Twenty-Nine Years Later

We, that is to say my wife and I, entered the child rearing stage of our life 29 years ago. That calmly came to an end this past weekend as I dropped off our youngest son, Tulasi, at his dormitory at West Virginia University. While we remain parents, a significant milestone has passed. We are now considered empty nesters. Not that this will change much how we live except in subtle ways.

After I helped him get settled into his room, he had a couple of hours before a scheduled dorm meeting so we decided to go get something to eat. Traffic was heavy all over Morgantown as 4,600 freshmen moved into their dorms prior to the upperclassmen’s scheduled arrival later. We took the back roads to avoid the traffic but as we crossed University Ave and pulled into the parking lot of the Mountain People’s Co-op we saw someone waving out their window at us from the front car of a long line waiting at the red light. It was Tilok, another entering freshman, and his parents, who live down the ridge from us. What were the odds? Then, we noticed they was talking to someone in the car next to them also waiting for the red light. It was the son of a devotee who keeps a second home in New Vrindaban. Thousands of extra cars in town, and all we see are devotees!

It only got strangerer and strangerer. We walked into The Co-op, and there on the chalkboard was the Special of the Day – Gauranga Potatoes on Basmati Rice. Naturally we had to try that, and sure enough, it was the same taste we would have expected if we were at the temple. I found out when I got home, and was telling the story, that Meckela, Advaita’s daughter, works there as a cook. She is a sophomore at WVU. All in all there are a dozen or more devotee kids attending WVU, so Tulasi won’t be without some association. Or without a place to get a good meal.