally kept my back to his door. With the dogs safely retrained, the storm door opened; I turned around, smiled, and presented two ice-cold cans of brew, "Hey, mister, if I give you some beer, can I stand on your front lawn?"
 
I fully expected Alan to say, "Get off my porch and stay off my lawn." But I could see the curiosity in his eyes; he really wanted to ask, "What kind of beer?" He greeted me, "Palen, what the heck are you doing here?"
 
"I told you the next time I was in town, we should get together for a beer, and you agreed." We shared a good laugh about that. The dogs were still restless inside the front door. "Let me get them settled down," Alan said, "go around to the back door; I'll meet you there." 
 
When Alan came out the door on the back patio, one of the dogs ran out around him – I prayed the gate would hold. The German Shepherd pushed his nose between the bars in the fencing. I offered my open hand so the dog could sniff my hand but kept it back far enough from the gate so he could eat my hand, just in case Alan hadn't fed them supper yet.
 
Alan put the dog back in the house and came out to visit. I offered him a brew, "Man, I'd love to, but I'm on a working weekend – I can't have a beer." Well, he might be working, but I was finished with my chores, so I cracked my beer open, and we began to chat.
 
We talked about a lot; how things were going, the city, the airport, people we hadn't seen for a while – we even talked about the beer I was drinking while he held a frosty, sealed can. "It's brewed in New Glarus, Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is the only place you can buy it." 
 
"I thought you were living in Minnesota," Alan said.
 
"I do," I explained, "Superior, Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota, make up the Twin Ports. I just drive across the high bridge, and on the other side is an endless supply of this tasty brew." I took a swill of my beer, "Oh my. This is good." Alan said he couldn't wait to try his later. "If you ever get the chance, it's worth the drive to New Glarus to visit the brewery. It's built like a really cool Bavarian village."
 
As I described the setting, Alan had a look on his face like he knew what I was talking about, "You know, I have been there." Ideas began running through my head; I asked which was his favorite flavor. "That was years and years ago," Alan admitted, "I don't remember now, but one was really popular." I started rattling off a few names, "Spotted Cow. That was one of them I really liked."
 
It was getting late; time to wrap up our visit. I offered, "You know, the next time I'm in town, WE should get together for a beer." We shared a good laugh about that, said our farewells, and I was headed back to the van. It was good to see Alan – albeit a quick, surprise visit.
 
A week later, I had a trip planned to the Lake of the Ozark's in Missouri. Since it was a working trip, and Melissa had some other things to do, I would be traveling with June Bug. Since Ottumwa wouldn't too far out of my way, I stopped in Superior to pick up a sample pack of New Glarus – it was a twelve-pack with three bottles each of four of their brews. I also grabbed three extra bottles of Two Women, another New Glarus beer I thought Alan would enjoy that wasn't one of the four flavors featured.
 
I sent Alan a text inquiring about his birthday. If by coincidence it was coming up soon, that would be a reason to give him a present. He replied, "Lol. January." Eight months away. I asked what year. I needed to make sure he was of legal age to be drinking beer and cover my tracks for asking such an odd question out of the blue. 
 
Quickly doing the math, I concluded myself a year older than him. "Crikey, how about a little respect? I am your elder." We shared a laugh about that. Well, the birthday angle wasn't going to pan out for me, but there's no need to wait for a special occasion; I would give it to him on my way through town.
 
With some last-minute changing circumstances, Melissa decided to go with me. Seeing the sample pack in the van, she said, "Oh good. I was going to ask if we could stop to get one to take to Missouri." I explained it was not for us – I bought it for a friend. "Well, couldn't we keep this and buy him another." I gave her a scowling look. 
 
"Drinking another man's beer in his absence is just plain rude." I did the right thing; we stopped in Superior and bought another twelve-pack sampler.
 
I knew we wouldn't have time to visit when we got to Ottumwa. My plan was to set the package outside his door, ring the bell and run – a May Day gift of sorts since it was within the fifth month. With a few other stops along the way, time had gotten away from me; it would be well after dark when we arrived.
 
Plan B; I'd set the box of brews next to his truck in the driveway and let him find it in the morning. Driving south from Duluth on I-35, it started raining. It continued raining the entire eight-hour drive. Forty-five minutes from our destination, it was still raining steadily. Melissa checked the forecast. It was going to rain all night and through the next day.
 
