Whew!!

It was a whirlwind of a weekend.  Friday night we were supposed to go to an informal get together with some of my classmates, but decided instead just to veg at home.  There were ripe yellow tomatoes from the garden, and nothing makes me happier in the summer than a fried egg sandwich with lettuce, mayo and fresh tomatoes.  So, that's what I had for dinner.  And Rod had grilled cheese.  And then we just relaxed, just the two of us.

Saturday A.M. we went to Giant Eagle to pick up the sandwich I had ordered for the picnic, and decided to buy groceries too.  Which meant, no shopping on Sunday morning.  And, you know how I hate grocery shopping.  I worked some on tracing patterns for the next quilt, and then got ready for the picnic.  There were so many of my "old" friends there.

This is a picture of  Gibbie, the girl who was in the newspaper clipping I posted last week.  This was not at the picnic -- Lily Tomlin wasn't there.  But I didn't have a shot of Gibbie from the picnic.  The picnic was very surprising.  People who were chubby are now thin; some who were thin are now chubby.  Some of the guys who had great hair are now bald, others with great hair are now snow white.  It was wonderful to see those who I haven't see for so long and find out just what they're doing in life.  But the very best part about the picnic is that I got to see the two people who were my very best friends in high school.  We just seemed to lose track of each other after high school, and lately I've really been missing them.  I was able to hook up with one Nancy on Facebook, but the other I never found. (She is on Facebook now, and this morning I accepted her friend request).

The lady on the left here is Donna.  She is a friend from high school, and is married to an old neighbor of mine.  The lady on the right is Nancy - the one who wasn't on Facebook.  Oh what wonderful times we used to have!!  She lived in a huge house (her parents were interior decorators) and we used to ride up and down in the dumb waiter.  We were both pretty small and spent more sleepovers giggling than anyone can imagine.  One sleepover, when her parents came home from a party, they found us in the kitchen baking a lemon cake with lemon frosting.  We were wearing aprons and shower caps and had dirty dishes everywhere.  We were acting so silly that they wanted to know if we had been drinking -- and we had -- root beer.  We didn't need alcohol to have a great time.  We played guitar together, sang together, and walked home from school together when Nancy was going to her grandparents.  And within the first 5 minutes on Saturday, it was like we had never been apart.

Here you can see Rod in the Steeler shirt, me in the tie dyed shirt, and my other friend Nancy with her husband, Bob.  This is the Nancy that I reconnected with on Facebook, she lives in South Carolina now.  We had so much fun as kids, and it just continued on Saturday.  Her husband is a real hoot, and I hated to leave because I don't when I'll see her again.

And here's the whole crew, not nearly all the class, but more than we anticipated.  There were "birthday presents" for everyone -- nothing fancy, but hats, shirts, pens and can covers that had been donated by members of the class.  Our local movie theater (which is no more) used to have a drawing at intermission during the Saturday matinee.  Whomever's ticket was called went to the front of the theater and stuck their hand in a fishbowl filled with pennies.  However many you pulled, went into a bag for you to take home.  Ian, who was instrumental in putting this whole picnic together, did this for all the little ones in attendance.  Hmm, was it rigged that every kid's ticket was pulled at the picnic Saturday???

What did I learn this weekend?  That I'm not the only one who got older, some seem to have gotten older than I did.  That each of us have had tragedy in our life.  That we've all had to deal with aging parents. That each of us feel life is better because of spouses, children and grandchildren.  And most of all, we can all still have fun and good fellowship together.  And that ain't bad!