Reunion Everyday

The month of May finds us traveling again. Seems my step daughter who manages a well known fast food fish restaurant is enjoined from vacationing during Lent, their heaviest volume period. That also prevented her from going with us on the Cruise to Somewhere back in February of 2013. It doesn't take much convincing to get me to travel. This time we were being travel guides on a cruise to Alaska's Inner Passage.

This time we were porting out of Seattle, home of the Space Needle, Microsoft and Gasoline Alley Antiques and its owner, my old Anthony Wayne buddy, Keith Schneider.

Seattle's Bridge Troll

Keith and his wife Liz very graciously arranged with us to arrive a day early so he could give us a whirlwind tour of his hometown of over 40 years. It's one thing to see someone for a few hours after an extended period  (try 40 years!) It's another too see them in their home environment comfortable in their own skin. It turns out that Seattle and Keith were a great fit.

 Needless to say, we had a fabulous day, a terrific cruise and after a late night extended wait on I64 waiting for fire crews to clear a burning milk truck (no, they didn't serve warm milk before bedtime) we finally got home to a yard that befitted an abandoned house. Welcome home, traveler.

The lesson I took away from my visit with Keith is that if you're planning on traveling to a place where one of us lives, it's at least worth a phone call, if not a visit. Don't wait for another 5 or 10 years.

I got an interesting email from Diana Goovaerts, Erv's daughter. It seems that the photo we found of Erv wasn't him. Now I hadn't seen Erv since we graduated so I was just happy to find any photo of him other than his graduation photo. Turns out it wasn't him. Diana commented earlier with a little bio info as well, and while grateful that we had memorialized her dad, preferred that we use an actual picture of him l. Imagine that. She graciously sent it along to us and it is now posted both on his G listing but also on the memorial page. I couldn't help think that we all have aged pretty well and we all looked better with a few years on us than when we graduated.