A Beer-y Nice Day

Was it the good dark beer I drank at lunch that caused the glow I felt during and after our Alumni lunch in Mt. Vernon yesterday, or did the glow come from something else? Since I've felt this before after one of our lunches, even without beer, I think it must have been something else. I was pooped when I got home. It had been a day that began at 7:45 a.m. when I left for Jack's house and didn't end until I got home at 5:30, kind of like work hours, but so much more pleasurable. As I collapsed on the couch, watching tapes of the Olympics and eating toast with peanut butter and jam for dinner, I thought back over the day, trying to collect the memories in a place that I could get at them later. That's not always such an easy thing these days.

Lavonna Rubens Allen, Karen Archer and Jack Archer

We started out at Jack's, seven of us, drinking coffee and muffins, before splitting up into two cars to begin our journey. I got to ride in Jack's Humvee, a smooth-riding behemoth, with Lavonna and Joyia, while Ralph rode in Gary's car with Jim. We met inside the Kingston ferry and began a conversation that would last the rest of the day, the characters participating and the topics of the conversation changing as the day went by. I haven't talked and listened so much in a long time. I talked with Jim Peterson about cruising the Panama Canal, with Gary about beer and mentally disturbed siblings, with both about health and attitude. I rode with Gary and Jim to the Farm House Restaurant while Ralph switched seats with me in the Hummer, so he could direct Jack to our destination.

Lavonna, Joyia Mentor, Jack and Our Mail Guy on the Kingston ferry

At the restaurant the first person I saw was Jeanette Youngs Longstreth and then Bruce Johnson. I'd been thinking about Bruce lately because I always do when the Winter Olympics are on. I remember a party of teens at Bruce's house gathered to watch the 1960 Olympic Games on television. Bruce tells me it is still a tradition to have people over to watch the events. Then I saw Marilyn Richardson Lovlien and Greg--was it Greg that got his growth after we graduated or am I confusing him with someone else? I didn't get a chance to ask. At the table I talked to Mike Cooper who insisted on telling me what a rascal he was when we were kids in Tracyton. There was the Alumni Game we always play: Do you remember? We talked about Danny Coulter and the Sackmans and Toni Agnesani and Dick Witte and the Lent's pasture. Who lived where? Does anybody know where they are now? Mike also told me about his time in the service, his 3 months in Thailand where he was involved in building what he called The Freedom Road. He said he barely made it out of the service before Viet Nam became a place some of our classmates had to serve their time. Earlier Jim Peterson told me he'd barely escaped Viet Nam himself.

Greg Lovlein, Ralph and Mike Cooper

One of the frustrations of these lunches for me is that, if I want to have a nice long conversation with someone, it means there will be people I don’t get to talk to at all. At this lunch I missed talking to Greg and Marilyn and Bob Forbes and Florence Voltin. I did finally get to talk to Linc David, after several lunches where I saw him but missed a conversation. There is much more to know about Linc and his life, but this time he told me about two trips he’s taken to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. He said his wife road on the back of his Harley both times, but after the last one she said she wasn’t going to do it again. They’ll go again, but next time it will be in a motor home with the bike towed behind it. We all have to make some adjustments as we grow older, don’t we?

Jim Peterson, Linc David, Jeanette Youngs Longstreth, Randy Flowers, Marilyn and Greg Lovlein

Bruce Johnson’s wife, Ellen, had left him off at the lunch to go swimming. While she was gone he told me she is a talented singer and wants to travel in the Smokey Mountains and the Crooked Road in Virginia and study their heritage music. Bruce was retiring the next day and wasn’t quite sure what he planned to do, but didn’t seem concerned about it. I had a short conversation with Randy Flowers about his retirement and his ambivalence about it. He has been retired for two years but hasn’t quite figured it out. Retirement when you are working looks like a golden time, the light at the end of the tunnel, nirvana. But it is a complex transition, more complicated for some than for others. It took me a full two years to realize that I couldn’t do every single thing on the list I’d been keeping for several years—things I didn’t have time to do when I was working. I found I had to cut some things out, or at least postpone them, in order to give my energy to some priorities. It’s an exciting time, but for some it can be a source of angst. I was used to having lots of people around to visit with or bounce ideas off of, and after retirement I missed that. I’ve had to create some regular social time with old friends in order to fill that void. And now we have these alumni lunches which are a wonderful form of connection. I guess it all depends on what we are searching for and if we are still searching. Another alumni friend asked me what I wanted to find, meaning or happiness? For me it is happiness. Writing, reading, gardening, taking photographs, meeting with friends, visiting my grandchildren, makes me happy.

Bruce and Ellen Johnson (Jeanette's Picture)

Randy Flowers (Jeanette's Picture)

At some of our lunches we have had “attendees by phone” and at this lunch we had three. Gary Rivers talked to us several times from Portland. He had hoped to come to the lunch but had to be a chauffeur for his daughter that day, so he called us while he was watching Olympic curling. I commented that it sounded a little boring and he assured me that since it was Women’s Curling it was not boring at all. We heard from Sally Burt Forcier, who was calling from her patio in Yuma, Arizona, sipping ice water in the 82 degree weather. Mike Traverso called, too. Hopefully, all of our callers will make it to our 50th reunion, only 2 years away.

Gary Parker and Jeanette Youngs Longstreth (Jeanette's Picture)

I titled this post A Beer-y Nice Day because the day started out with Gary Parker giving the seven of us beer from his Iron Horse Brewery. He had some new recipes he wanted us to try. At lunch the beer drinkers in the crowd tried the dark beer that the Farm House had on tap and as the party was breaking up Gary had his trunk open again and bestowed armloads of beer to eager takers. Later, when we were back at Jack’s house, I was lucky enough to be the beneficiary of some more of Jack’s own personally formulated and bottled Captain Jack’s Dark Ale. But the one glass of beer I had at the restaurant couldn’t explain the afterglow that I felt even days after our lunch. I’ll drink a toast in beer to many more days like this one.