I imagined Alan picking up the box. The saturated cardboard would fall apart. Bottles would shatter when hitting the concrete, leaving shards of glass all over his driveway. That would be a horrible surprise, and I didn't have a plan C. "Think, man, think."
 
We stopped for gas, and I went inside to get an ice tea. While I was paying, another clerk lifted a trash bag from a can behind the counter. She took a new bag and gave it a couple shakes, opening it with air. The clean bag was translucent white and just the right size. "Excuse me, ma'am," I said to the young lady, "could I trouble you for one of those bags?"
 
She turned around and asked, "Do you want the one with trash in it or the empty bag?" We shared a good laugh about that, then she reached into a cabinet and handed me a new bag." I asked how much I owed her, "One eighty-nine for the tea; the trash bag is free for giving me something to laugh about on a blah, rainy night."
 
The rest of the way to Ottumwa, I considered my mission. I would have to approach the drop-off point from the very edge of his property, turning perpendicular to make my way to the truck in his driveway. I decided against putting the package at his doorstep for fear of drawing the attention of his guard dogs. I couldn't let the bottle clatter at all while setting them down. I had to be perfectly quiet. I had it all planned out.
 
I parked a little way down the street from his house. I made sure I had the dome light shut off and removed the keys from the ignition to avoid the ding, ding, ding. I carefully picked up the twelve-pack and partial six-pack of beer and set them inside the plastic bag. Climbing over the driver's seat, I opened the door, stepped out of the van. I whispered to my wife, "Wish me luck." Melissa rolled her eyes; June said, "Be careful, Dad." Edgar, the cat, shook his head, "What an idiot. Only cats can see in the dark of night. This will be a disaster." 
 
I softly pushed the van door closed, carried out my mission with stealth-like proficiency, then returned to the get-a-way vehicle. I pulled the door shut quietly, started the engine, and pulled away. At the stop sign at the end of the block, my wife said, "You did it, honey. Nice job." June said, "Good job, Dad." Edgar, the cat, declared, "You got lucky."
 
We started to head for the other side of town, then south toward Lancaster, Missouri, where we would stop for the night.
 
The next morning, I got a text from Alan, "Hey there, Santa, you are much too kind. Thank you so much!"
 
I tried to play dumb; what? What are you talking about? "How'd you know it was me?"
 
"1+1=2…I truly appreciate it!" That was the reply, and it made me feel pretty good.
 
The following morning, I received a message from my favorite priest, "Were you in town yesterday?"
 
 I chuckled as I replied, "Quite possibly," then asking in jest, "was your house vandalized or something?"
 
He replied, "In a good way! Did you know it was a special day?" Unbeknownst to me, it was the twenty-fourth anniversary of his ordination as a priest. Melissa and I have a favorite coffee, Norseman Grog, roasted by Arco Coffee in Superior, Wisconsin. He wrote, "Well, thank you so much for the Grog. It made my day to find it in the mailbox! The Holy Spirit at work." That also made me feel pretty good. Another top-secret, covert operation was successfully carried out in the dark of night.
 
It truly is better to give than to receive – both of my friends really appreciated receiving the gifts I delivered. Still, I think I felt even better for sharing them.
 
I got to thinking; the next time I go to Ottumwa, I should get together with Alan. Maybe we could actually have a beer together, you know, the two of us, having a beer at the same time in the same place. Should such an event ever occur, I think I'd call it "Stubbs and Suds." In the meantime, these midnight deliveries are working out pretty well, too.

​ 
I took June's water bowl and food dish to the car. With everything else packed and loaded, I was all set to head out on my trip. It was already after dark, but I figured I would get in five or six hours of driving before stopping for the night on my way to the East Coast.
 
I went back to the house to say goodbye to my wife. "Do you have enough cash with you?" I told her I had a little. "How much is a little?"
 
"I don't know, probably about ten bucks." I've become so used to swiping a card that sometimes I don't think about taking or needing cash.
 
"You need to take some cash with you. One of these days, you're going to get stuck someplace that doesn't take cards." Melissa reached into her purse and pulled out two, twenty-dollar bills and offered them to me. "Here, this is all I have right now, but I want you to take it."
 
"I don't need that," I insisted, "I have enough cash on me, and I don't want to take all your money" But she insisted more.
 
"I can get more money tomorrow when I go to work. Just take this with you." Maybe she's right; I do travel to some pretty remote places. I didn't resist when she tucked the two bills into my top shirt pocket, "I'll see you in a few days; you need to get going." She gave me a hug and a kiss and walked me toward the door, pausing at the coffee table to hand me my travel mug. "Here, don't forget your coffee, and pull over if you get tired."
 
