Post #40

Thought for the day
If reading this blog is all you have to do today, you really need to get a life.
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In an earlier blog we mentioned that we would be going to the 65th anniversary of my graduation from Santa Rosa High School--the class of 1944. Well, that time has come and all too quickly it’s gone. The reunion wasn't until Thursday, July 16, but Grandma and I drove up to Santa Rosa a day early so we could visit some special people. First on the list was one hundred-year-old Irene Maxwell, a delightful lady whom we first met when she was just a kid of ninety. Grandma and Irene were both born March 8th but eighteen years apart, of course. We had lunch with her in the Garden Room, a very nice dining area in the extended care home where she is currently living. Though she uses a wheelchair to get around now, that doesn’t seem to slow her down. She’s still so sharp mentally that it’s a bit intimidating. After a couple of hours with Irene we checked into the motel for a short breather then headed off to see Maggie Bock, a favorite member of the class of ’44. We sat around for an hour or so reminiscing and sipping lemon ade, then Maggie insisted on taking us to dinner at a nice little place she especially likes. It turns out that her “nice little place” is a very fancy restaurant sitting atop a hill that overlooks one of the area’s beautiful valleys. One look at the menu almost made me lose my appetite--but not quite--and I saw Grandma’s eyebrows rise in surprise, too. It’s a good thing Maggie was footing the bill because the cheapest item, which we both ordered, was $20+ and I think we were both mentally trying to calculate how many Big Macs that would buy. Our cod almandine was excellent but we felt guilty about that much money being spent for just one meal when the same amount would have fed several poor families for quite awhile. Regardless, we ate and enjoyed.
Thursday morning, the big day, we slept in a little later than usual so we’d be ready for the evening’s festivities. Showers, breakfast, a little shopping, and a visit to Burbank Memorial Garden--my quiet place--took up most of the day. At 5:30 we drove out to the Ledson Winery where the reunion was to be held. When we got there we noticed quite a few old people wandering around the beautifully landscaped grounds. We wondered if maybe we had come to the wrong place, since the winery was supposed to be closed to visitors for the day, except for our reunion group. Well, when we got a little closer to the activity we discovered that most of those old people were members of the class of 1944. It was amazing how much all of my old friends had aged. What a kick! Beside that, there were some great hors d’oeuvres--shrimp, mushrooms stuffed with crab, etc., etc.--along with a nice selection of the winery’s best products. Grandma and I used our better judgment and confined our time to milling around and getting reacquainted, rather than eating and drinking. Besides, we didn’t want to spoil our dinner, which was coming up at six o’clock (Oh! I don’t mean it was actually going to be coming up. That would be gross. I mean it was scheduled to be served at that time). The Santa Rosa area has a rich heritage and heavy population of Italians and that’s why I ordered Tortellini. It was a great choice--almost as good as Fred Tovani’s mama used to make. Grandma said her Beef Wellington was especially good so it was well worth foregoing the hors d’oeuvres. I didn’t get an exact count but I know that I had made name tags for 105, including guests, and I’m sure almost that many were there. Classmates came from as far away as Washington state, North Carolina, and Florida. Strangely, the majority of the living members of the class still live in Santa Rosa, and their kids and grandkids have gone to the same high school there.
The crowd started thinning out around 9:00 or so--those old geezers have to have their rest, you know. As you might expect, Grandma and I started talking to one of my old buddies and his wife, and the first thing we knew, the four of us were the only ones left in the place other than the catering crew. It was a great, but exhausting evening, so our Motel Six bed felt pretty good.
At 8:30 the next morning (Friday) we got together with Donna and Joe McClelland for breakfast and more reminiscing. We had never met Joe before but we had known Donna since 1996 when, as editor of the Santa Rosa High School Foundation newsletter, she asked me to be associate editor. She is a sweetheart of a lady who graduated from SRHS in the class of 1968, I think. Her father is serving a life sentence in San Quentin for murdering her mother, so you might say she has had a pretty difficult row to hoe in life. She told us that she is writing a book--drawing on her own life experiences--that will deal with the emotional problems that face, not only the families of the victims of violent crime, but also the families of the ones who have committed the crime. While she and Grandma talked about knitting, crocheting, and other girl stuff, Joe and I were talking guy stuff--that is to say just generally solving all of the world’s problems.
Well, as planned we were on the road to home at 10:00 sharp. The traffic was surprisingly sparse and we walked into our house at a little after noon. It was a wonderful, jam-packed three days, and Grandma and I had a ball, but we haven’t yet quite recovered from the go, go, go pace. As for the future, it seems to be the general consensus that this will probably be the last reunion of the class of ‘44. But then that’s also been the general consensus after each of the past several reunions, so don’t take any bets.