Class Reunion, April 10, 2015

Finally, the big day is here.  My 50th high school class reunion is tonight, and since I was class president our senior year, I am working hard to try to get our classmates to join us for this event.  Thankfully, I had a lot of help from my committee, Barbara Seitzinger Holscher, Nancee Woodward Truelove, and Toni Schultz Holmes.  Brenda Lane Nowaski was on the committee initially but had to drop out for personal reasons, but she was also involved in the early planning stages. Barbara, Nancee and I did most of the set-up last night but we still had some more "stuff" to bring in this afternoon.  Toni was busy helping decorating for tomorrow night's Alumni,  so she missed out on all this fun.

Our event was held at Slicer's in Vincennes, the old Elks Lodge out 7th Street.  I finalized my 5-page speech in the morning and printed it out, but then I almost left it at the house.  I also made two desserts for tonight -- Vanilla Texas sheet cake, and Pecan Cheesecake Squares.  I took the time to spell out 1965 on the Vanilla Texas Cheesecake before I remembered that we were going to cut it and put it on plates before anyone arrived.  Oh well, it was pretty to start with.

We still had some work to do, but we were ready in plenty of time -- time enough to worry about whether or not people would come early enough to visit.

 I realized then that I probably needed some kind of podium to put the pages of my speech on, so I went searching for someone to help me with that.  Although they didn't have a podium, they did come up with something that worked.

Joe posted this picture on Facebook, and he got some interesting comments.  Niece Lori Gerig posted "Wow - you got Red Bull to sponsor the event." and her sister Cathy Croxton responded "No surprise.  They're known for sponsoring events for the young and hip!"  LOL.  Anyhow, they did give me a tablecloth to cover up the Red Bull stuff, so all was well.

Our tables looked great, and I think our classmates did spend some time looking at our displays.  We had a few snacks as appetizers, but most of the social hour was spent milling around and visiting with each other, which was what we had hoped for.

The room looked really nice.  Barbara had put gold runners down the center of each table, then a floral arrangement with solar lanterns on each table.  She covered up the solar opening, and inserted battery-operated flickering candles.  Which was great, except none of us remembered to click them on.  Oh well, the lanterns looked great anyhow.  Barbara also had placemats made from our Senior Trip picture in front of the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.

 The other major thing we forgot -- we did not take a group picture.  That was a real mistake, we had such a great turnout, and I know everyone would have loved having a picture that included almost every one of their classmates.  But, nothing I could do about that when I remembered it as I went to bed that night.

 Barbara did an outstanding job with the decorations, the tables were lovely, as was the dessert array and the Memorial table.  We also had tables of memorabilia from the 60's, a table with our senior pictures, a table of pictures and mementos that some of our classmates had held on to for these 50 years, and a table with pictures of our boys who served in the military.

The dessert table was really beautiful.  Barbara set it up with lots of blue and gold, and her beautiful cupcakes. 

Finally, our classmates began to arrive.  We served 36 for dinner, only one couple  that we were expecting didn't make it (Dick and Susie Catt Johnson), so we had 17 (out of 24 graduates), and 5 classmates who did not actually graduate with us, join us for our evening of reminiscing.

After our delicious meal, I got up to give my remarks.  And it appeared that most of my esteemed classmates were actually paying attention (probably better than they did 50 years ago).  Well, maybe not Mike Baker, but that is no different than 50 years ago anyhow.

Finally, I concluded my remarks, and turned the podium over to Toni to talk about tomorrow night's alumni. 

After our official speaking was over, everyone resumed visiting.  We also had a little "goodie bag" for each graduate, which included a notebook with the contact information for each classmate, copies of pages from our 1965 yearbook as well as copies of the class picture for each of the 4 years of high school, the article "A Decker Chapel Student Recalls ..." from the History of Decker book that was published a few years ago (an interview of Barbara Seitzinger Holscher), and pictures of both Decker and Decker Chapel schools.   Also in the goodie bag was a wooden plaque that said "Decker Aces 1965 - 2015" that our Arizona friend Collins Brundige had made for me to give to each graduate.

As we began cleaning up the room, I took my class jacket down and modeled it -- obviously it shrank a lot in 50 years, it no longer came together in front!

