Chapter 21
Mary took her college entrance exams and scored in the top 20 % of the nation. She began receiving acceptance letters from colleges by the end of her junior year. She also began applying for scholarships.
During the summer, Mary worked full time as a server at Francisco’s, while Matt got a job bagging groceries at a local supermarket. He was also helping coach peewee soccer and little league, and he helped at Vacation Bible School at their church.
Joe and Mary were doing a lot of volunteer work where they were working side by side. They volunteered at homeless shelters, nursing homes and helped with several fundraisers.
On June 20th, Joe turned twenty-one and Mary turned seventeen. To celebrate, they went to a performance of the San Francisco Symphony. The older they both got, the more they had in common, and the closer they became.
In September, as Mary was starting her senior year of high school, she had reached a decision concerning where she would attend college. She had decided on Stanford University, which had offered her a full four-year scholarship.
Mary wanted to be close to her family and to Joe. She was elected senior class vice president and was president of the National Honor Society. She was in the choir for the fourth year and was on the varsity swim team and the tennis team.
Matt was a sophomore and was the assistant editor of the high school newspaper and a photographer for the yearbook. Even though he was only a sophomore, he made the varsity basketball team and later, the varsity track team. At fifteen and a half, he stood six foot two inches and was still growing.
He sang in the school choir as well as the church choir. After his experience with the state senate the preceding year, he realized he was good at arguing his case, and he joined the debate team.
He continued to write short stories, and several of them were published in magazines. He also continued to write letters to the editor of the San Francisco Tribune whenever he strongly agreed or disagreed with an important issue.
Mark was now in the 7th grade. He played football and baseball. He sang in the choir and played the piano. He loved history and read every historical novel that he could get his hands on. He was in the Boy Scouts and was taking confirmation classes at church.
Luke was in 5th grade. Because he had crushes on a few of the girls in his class, he took home economics to be closer to them. He found that he loved to cook and the foods that he prepared were the best in the class.
He joined a golf team, which met after school, and he was playing the saxophone like a professional musician. He sang in the choir and was in the Boy Scouts. He was following in Matt’s and Mark’s footsteps when it came to girls. Many of the girls had crushes on him. Good manners and good looks ran in his family.
John was in 3rd grade and had recently started playing the drums. He was a Cub Scout and like a typical 3rd grade boy, he despised girls.
Paul was in 1st grade, loved to play chess, and was quite good at it. He had just started to take violin lessons. He was very protective of his little sisters.
Sara and Becca were three and a half and went to pre-school three days per week. Becca often watched Mary and Mark playing the piano and one day, after watching Mary very closely, she climbed up onto the piano stool and began playing the same song Mary had played, from memory. Betty started Becca in piano lessons immediately. After only a few weeks, the instructor called Becca a musical prodigy.