Mi Casa Su Casa

Phyllis and Ted with Steve at the Albany Country Club

Throughout our lives we meet special people. And if we are lucky enough, one day we have the privilege of calling them our friends. This process goes on all our lives, but there is something very special about the friends that we refer to as our “old friends.” Not meaning that they are old, literally, but that we have known them for a very long time. They’ve seen us at our best and our worst, our highest and lowest and accept and love us all the same. Such is the case of Steve and Ann Wulff, college and lifelong friends of Ted’s.

After we returned from our honeymoon Ted wanted to go to Albany so I could meet Steve and Ann. On that visit, still being in the honeymoon stage, Ann brought us breakfast in bed, homemade cinnamon rolls. This memory remains like a snapshot in my mind. At the time, Steve and Ann’s children were small. They’re grown now.

Colin, the youngest has been a long-time golfing buddy of Ted’s. I remember playing golf with Colin when he was about 10, a redheaded freckle-faced boy already hitting shots quite well at that early age. Another snapshot memory. I asked Ted at what point Colin started beating him. Ted thinks it was during his mid-high school years. Now Colin, a sophomore at the University of Puget Sound, plays on his college’s golf team and Ted has no chance. Still, when he’s home, a golf game with Colin is always top order of the day.

Throughout the years Ted has appeared on Steve and Ann’s doorstep, sometimes announced, sometimes not. Steve and Ann love to tell the story of finding Ted asleep, early one morning, on the rugs in their back house. Steve said it almost scared him to death until he realized it was “just Ted”. Ted had rang their doorbell late the night before to no answer, then found his way to their back house which had no bed, only rugs on the floor. And there Ted spent the night. So the phrase, “Mi Casa Su Casa” or “my home is your home too” is certainly apropos.

This time our arrival at the end of Day 4 was announced. But of course, with Ted there is always a surprise. So the day before we rolled into town, Ted called Steve and asked if a reporter from the Albany newspaper could interview him at their home. The answer was of course. “Mi Casa Su Casa”, my friend.

With Jennifer Moody of the Albany Democrat-Herald