I think everyone had a good time -- I know I did -- and the committee hopes to be able to stay in contact with our classmates in some manner in the future.  I am so grateful that so many came and joined us for this special occasion.

Since we didn't do a group picture, I will end this blog with the picture of our placemats of our Senior Class Trip.  Since we all look exactly the same as we did 50 years ago, this will have to suffice.

Thursday, April 9

Thursday morning, Joe and I drove over to Monroe City today to retrieve my high school class jacket from the Blue Jean museum, and I spotted a wild turkey in a field -- that's the only wildlife I've seen here.  But the thunderstorms are wild enough for me!  And we are anticipating another one during the night tonight.  Joe didn't sleep very well last night, so I guess it's my turn tonight.  It is fairly warm here, in the 60s and 70s, until the storm cools it down.  Gets very muggy too.  This is definitely not my favorite time of year here, even if the lilacs are due to bloom in another week or so.  I'm looking forward to heading to Florida, hopefully we will start heading that way on the 24th, as soon as we leave the doctor's office.

We got back in town, we stopped by an orthopedic surgeon's office and made a doctor's appointment for Joe, for the 24th.  Hopefully his foot will be healed enough to move on to a walking boot, but we will just have to wait and see. Then, we went to the Office Max store to make copies of our questionnaires for tomorrow night.  Rather than give a set to everyone, we decided just to make one set per table and hopefully they will pass them around during the course of the evening.  At 11 cents per page, we were looking at about $125, so we re-thought the idea of including the questionnaires in the notebooks Barbara had put together for each graduate.  After I got the copies made, we met Barbara for lunch at Dot's, then went over to the Lodge to start getting the room ready for tomorrow night.  Nancee met us there, and we got right to work.  Joe was our official picture taker, so he got to oversee the three of us as we made the room ready for our party.

 

 

 

 Barbara put together a really nice display for our Memorial table -- we lost two classmates during high school, and three more since we graduated, and we wanted to make sure they were not forgotten during our celebration tonight.  The individual flowers on that table will be taken to their grave sites next week -- Barbara, Nancee and I are going to make that journey next Wednesday.

 The table decorations included placemats of the class picture from our Senior Trip, standing in front of the Capitol Building. 

Finally, the room was ready to our satisfaction. The tables looked great, as did our displays.

So we called it a day, and we went back to the house in time for dinner (ham and beans) -- Fred and Judy joined us for dinner, Billie Bloebaum stopped by but didn't eat with us, and Rachelle brought the kids back up for a while, but they brought their dinner with them.

Getting Settled in Vincennes (Tuesday, Wednesday)

We have spent the last 2 days dodging thunderstorms.  It has rained sometime during each day, and Wednesday we had a pretty good thunderstorm, including strong wind and hail, come through about 5:00 p.m.

I spent most of Tuesday with Barbara, running around town and then working on our posters in her garage.  We drove out to Slicer's so I could see the room, and stopped by two cemeteries to get the dates for our Memorial display.  We grabbed lunch at Taco Bell, and then we finally got back to her house to get started on our work.  She had most of her assignments already completed, but we worked on our posters and made decisions about how we were going to set up the room.    I had brought most of the poster material with me from Arizona, but I didn't want to actually attach anything until I got here.

 This was a work-in-progress, and we developed more ideas as we went along, so we had to make another trip out to pick up a few more things.  But by the end of the day, we pretty well had worked out how we wanted our posters to look.

It had stormed off and on most of the afternoon, and Barbara turned on the television in her garage so we could keep up with the tornado warnings.  Lovely!!  Fortunately, the storm was moving through about 50 miles south of us, so we were not in any danger at that point.  Barbara enjoys the storms, while I HATE THEM.

Wednesday morning, I took Joe to town for his favorite breakfast -- McDonalds, but I took him back home and dropped him off, then I went back to Barbara's.  She had finished up most of the posters, so we only had a couple hours work to do today.  We went by the courthouse to drop off some money to Toni, but she was at lunch so I didn't get to see her.  We stopped at the Dutch Panty to check out their desserts, since we did not include desserts with our catering order.  Barbara is the "cupcake lady" around town so she was going to bring cupcakes and I told her I would either make something or pick something up.  We finished up for the day, and I drove back out to the house in between storms, but we had another big one on the way.  Jim, Dixie and Lucille arrived from Ft. Wayne about an hour ahead of the thunderstorm, so that was good.  We had hoped they were bringing White Castle hamburgers from Terre Haute, but Dixie said she was out of town before she remembered that she intended to stop.  Mom was keeping her entertained with her chatter.

