I'm going to the HIllams.........

"Where have you been?"

"At the Hillams."

This was the usual Sunday afternoon ritual, after church, dinner and dishes! (you could always count on dessert at the Hillam's)

Carolyn, Ray and the clan moved in sometime after we came from California. My first significant memory was loading into the back of a crowed car and traveling to Lagoon with Ray, my dad, and all the kids. That was beginning of the our mutual adoption process, that day we became Hillam's and they became Hickman's as if our home became separated by 4 homes on Locust Lane.

Can't even count the number of mornings our breakfast was punctuated by Ray's entrance into the house with the command to my father "Letsgo!" I then dutifully followed their lead down Ash Ave listening to one or more "arguments" about politics, sports, the weather, or whatever came to their minds.

The year of the "Miracle Bowl, my father couldn't take it any longer he grabbed his hat, coat and me in tow for the walk to Ray's. When we got there we sat on the basement stairs moaning about the impending BYU loss. As the tide began to turn for the Y and Glen Redd came up with the winning touch down, I watched Carolyn jump up and punch a hole in the drop ceiling tiles and my father bowed in front of the TV, with arms outstretched with crys of "OH LAVELL"

In later years Ray and Carolyn would sit with us in the ICU waiting room while we listened to the damage dad's heart had taken while playing racquetball with Ray and friends earlier that day. Ray would sit with Dad during the days following the heart attack.

Our entire family has benefited from Rays tireless work at the cabin, one I hope to never see leave the family, Hillam or Hickman!

The Hillam's have left Locust Lane so when Carolyn stopped by while I was making Curry for my mother I imagined that Carolyn had taken the short walk from 4 houses down. I imagined that Ray could walk and talk like the old days, that I would be able to stop and see anyone of the girls or Mark.

We are all grown up now, children of our own, some with grandchildren they all seem to mesh into the Hickman/Hillam clan. Even though Ray and Carolyn have moved I will always look to the west to see who is setting in the picture window of my "other home".