Old Friends

This has been a great week for old friends here on Layton.

Justus, this small farming community that grew up on Layton in the first half of the twentieth century, fostered solid friendships. When people work, worship, and worry children into adulthood together, friendships form like the bedrock on which this community rests.

In the late 1920's and early 1930's the Evans, Evans, Jones, and Davis families settled into rural life on the mountaintop in Justus. Though in its waning days of production, coal still dominated valley life, and these valley families wanted elbow room. The head of each household had spent plenty of dark, dirty time in the mines, and they sought fresh air and wide open spaces, away from the hustle of life in the busy mining towns of the valley, like Olyphant and Throop. Justus began to explode with these valley kids let loose in the country. Friendships developed on the dirt roads and in the fields and forests.

Jack and Lucy Evans' boys, Jack, Bayard, Dick, Gordon, and Donnie, attended the small one room school house across from their home and romped the countryside with the Von Storch and Lewis boys.

Jack Jones and his wife Winnie brought their son Joe and daughter Betty up the mountain to the great outdoors away from the heyday of the coal mines in Blakely.

Bill Evans, who became the community's first constable, moved his wife and daughter Annette from the congestion of North Scranton. And the Davis family brought Bill, Janet, Margaret and Myfawnwy to their new home on Layton.

The children did what children do best - they played, and as they grew into adolesence, their childhood friends became their dating arena and eventually their choices for love and marriage.

Joe Jones fell in love with the skinny, little beauty, Annette Evans, and Jack Evans fell for the laughter and mirth of Janet Davis. The men shipped out to WWII; Jack to the Pacific theater and Joe to North Africa and Europe. Annette and Janet wrote their love letters from Justus and waited. The end of the war brought the boys home to Layton, their best friends, and marriage.

Annette Evans and Joe Jones (1945)

Jack Evans and Janet Davis, best friends on Layton

The two couples raised their families on Layton, attended church together every Sunday at Mt. Bethel, Justus' community church, celebrated every New Year's Eve in one or the other's living rooms, and took their burgeoning families camping each summer. When the kids were raised and most had flown beyond life on Layton, Joe and Annette and Jack and Janet moved together to retirement heaven - Myrtle Beach.

That brings us to 2013, over eighty years from those early days. Joe is 93, and he returns to spend much of his time here on Layton. He continues to grieve the passing of his Annie in 2009. Janet said a final goodbye to her Jack this year. She lives in an assisted living home near her son in Bethelehem.

Janet and Joe had an "Old Friends" reunion this week. Theirs is an 80-year-old friendship.

This week we visited Janet, and she and dad (Joe) spent the afternoon as they always enjoyed - eating (although in much smaller quantities), talking (although some of the conversation was repeated), and laughing (with the same old sound and enthusiasm). It was a good day for old friends.

This reunion set me to thinking about old friends. So I invited nine of them for a picnic on the porch last Saturday. The rain came down in sheets, ruining my plan for a fire pit evening, but it didn't spoil our laughter. We couldn't go inside because one of my friends is allergic to cats, so we hooted and hollered some more about that as our backs started to get soaked, and the candles flickered in the rising wind, and we huddled up in blankets.

Old friends braved the rainy weather on the back porch and laughed the night away . . . on Layton.

Old friends bring a comfortable camaraderie, a history of relationship, and plenty of good laughter and joy in reminiscing.

As I thanked God this week for our precious "old" friends, I remembered my oldest and dearest Friend, Jesus. He has known me forever. He knows all my quirks and faults and disappointments and fears. He knows my needs and my wants. He's been faithful in walking the journey of life with me, never leaving me alone or lonely.

He and I have a history of relationship and a comfortable camaraderie. He's comforted me in my tears and laughed joyfully with me. He is my treasured and best Old Friend.

No doubt about it. It's always a great week for old friends here on Layton.