On Wednesday night I went to a dance in the gymnasium with the Kings, Yates, and some others to see a group called "The Blue Notes".
My week alone went by really fast and Oran returned from the U.S. on a British Air Flight from London on Friday, June 9th, 1978, arriving at 6 p.m. Wouldn't you know it, his flight back and overnight in London were very nice. He met an Arab student on the plane, who introduced him to his brother in London, who turned out to be Mohammed Zarah, an Arab we had met in Dallas about 10 years earlier when he had been a student. Talk about coincidence. We had also met his family and had them in our home for dinner, and had been in theirs. He was now a successful lawyer in Riyadh and invited us to visit him and his family there before we left Arabia. We would probably do that.
I had relished a small hope that Oran would change his mind about leaving, but he told me that night that he was going to resign, but would stay long enough to wind up a couple of things.
We slept all the next morning, then I cooked a nice big breakfast. We were having a shamal (sandstorm), but Oran went to the office and I went out to do errands.
On Monday morning, June 12th, 1978, I went to Community Maintenance to have coffee, visit with everybody, and show the pictures I had taken at the Kabsa before we left on vacation. I also told Art Spitzer we were definitely leaving for good, so he couldn't count on me for any more work at all.
Tuesday afternoon I caught the 1:30 bus to Dhahran, visited with Pat Smyth, then went to Al-Khobar to shop in the evening after they had opened up again and the weather had cooled down a bit. It was still very hot and humid, but I had to buy certain things, even though we needed to watch our "fluce" now.
Oran officially resigned the next day, Wednesday, June 14th, 1978, effective July 26th. I don't know why he picked that date to leave, unless he thought of it as a nice birthday present for him. Ruth Dominy came over after work that day and I told her what was happening. She could tell I was depressed.
Later Oran and I went to Jeanine and Jerry Kings and told them we were leaving for sure. They expressed disappointment. We stayed to have a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. We went to the Dining Hall for breakfast the next morning.
Back home afterward, Keith Kaul came over to visit, so we told him the news. He had just returned to Arabia from his vacation to Canada the night before. Sheila would get back before we left, thank goodness. Then we drove to Dhahran to tell Pat and Guy Smyth we were leaving. It wasn't something we wanted to tell them on the phone. It was still hard for me to believe. The last day of that weekend, Friday, I cooked Sweet and Sour Pork, so we had Keith over to eat with us. The Kings dropped by later for drinks.