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." June followed me outside. I opened the car door, and she jumped in, across the driver's seat to the front passenger side. I sat down, put my seat belt on, and started the motor. I took the two twenties from my shirt pocket, and put them in the cup holder, took a sip of coffee, and set my mug on top of them. "She worries too much." I said while giving June a rub on the head, "You ready, girl?" She sat in her seat, staring out the windshield. She was ready. I turned on the headlights and pulled out of the driveway, giving two toots on the horn.
 
I wanted to get past Madison before stopping for the night, thus avoiding the metro traffic in the morning. We made it and drove on until we found a place to rest for the night. June and I got out to take a little walk before retiring. A lot of dairy cows reside in rural Wisconsin. The scent in the cool night air had June's curiosity - we couldn't have been too far from the farm.  I told June, "I saw a bumper sticker once that read; Wisconsin – Come Smell Our Dairy Air." We shared a good laugh about that before we went to bed.
 
Jack called to discuss what time I would arrive at his house and if I would be staying in the area. I told him I would be heading home right after our meeting. "We have snow that popped up in the forecast for tonight. You'll have about two hours of driving on winding roads through the Appalachian Mountains to get up to my place, and some of them are pretty steep." He warned, "I want to make sure you get back out of the mountains before the snow hits." I stopped to check the weather and calculate my en-route time, and determined I would be okay.
 
After our meeting, June and I wasted no time getting on the road. We had less than an hour of daylight and two hours before the snow was expected. We were only twenty minutes down the mountainside when I told June, "It appears the snow is two hours early."
 
The snow was pretty light at first, but the snowflakes soon became big and wet. About an hour into the drive, the snow was falling heavily, and it was now dark. It was one of those snowstorms when turning the headlights on high beam made me feel like I was commandeering the Starship Enterprise. Traveling at warp speed through the galaxy, stars, meteors, and space debris streaked by outside.
                                                                                                                                             
We had to slow way down, especially for the hairpin turns in the road. It took two hours to travel this road, getting up to Jack's house and over three hours to get back down. Not far out of the mountains, the snow stopped as suddenly as it began. We drove through Virginia and deep into West Virginia before stopping for the night.
 
Early Sunday morning, I stopped in the small town of Bridgeport, West Virginia, for fuel and got online to look for churches in the area. I had just missed the eight-thirty mass at All Saints Church by ten minutes, and the next mass wasn't until eleven. I didn't want to wait that long, plus two hours down the road, I would undoubtedly find a church to go to in Charleston, a much larger city. I stopped in Elkview, about twenty minutes out of the city, to grab a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
 
Online, I found a mass at eleven - in thirty-five minutes. Checking the route, I was twenty-five minutes away. Perfect! I ran to the car and entered the address into my GPS, then ate my sandwich and drank my coffee on the way.
 
It was a beautiful, sunny morning in early February when I arrived at Christ the King Church in a residential neighborhood in Dunbar, West Virginia. I was eight minutes early and found a parking spot right out front, across the street. Things were going my way.
 
I walked into the church and took a look around. It wasn't a large church, but it was beautiful with natural brick walls. Large wooden beams and planks made up the ceiling. Pipes for the organ stood overhead behind the altar. Parishioners were flowing in, filling the rows of dark brown fabric chairs lining both sides of the altar. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming. I decided I had better find a seat; I prefer to sit closer to the front of the church.
 
I found an open seat at the end of the second row. On the seat top next to it, a lady had set her purse. Not wanting to impose by taking a chair she may have been holding for someone joining her, I leaned forward and spoke softly, "Does this seat belong to anybody?"
 
She shot me a big smile. "Honey, you are in the house of the Lord. That seat don't belong to anybody but God Himself, and He's just been waiting for you to get here." I smiled and thanked her. As I was sitting down, she asked, "Have you got enough room, honey?" Lifting her bag and sliding it under her chair, she insisted, "You sit with us and make yourself comfortable."
 
The organist started playing; the congregation stood and began singing the opening song; the harmony was beautiful. I looked around for the choir but didn't see one. To the right of the altar, behind the organ, there was a piano with music stands and several microphone booms – but no choir, just one cantor.
 
The songs that day were all traditional hymns. During the second song, it occurred to me, some of the parishioners were adding harmony on their own. It was wonderfully uplifting and added a lot to the mass.
 
