The Best Days!

Melanie Wilkes, in Gone With the Wind, says that the best days are the days when babies are born.  And they are.  But the best days are also when people you love and care about get married.  Or when you accomplish a difficult task.  Or when you find serendipity.   Or when you get to hang out with old friends who add a special dimension to your life and memories.

Today was just such a day.  Susan was in town for the GHHS reunion - that none of us but Susan attended!  But she gave us a good report.  And really there were only one or two guys from our class who even attended - Susan's husband was in the Spring class - we were the winter class - so we were pleased just to have an excuse to gather once more for food and great conversation!

Ever since the 20 year reunion - when Carol and I re-connected - I have enjoyed the frequent get togethers we have enjoyed.  When someone from out of state is in town, we gather - so the group changes often, but the purpose is there and spirit of friendship and camaraderie doesn't change.

I cannot say enough good things about the joy and satisfaction that comes from knowing that a group of people in this world - who have known you for a lot of years - is as happy as you are to join for a time, to break bread together, and to share love and experiences!

Now that is what makes "the best days!"

 

The good spirit of the day continued with a birthday dinner and celebration for Marjorie.  It was fun to find myself included with "the Golden Girls."  I feel like I've reached a milestone!!

 

Of course the grandchildren and the dogs added their own element of activity to the occasion.

 

Miss Isla is growing up all too quickly it seems!

 

And the crowd gathered to sing and celebrate Marjorie's special day.

 

Now we are waiting for Baby Boy Terrill to join us so we can celebrate some more!

Stay tuned!

"We'll remember always, graduation day . . ."

I graduated from high school 50 years ago - and attended a 20 year reunion 30 years ago.  It was not an entirely satisfactory event - Joy had come from SLC for the event, and it just didn't live up to the hype.  The best thing about it was re-connecting with my school chum Carol - and now we've stayed connected for the last 30 years.

So I was conflicted about attending the 50th reunion - ultimately decided not to go - but on Sunday I am having lunch here at my house with 5 of my high school chums.

It will definitely be a satisfactory event - we get together often now - beats an expensive night at a hotel dinner!

Summer - getting into the swing!!

I have a group of friends from my kindergarten through high school years - and periodically we get together.  And when we do, it is lots of fun!!  This last weekend we gathered at Carol's house, since Kathy was here from Florida.  We usually go to a restaurant, but when we got together in February, we decided that potluck at someone's house was much more fun!!  Sunday was no exception!!  I had also been planning for a very long while to make aprons for everyone - and this time I finally managed to do it!

Old friends are the best!

Cub Scout Pack Meeting this week - and it was our June Water Extravaganza!!  More accurately our June Water Balloon Extravaganza  - young boys + water balloons = a lot of fun!!

 

Isla got into the spirit of the event!!

 

We had a few planned events -  Water Balloon Dodge Ball, Water Balloon "Egg Toss" - but the biggest hit was just handing out the filled balloons and telling the boys to have at it!!

A wonderful time was had by all - next month - Raingutter Regatta - don't you wish you were a Cub Scout??

You never know what you will find!!

My summer-time quest to tame the clutter in my life has produced some interesting results.  Going through boxes and envelopes and files has mostly produced trash in the bin.  But then I found this - an article about Harry F. in the Academic Decathalon at MHS.  He used to say he was "the token C student" but who knows?

If you look closely, you will see Bryan Nonelee in the picture too!!

Ah, the good old days of high school!

You CAN go home again! At least partway!!

Saturday morning I met up with two friends from high school, and we set out to walk around Granada Hills.  We weren't exactly sure of every place we wanted to go, so we started out by walking to our old elementary school.  Some aspects were quite different - mainly the strong fences all around, and the missing pepper tree in the middle of the playground - but our old classrooms were there, and the lunch area looked as foreboding as ever!!

 

We walked to the homes of other old friends to see if they looked the same.  They mostly did not look the same, but we felt like we were evoking another time by talking about how it used to look, or how we remembered it, or specific memories we had of the various locales.

 

After we headed to the junior high - which was a HUGE disappointment - we wandered around some more until we came to our old high school.  (The disappointment in the junior high was mostly due to the fact that there were no buildings there now that were there when we were there!  We definitely had to use our imaginations!!)

But the disappointment in Patrick Henry Junior High School - now known as Patrick Henry Middle School - was more than offset by the joy and pleasure we found at the high school.  GHHS was there and didn't appear to have changed much at all.  And lucky for us, some kind of band competition was going on, so the campus was open!!  

It was so great to wander into the girls' gym where a group of cheerleaders were practicing, to find our old lockers, to visit classrooms that still seemed to house the same subject matters we had had 50 years ago, to sit in the lunch area that had new tables, yes, but everything was in the same place it had been 50 years ago - even the vending machines - although now they were housed in vandal-proof cages!!

The above photo is an outdoor stage where we met up every morning before classes started to check in with each other, lament the scope of last night's homework, see if there was any news or gossip of note, and get ready to face another day in the trenches.  (All three photos are from GHHS.)

We used the girls' restroom  and swore that the floor tiles and stall doors were original!!

We started at GHHS in February of 1960 - and that was the first day of GHHS - we were the first graduating class to go all the way through.  (It was a 10th through 12th grade high school.)  Since the school was brand new, the trees were pretty small and new too - and that's the biggest difference we noted.  After all, 50 years of tree growth is pretty significant!

My high school years were happy years, so it was quite satisfying to wander about the campus and relive old memories, talk about teachers we had, kids we knew, dreams we had, crushes we cherished.  Maybe everyone wouldn't enjoy this experience, but we did.

Afterwards we walked down Chatsworth and headed back to my mom's house, where we had met and started out.  Walking down Chatsworth and noting where things used to be was a delightful "Memory Lane" kind of experience.  When we got back in to the residential areas, we found more homes of friends and more memories.

We ended with lunch at Brent's Deli in Northridge - and plans to get together in February for more reminiscing anyway!!

Maybe you CAN go partway home again - at least sometimes!!