1. Late this afternoon, Stu swung by and picked me we headed up to the Inland Lounge for some pre-function action before the crab feed at the Elks. I hadn't been in the Lounge for a couple of weeks and things weren't too busy, so Cas was able to yak with me and Stu and I got to hear Cas and Stu tell stories about all the fun times I missed around forty years ago because I left the Silver Valley and didn't get to play rec league basketball with Stu, Cas, Don K., Jay H., Jake, Abbie, Gary M., and others. I sat and shook my head, thinking of all the fun and funny times I missed because I decided to study Shakespeare and teach writing and literature in Spokane and Eugene and not live the Valley life. It's sure fun to hear all these stories, but I don't regret the path I charted in my life.
2. Scores and scores of people filed into the seating areas upstairs and downstairs at the Elks and eventually lined up upstairs and Kellogg High School ROTC students served each of us cole slaw, beans, a bread stick, a half a crab, and butter or cocktail sauce. The Elks Club made chicken nuggets available for diners who don't eat crab. I sat with a group of friends with whom I graduated from high school in 1972: Carol Lee, Jake, Ed, Joni, Sue, Valerie, Sharon, and Stu along with other friends and classmates' family members. Once we plunged into our plates of food, ROTC members began to circulate around the room with buckets of half crabs, fulfilling each diner's request for more crab. We could have all the crab we could eat and I don't think the Elks' supply got depleted.
I brought some plastic Yoke's shopping bags and filled three of them with crab shells and put the three plastic bags in a paper bag and left the Elks Crab Feed with a good supply of shells that I will turn into soup stock.
No one at our table won the 50/50 raffle. I tried to win by purchasing a dozen tickets, but, alas, someone upstairs won the 400 bucks.
3. Jake, Carol Lee, Valerie, Joni, Ed and I congregated at the Lounge after the crab feed. To our great delight, Diane T. was there with her daughter, Kelly. Kelly came over to me, gave me a hug, and invited me to the VIP area of the Lounge back by the pool table to greet her father, Ron Romine. Ron's mother, Phoebe, was our junior choir director at church and Ron was one of those older kids at church and on the Kellogg Wildcat basketball team whom I looked up to and never really knew. To my surprise, Ron remembered me -- at least my name -- and we shook hands and talked for a little while. Later, I talked more with Diane and learned more about how her work on her house uptown is coming together, about her sister's purchase of the former Larsen home on Division St., and about the duplex Diane's daughter Kelly bought. It is located right behind Diane's house.
The Lounge was alive with spirited conversations and unrestrained laughter and I almost turned down Jake and Carol Lee's offer of a ride home so I could stay longer. I figured I could find another ride home, or even walk. But, I decided discretion is the better part of partying and went home, happy that Christy had checked in on Maggie and Charly and knowing that they were doing great.
(By the way, this morning I took Maggie to the vet's office to be weighed, as a follow up on her appointment with the vet about a month ago. She'd lost .4 pound -- 20.2 down to 19.8 pounds. I don't know if that's a problem, but I can say Maggie is eating well, has her usual energy, and shows every sign of growing old. Both dogs sleep a lot during the day, but, when they are awake, they are spry.)
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