The Lovely Part

The Petersen's View in South Keyport

                           Abovet:  Jim's Chevy, Linda Greaves and Nancy Roi Goit

Top:  Linda, Terry Scatina's eye and John Sleasman's legs

Two views of Jim's Incredible Garage

Bonnie Petersen's Quilt Craft Room

Pete, Fred, Bruce and Fred's Wife

Jim's cola bottle collection on the shelf above.

Pete Batcheller, Roger Cole and Trude Gilman

I am listening to Ellen Johnson’s CD, “Warming February”, http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/EllenJohnson1, which I bought from proud husband, Bruce Johnson, at the CK Alumni lunch at Jim and Bonnie Peterson’s home last week.  She’s singing right now about bees, a metaphor for love and I’ve just been out watering plants in my yard, where I see the bees already starting their all-day work of getting every last speck of pollen out of the big lavender plant.  This morning I used the container for iced tea that Vickie C. Holt brought to the lunch for me, having offered it to me a year ago.  And I’m thinking about the pact I made with David Frazier to get serious about writing, to make a schedule, to try to keep to it, to notice how we are procrastinating and to ask ourselves why.  I don’t think that procrastination bit was in the pact we shook on—that came later when I was talking to Ralph and we talked about doing what we want to do—“we make time for what we want to do” he said, and I said something about procrastination being what we want to do, sometimes, to avoid something we DO want to do but that we’re scared of-–and that goes for writing and letting others read it.

And I’m remembering the story Pete Batcheller told me about how his mom died—a story of wishes ignored.   We need to talk to each other, the alumni, to let others know how we want our end days to be.  We can help each other.

And I’m looking at the pictures I took of Jim Peterson’s incredible garage, the dream garage of any man who loves cars and is there a man who doesn’t?  It’s more a showroom for his beautiful 50’s era Chevy sedan and truck and the Model A Ford that he and Gary Parker and Gary’s stepson are restoring.  I nearly fell on the floor laughing when I saw the “leg lamp” in his tiny office—have you seen “The Christmas Story” movie that has now become a classic?  If you have, then you’ll understand the laughter.  But most of the time I was blown away by the collecting Jim has done and the beautiful way he has displayed the antique finds he has made or kept for decades.  All of us were awed that he still had the water skis from his youth and the poster of a ski competition from the 60s.  He also had the trophy from a car show our class had in 1962.  Jim’s trophy was for The Cleanest Car and we could give him the 2010 trophy for The Cleanest Garage.

I’m re-savoring the taste of Gary Parker’s terrific beer—especially the High Five Hefe, which I hadn’t tasted before.  I knew I liked his Irish Death Porter, but the Hefeweizen has a delicious taste and a rich, deep amber color, too, like a liquid semi-precious stone.  And when it hits your taste buds and slides down to your belly, it’s a warming brew as sweet as Ellen Johnson’s voice.

I’m going to have to ask Ralph for the proportions of mayonnaise and mustard he uses in his potato salad, the best I’d tasted in a long time.  And I’d love to know who made the tabouleh salad because it was lovely.  As were the other dishes and desserts that were brought.  Everybody did a super job of feeding us well.

We were honored to have Jackie Aldrich come to eat and talk with us—she is looking for members of her class (1963) and I hope we helped her out.  I won’t soon forget how many offered to help me back out of the precarious parking spot I was in.  They probably didn’t see it as a difficult place to park, but I am not a confident driver and I’m a worse backer-upper.  As it turned out, I was having so much fun talking with Pete, David, Nancy Roi Goit, Linda Greaves Philpott  and Janet Dore’ that I stayed late and it was easy to get my car out.  Next time we have lunch at a house I’ll have to show up a little earlier and get a prime spot, as Pricilla Preus did with her tiny, yellow mini. 

Fred Graeff and his wife, Penny, came to lunch this time and it was great to see them looking fit as always and I got to get more details of Fred Just’s Seabeck cemetery work and the book he is writing about Seabeck and has been researching extensively.  His wife is equally involved and I could tell it is a love affair, not only between the two of them, but with the project as well.

Speaking of wives, Wayne Swenson brought his wife, too, and Jim Peterson’s wife Bonnie was everywhere, cleaning up after us, making coffee, and showing her beautiful quilt craft room and the results of her meticulous stitching on beds and walls.  Jim has his cars (and his cola bottle collection), Bonnie has her quilts and they have a beautiful home that we were extremely lucky to be able to borrow for our August lunch.  The ambience was warm and welcoming even if the day was cool, breezy and Fall-like.

Ellen Johnson has another song on her cd called The Middle Part of Love, that I like lots.  In it she describes our everyday lives with our mates, the “middle part”, not the beginning dizzying part or the possible ending part, the sad falling out of love.  The middle part we often trudge through, raise our kids in, get through, nearly ignore, the unglamorous part, which, really, is where the memories are made.  Ellen doesn’t go into the old age part, but I think about it.  Whether you feel you are in the middle part of love, or the ending part, or even the beginning part if life has thrown you a curve, I do hope you are enjoying the Lovely Part, which in my opinion is the continuation of our lunches and our getting to know each other all over again, and maybe with a few, for the first time.

PS:  David, it took me a lot longer to get this onto the blog than I thought it would.  Best laid plans and all that.  So even when I'm trying to be disciplined, life gets in the way.