1. This was one of those days I used to dream of when I lived in Eugene and Greenbelt and would imagine one day living in Kellogg.
I used to wonder what it would be like to live in the same town and the same Silver Valley and same North Idaho/Eastern Washington region where so many of my friends continued to live or had moved back to from elsewhere. I'm talking about friends my age who were the children of friends of Mom and Dad; about friends I played Little League with and played ball at the YMCA with; about friends from Boy Scouts, DeMolay, high school band, high school choir, and high school basketball and baseball and golf; about friends I bagged groceries with at the IGA or stripped zinc with at the Bunker Hill; about friends I didn't know well back when we graduated in 1972, but who have become great friends as we've grown older and a chance to spend time together in the years way beyond high school.
My day began with breakfast at Sam's. Ed, Jerry, Buff, Scott B., and I dove into our plates of eggs and meat and toasted bread and talk swirled around the table about trucks, mostly trucks from my friends' workplace that need repair and there was fantasy talk centered around winning the Lotto and talk about travel as Ed gets ready to take a trip to San Diego and Mexico and Buff looks forward to returning to Hawaii. Jokes flew about Ed packing Lisa, our waitress, into his luggage so we she could spend some time away from the Silver Valley. Earlier jokes had been inspired by an infomercial on the house television that spent a half an hour hawking a product guaranteed to shrink and improve the health of the male prostate. Enough was enough with having this programming blaring above us. It hit a little too close to home and we ran out of prostate jokes and asked Lisa to switch the channel to the morning news on Q6.
2. Jake and Carol Lee picked me up at 4:00 and we barreled up I-90 to the City Limits Pub for a bite to eat and some solid yakkin'. The Deke was knitting at the Best Shots Grill in Kellogg and joined us about twenty minutes or so after Jake, Carol Lee, and I settled in. I hadn't been to City Limits since the new year and I loved having a couple pours of their malty red ale, Sunset Ale.
Last Friday, at the Inland Lounge, Jake and I told Rob Gillies, the ringleader of the Wallace group of friends who meet at a different Silver Valley bar every Friday at 4, that we would see him and his gang of revelers at the Brooks Hotel Lounge today. We kept our word.
So we piled into the cozy and aged confines of the Brooks Hotel Lounge and, as I hoped, my teammate from American Legion Baseball days, Don Beehner was back from Arizona and I got to see him again and swap some stories and get caught up on what he's been up to over the last forty+ years. I'm hoping that when this Wallace gang meets again next week at the Pine Creek Tavern that Don will be back and I can talk with him some more and, who knows?, maybe some other past teammates will show up, too.
3. We left the Brooks Hotel Lounge around 6:30 or so. Jake and Carol Lee were going to drop into the Inland Lounge and the Deke and I headed farther uptown to Diane Trecker's new house on Market St. Some of you reading this might know the house she bought as the Camm House.
Diane wants to get an ambitious and, to me, thrilling kitchen remodel underway. Diane and Patti Hei have been friends forever and, as you might remember, Patti and her guy, Rod, live next door to the contractor, Shawn, who did and will do more work on our house. It was upon Patti's recommendation that we met and hired Shawn. Patti and I agreed that we'd like Diane to meet Shawn and see about the possibility of him working for her.
So, Patti and Rod, Shawn and his wife Teresa, and the Deke and I congregated for wine and delicious snacks and for a time for Diane to get acquainted with the Deke and with Teresa and Shawn at Diane's new house.
We had a lively and invigorating party. Diane gave us tours of the work she's done on her house so far and told us what her future plans are, including the work she'd like Shawn to do.
Mostly, though, it was a night of stories and memories and laughter flying around the room and, as guests, we all were the benefactors of Diane's generosity (the wine and snacks just came coming!) and her ease and grace as our host.
The Deke and I stayed to talk more with Diane after the others left. We had an awesome heartfelt conversation about our parents -- Diane's father is very ill and Diane and her brothers and sisters are helping him. We have all lost our mothers and the Deke and I lost our fathers and we discussed their deaths. We talked about vascular dementia and about the difficulties of caring for a person suffering from this. We talked about our relationships with our adult children and all hoped we can live independently for a long time -- and talked about how difficult it might be for our sons and daughters to look after us if we become very ill. As our parents' children, we have gladly cared for our parents, and recognized it's a great challenge. We agreed we would rather not impose the same challenge on our sons and daughters and agreed that, at some point, we might not be able to do much about it. That was definitely the case with Mom and is the case with Diane's dad. Mom couldn't and Diane's dad can't do much about needing the help and care we gladly gave and Diane's family is currently providing. I know the same is true for several of our friends whose parents are nearing the end of their lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment