Proud X Three

Gabrielle Christine, Jacob Riley and Isabelle Grace Allen

The triplets are born and all three, Gabby, Grace and Jacob, are healthy, pink and beautiful. All weighed over 5 pounds and look just like regular one-at-a-time babies. Their little hats were marked A, B and C, I'm assuming for the order they were pulled out (Nicole had a C-section). The boy was last and you know his sisters will never let him forget it. According to their Daddy, Nick, they will be in the hospital for 4 days, during which the parents can try to get a grip on what it's going to be like to nurture three at a time. It's a good thing they're young because the sleeping stops now!

So I am officially a Great Grandma! Hallelujah! I didn't think it would feel so good!

Life and Lunch is Too Short

Lunch on July 17, Silverdale Waterfront Park

Sandy Harkins, Pricilla Preus and David Frazier

David Frazier and Linda Greaves Phillpott

Bonnie Barnhart Jenkins, Vickie C. Holt Barton, Vickie's niece and Nancy Kvinsland Roesch

Sharon Ward Hill, Bonnie, Nancy, Barbara Jarolim Merriman and Lavonna Rubens

Vicki A. Holt, Susan Mosher Miller, Terrie Baughman Tenney and Sandy Harkins

Two CK Alumni lunches in two days, hours of conversation and laughter, but still too little time.

What do more than 20 people who haven't seen each other, in some cases, for decades, have in common? Cholesterol problems, high blood pressure worries, arthritis pain, shortening memory, failing hearing, dimming eyesight, caring for elderly parents, fascination with grandchildren and certainly not least, being 65 years old. Our group also happens to have gone to the same grade schools and junior and high school. They watched Silverdale change from the quiet, green, agricultural area where they grew up to the busy and crowded cement-covered commercial zone it is now. Bonnie Barnhart hadn't seen Silverdale since a year or so after graduation. It was a shock to her senses. She recognized nothing, except that the high school was still on the hill. But she recognized the warmth we have toward one another, that grows each time we are together.

Our two-day Alum Love Fest started with a picnic in Silverdale on a lovely, warm day. Co-ed lunches have become regular occurrences, thanks to Jim Peterson and Dean Johnson with the help of Mail Guy, Ralph Erickson. This one was planned to snag some of the women who might be coming from out of state for the women's lunch the next day. Unfortunately, the one out of state woman was Bonnie and she didn't arrive until that night. But that didn't take away any of the fun in seeing some others we haven't seen in a long while. Barry Ball and his wife were there from Mexico and David Frazier came from his home in Spokane to visit family. I haven't seen David for many years, but I knew him instantly. The first thing he said to me was, "Don't call me Fuzz!" I did, of course, having only known him by that nickname. He's grown up now and has left that name far behind him, but he still looks like that freckled boy I knew when I was a teenager.

What we find out at these lunches is that even if someone looks the same, as some do, there has been 47 years of experience, getting, holding, changing jobs; raising children; marrying wives and husbands, losing some; joy, luck, war, hard times, bad health, travels--nearly a half century of living to shape and change the inside, and sometimes the outside, of this person we knew at such a young age. Every single story of a life is fascinating, heart-rending, and, as a friend of mine has observed, worthy of a novel.

The knowledge that there is a rich story inside of every person makes it hard for me at these lunches. There is always someone I intend to talk with, who I want to know about, whose life I want to hear, who slips by me. This last lunch it was David Frazier. I saw him, hugged him, saw him talking to others while I was talking with someone else and then it was time to go to the memorial service for Linda Greaves Phillpott's father, and I hadn't gotten to sit down with him and find out where he'd been, what had happened in his life. Later I learned from others who had gotten a chance to talk with him that his time in Viet Nam had made an important impact in his life. I would love to have heard about that. It would have helped me get past the nickname, to the real man. Luckily, in this hyper-technical world we now live in, I have found David on the internet and we can converse in cyberspace and I can hope he will come back to Silverdale again, soon.

The women's lunch the next day, at Vickie C. Holt Barton's lovely place in Brownsville, was more satisfying. There were fewer of us and a longer time to listen. The setting was conducive to conversation--a large porch with comfortable seating, another beautiful summer day. Vickie had saved many copies of The Megaphone, our old school newspaper, and while waiting for all to arrive some of us read old articles and wondered about some of the references, having no memory of what spurred them. For instance, Nancy Kvinsland and I were accused of crawling under houses....neither one of us could figure out what that referred to--we'd love to know. The same article mentioned our ringworm affliction, which we did remember had to do with playing with some kittens and in my case, involved a medication that was also for Chinese Rot.

While eating lunch we found ourselves talking about health issues, cholesterol, blood pressure and so on, which caused Lavonna to lean over to me and whisper, "Did you ever think, when you were in high school, that one day we'd be sitting around a table with the same people, talking about this stuff?!" (I know we did not, in those days when we thought about very little other than school, boyfriends and dating and certainly not about aging.) Thankfully, the subject changed, as the day wore on, from our aging bodies to other, less depressing topics. We talked and laughed for hours, only getting up to leave when the dinner hour started to come into view and we realized that our hosts probably had other things to do and we might, too. There was thanking, there was hugging and then we made our way back into the hot afternoon, past the bee hives and the apple trees and back out into our regular lives.

Two women who had been at both lunches expressed how they felt about the days:

Carol Enloe Weber commented on her Facebook page,

I'm still reeling from the weekend with my classmate brothers and sisters. It wasn't enough time. I couldn't get around to visit with everyone but hugs to all. I treasure hearing a little of everyones stories and would love to hear more. Both gatherings were wonderful.

And Sandy Harkins in an email to the committee after the women's lunch said:

Thank you for the opportunity to talk about 'today' with some women of our 'yesterday'. What beautiful pieces of work and art we have become compared to the rough-gem period we shared.

Well said, women!

Memorial

I am watching the Michael Jackson Memorial this morning and during the singing and eulogizing, the pictures of Michael Jackson flash up on the screen behind and I keep thinking: the poor kid, the poor little kid. He never was able to grow up, he never was able to really become a man. Even through all the controversy about how he lived his life, he was loved, but I wonder if he ever believed the love. So many mysteries have surrounded him and they will go on for months, but in the end, it would be best to remember how much he entertained the world and how much love he tried to show. No matter what, he was a genius.