Hometown Monday - T & V are for Tom, Travis, Tyler, and Virginia

Hometown Monday

T & V are for Tom, Travis, Tyler, and Virginia

We are continuing this series of posts of excerpts from the novels, novellas, and short stories of "The Homeplace Saga" family story-telling, with a new twist. We have adopted a format from the: "Blogging From A to Z Challenge." Each week we will share a published except related to a person whose name begins with that letter. 

This series of posts is to provide an insight into the story lines that may not be clear from other promotional pieces about "The Homeplace Saga." These will also be coordinated with the content of the developmental Wiki, "Beyond the Books" - to expand the information available there, as well. [Links in the text, below, provide more information on that person or entity]

Today we look at names beginning with the letters T & V.

For T & V, we have (with two excerpts, below):

Tom - ISP technician team leader

Travis Inman - husband of Laura, Nicole's sister

Tyler Winslow - son of Matt & Susie

Virginia Hollingsworth - outside trustee

Our excerpts today are from the novel, "Christmas at the Homeplace," recently released, now available at Amazon.com… for Christmas purchases:

This excerpt is from "Christmas at the Homeplace" is from Chapter 24, Sunday, December 22, 1996:

Jack and Mona, Laura, Zach and Kayla waited as patiently as they could for the plane carrying Travis to arrive. It was on time, but they had come more than a half hour early, having traveled so far, in case something delayed them. Of course, with good planning, there were no delays. Laura and Mona had a couple of bags full of things for each child to engage in to keep them busy. Jack was responsible for keeping the “Welcome Home” balloons from flying away and regularly checking the Arrivals electronic board.

When the passengers began to disembark from the plane, the tension became almost unbearable. Surely he would show up soon.

Then, they saw his uniform appear and Laura, Zach and Kayla all ran to meet him as he ran to meet them. Jack and Mona were not far behind. Laura had worked carefully with pictures of Travis so that Kayla was not disappointing in meeting her daddy for the first time. She hugged him as hard as he hugged her.

Zach just hung on his leg. That was his thing. 

Laura was so relieved to actually have her husband ‘home’ again that she was nearly speechless. She just watched as the children re-united with their father. That was really satisfying for now.

There was plenty of time to talk, now that Travis was home. And, there was a nearly two-hour drive to get there, all in the Suburban, together.

This excerpt is from "Christmas at the Homeplace" is from Chapter 1, Tuesday, October 12, 1996:

There was a knock on the door of the apartment leading into the Inn. It was Amy Hollingsworth, Karen’s Assistant Manager of the Inn, and Virginia’s granddaughter. “I thought I heard you in here, Karen,” Amy said, “I hope you don’t mind my knocking. I wanted to check with you on a reservation request, if I might.” This all came out before she saw her grandmother, sitting around the corner. “Oh, hi, Grandma. I didn’t see you.”

Karen said, “No problem, Amy, come in for a minute, if you can. We were just winding down from our all day Trust meeting.”

Amy entered and took a seat at the table next to her grandmother, giving her shoulder a squeeze in the process. “Thanks. I can relax a couple of minutes.”

Karen clarified for Amy the issue of her concern and Amy mentioned two other items for Karen to be aware of and they discussed those, briefly. Karen said that they had been talking about Christmas plans. 

Then, Amy spoke, looking at each Karen and Virginia, in turn, “Since you are each here, right now, together, there is something we should talk about. Mike has been told he will know before Christmas where his next assignment will be. He has asked to go back to Texas. We expect to get married before we leave, so I guess this is first notice.”

Amy and Mike Gardiner had been a couple for several months. Mike was the Project Engineer on a road construction project northeast of Oak Springs for a multi-state highway construction company based in Texas. He had come up from Texas last spring for this job. Amy had graduated from high school in Texas while her military father was stationed at Fort Hood. She had stayed and graduated from Baylor University even though her parents had been transferred to Germany. Following college, she came to live with her Grandmother for a while, and was pleased to be available when Karen began her search for an Assistant Manager here at the Inn.

“Well,” Karen said, “That is a bit of a shock, but not terribly surprising, I suppose. And, it appears congratulations are also in order.” Virginia sat listening, a grim smile on her face.

“Thank you, Karen.” Amy replied, “Mike and I have talked about it for a while, but timing has been the issue. The call from his boss, yesterday, has sort of set things in motion, it seems.” Looking at Virginia, Amy continued, “Grandma, we want to get married here, with you, before we move. Mom and Dad won’t be able to be here, for sure, so I want you to be ‘my family’ for our very simple ceremony.”

“That would be very nice, Amy,” Virginia said as she squeezed Amy’s hand on her shoulder. “Whatever you want is fine with me, of course.”

Amy then went on to say that she and Mike had actually talked to Rev. Clarice McCauley, minister at the United Methodist Church, about a possible private marriage ceremony. However, after seeing the nice small ceremony Christopher Ogden and Nicole Evans had at the church on a Monday evening, last week, they were now thinking of possibly doing that, themselves.

"May each of us have a Homeplace to hold onto, if only in our minds."

Bill  ;-)