The priest called the children to come forward for a blessing before the children's homily, based on the same gospel reading the adults use but presented on their level of understanding. The lady next to me was encouraging a young boy to go join the other kids. The little boy seemed shy. His older sister stepped up and said, "Come on, I'll go with you," and the two went off together with the other children. It was beautiful the way she offered to go with her little brother. The entire service was very spiritually rewarding for me. I was glad I found this church.
 
After mass, I struck up a conversation with the lady next to me. I introduced myself and thanked her once again for the seat. She shook my hand, "Well, I'm Francine Peters, but I consider you a friend, so you can call me Fran or Frannie."
 
I told Fran how nice it was for her daughter, whom I guessed to be thirteen or so, to go with her little brother to the children's homily. "Sometimes when they hit those teenage years, they don't want to go to the 'little kids' stuff anymore, but she jumped right up to support him."
 
Fran smiled and continued, "They're not brother and sister; they're cousins. This is my 11-year-old granddaughter Charnesta and…"
 
I interrupted her, "Granddaughter?" I was surprised, "I thought these were your kids."
 
"Oh heavens, no." She laughed, "She's actually my step-granddaughter, but I fully consider her one of my own." She ruffled the little boy's hair. "This young man is my great-grandson, Kristopher – that's with a K; he belongs to my older granddaughter, Alicia, but she's not here today."
 
My comments about Charnesta helping Kristopher led us to a conversation on faith and doing for others. Fran shared that she had left the church for a while, "God has a plan for each of us. I was gone for several years, and He led me right back here, and here is where I'm going to stay."
 
I could tell Fran was a good lady, a caring soul who does a lot to help other folks. I wanted to do something nice for her. I started to reach into my pocket to give her some money. I would say, "Take your grandkids out to eat - my treat." Before I embarrassed myself, I quickly remembered that I only had about ten bucks with me when I left home. I put all of that in the collection basket when it went by. I could send something in the mail, but some people find it intrusive asking for their address the first time you meet. Suddenly, I remembered, "Wait here, Fran, I have something in my car I want to give you."
 
I rushed out to my car, parked across the seat, and picked up my coffee mug. Underneath it were two smashed, wrinkled up twenty-dollar bills that Melissa insisted I take. I smoothed them out as best I could, then neatly folded them in my hand and went back into the church.
 
I took Fran's hand, placed the bills in her palm, and gently closed her fingers over it so that she couldn't see what I was giving her. Still holding her hand, I said, "I want you to know; I make no judgments about you. If you can use this, that's great. If not, would you find someone to give it to?"
 
Fran opened her hand, unfolded the two bills, and paused. "Well, I've listened to your stories, and now I have one to tell you about how the good Lord works." There was a sparkle in her eye, and I couldn't tell if she was getting a little teary. "Several days ago, I came across a young mom sitting on the curb on the edge of the street by the bus stop. She was crying, so I asked her what was the matter and how could I help?
 
"The young lady said her husband, who was quite abusive, had left her the day before. She'd looked in her purse that morning to find he took all the money she had. She needed to buy groceries for her kids but had no money. Now, mind you, she didn't ask me for money either.
 
"Well, I opened my purse and pulled out all the money I had and gave it to her. I told her, 'It's not much, but I hope it will help.' She thanked me and accepted my gift.
 
"I got home and thought, 'Now Fran, what were you thinking?' The money I gave her was all I had until I get my check next week. I was out of milk and things and needed to go to the store myself. Then here on Sunday, I meet a new friend at church, who I've never met before, and you just give me some money when I didn't even ask.
 
"But the most amazing thing is when I reached in my purse and gave her that money – I gave her two twenty-dollar bills; that was all the money I had. Now here you are today giving me two twenty-dollar bills. No one will ever convince me that the Lord isn't watching what goes on around here – and He has a hand in it, too." Fran gave me a big hug.
 
Fran's story warmed my heart, topping off a perfect Sunday morning. I didn't want to share with her the coincidence in that the two twenties I gave her were all the cash I had left until I got home. I only had them because my wife gave me the last two twenties she had when I was walking out the door. I was afraid if I shared this, Fran would have refused my gift, and besides, I still had a credit card with me. We said our farewells, and I headed for my car.
 
I gave June a rub on the head, "I told your mom I didn't need those two twenties, but it turns out I really did."
 
June looked straight out the windshield; she was ready to go. "Are we going to get lunch soon?"