The last time I saw Angie West, my family was visiting Missouri for the annual Lebanon Christmas party several months after we’d moved to Burlingame, Kansas.
As I’ve written on this blog, moving from Lebanon to Burlingame at age 13 was rough. I, along with my younger brother, had plenty of friends and had settled into the country life. My father, mother, brother and I had a great time in Lebanon, especially with a close group of friends who loved to have fun.
It seemed like there was an old-fashioned fish fry several times during the summer and some sort of get-together during the winter virtually every weekend. During the summer, we’d go fishing or swimming before the parties. In the winter, there was poker, music, drinking (not the kids, of course, although we did consume a ridiculous amount of soda at these festive outings) and dancing.
That culminated in July of 1989 with a going-away party for the Webbs. There must have been 50 people there. A handful of us kids started playing softball, then the adults joined us. We ended up playing a three-hour game that became a staple of the summer for years in Lebanon.
We didn’t see the Missouri crew until December that year. Among the memories I have of that trip is receiving one of the last spankings I got from my old man. As I recall, my brother and I, as we did virtually every day until college, argued for hours on the way to Lebanon. Dad finally had enough and told us he was going to “whip our asses” the next time he stopped. Thirty minutes of silence later, he made good on that promise at a rest area.
As for the Christmas party, there were a number of families there, as always. Among those was the Jones family. Dad, himself a hard worker, admired Harold Dean, the patriarch, a great deal. He also held Harold’s wife, Bonnie, in high regard.
“Harold and Bonnie are two of the finest human beings I’ve ever met,” he often said. “They are just good people.”
Harold and Bonnie had four daughters: Lisa, Deanna, Angie and Bonnie. They were a fixture at the parties until the got into high school. We didn’t see them as much, except for Bonnie, who was much younger. The Joneses were a fun group to hang out with, singing along with most of the songs. It was also nice to have at least a few people close to my brother’s and I age to dance with during slow songs.
Like Harold and Bonnie, their daughters were kind. Even though Dan and I were several years younger than the older three siblings, they never “big-timed” us.
What I remember about Angie is she had a great attitude despite having plenty of challenges. She had scoliosis as a child and walked a little different than most of us, but never let on that it bothered her. Years later, she survived a bad, “violent” marriage that culminated in a stroke. Then, she beat breast cancer. While surviving the stroke and cancer, she raised two sons, including one with developmental issues.
Through all this, she was pleasant, kind and hopeful.
You’ve probably noticed by now that I’m writing about Angie in the past tense. She passed away Monday at the far-too-young age of 48, a victim of cancer.
Though we interacted on Facebook, 1989 was the last time I saw Angie. My memory of her will be the last time we were hanging out. My mom took Angie, two other friends and I to the grocery store to load up on supplies on the evening of the Lebanon Christmas party. As the other two friends went into the store, Mom, Angie and I sat in the car and listened to the local radio station’s countdown of the biggest hits of 1989.
As we were listening, I asked Angie what the most popular songs at her high school were. She rattled off several. For some reason, I can remember the horrible song “Waiting for a Star to Fall” being mentioned, along with the song we were all singing that was on the car radio, Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City.”
Angie’s life was far from Paradise City, but she always acted like it was roses.