Mom was thrilled to be back at her house, and we eventually, after the storm passed, we went to town to the Ponderosa for dinner, where Fred met us. Some of the roads were flooded but the roads we took were ok.  Rachelle sent a text that she had stopped by with the kids and wanted to know where everyone was.  They had lost their electricity, but by the time we got home and she came back by, her electricity had been restored.  Fortunately, it did not go out at Lucille's house, or in our RV. 

Caseyville IL to Decker Road - day 4 (April 6)

Started our day with breakfast at Cracker Barrel. And even though we camped on a parking lot, we still had some nice scenery - a dogwood tree right beside us in full bloom.

 

 Temperature in high 50s today but we've had sprinkles off and on.  We crossed the Wabash River into Indiana at 9:30, and fueled and dumped our tanks at the Flying J in Haubstadt, Indiana.  Gas was $2.259, better than expected since Indiana is one of the states that usually have highest gas prices.  Oklahoma and Missouri had greened up and had some blooming trees and flowers, but Indiana fields are still brown, just a few Easter daffodils blooming, and the rivers are all flooded, all typical spring events back here. 

We arrived at Lucille's house at 12:10 Indiana time (we lost another hour, now on Eastern Daylight time).  Mike Froeschke met us here, and helped us get the RV set up.  He had already turned things on in the house, so we are in good shape.  Dixie and Jim are bringing Lucille down on Wednesday, so we have a couple days on our own.  Maybe we will try to rest us from our marathon trip.

We traveled 1629 miles, basically in 3 days (2 half days and 2 full days), averaging 5.489.  We fought wind for the first 3 days, and we pushed harder than usual so our gas mileage suffered.  Fortunately, the average price was 2.213.  Hopefully, when we head to Florida in 3-4 weeks, our mpg will go up and the average price will go down.  We'll see.  Last year's round trip to Indiana, we paid an average of $3.29 for gas, so we are paying quite a bit less this hope.  Hope that lasts throughout the summer because we have many miles to go.

Rachelle stopped by with Clayton and Mallory for a visit.  We had a nice visit with them, until they had to go to a Cub Scout meeting.  So Joe and I headed in to Bobe's Pizza, a sure sign that we are back home.  I had talked to Barbara in the afternoon, and she mentioned that she had a meeting tonight so we would get together tomorrow to work on reunion details.  Funnily, her meeting (Home Ec, of all things) was at Bobe's Pizza, so I did get to see her today after all.   We loved the pizza, brought back memories, then stopped by Walmart for a light bulb for the RV.  Got back to the RV and Joe tuned in the TV so he got to watch part of the NCAA final game.  I went to bed, and FINALLY got a good night's sleep.  Woke up to thunderstorm and train sounds, another sure sign we are home. But it's not cold, temperature in the low 60s.

We were very fortunate to make this trip without incident, a lot of things could have gone wrong.  It was pretty stressful for me, so I'm very glad to be here, off the road for a few weeks, and Joe healing.   Now for reunion and family time!

Clinton, OK to Caseyville, IL - Day 3 (April 5)

Today is Easter Sunday.  We woke up early and were on the road at 7:15.  It was misty rainy, and still windy.  We stopped to fuel and grab Subway breakfast sandwiches in Oklahoma City --  GasBuddy was showing gas in Oklahoma City at $1.95, but the cheapest we saw was at a Circle K for $2.01.  We missed that one, but did fuel for $2.059 at the eastern edge of Oklahoma City.  It rained most of the day, and we just kept driving.  I took my shift from 11:30 to 1:00 -- 90 miles/90 minutes (through rain, town of Joplin, and 2 construction zones).  I seem to usually be driving across most of the state lines, while Joe rests his foot.  We crossed into Missouri at 12:10 so when he came up front he was pleasantly surprised to know that we had left Oklahoma behind.  We fueled for the second time today in Mt. Vernon, MO, but the price had gone up to $2.159 (still not too bad).  We had made pretty good time until we got caught in a 9-mile backup due to a semi truck burning up.  It took us 40 minutes to go those 9 miles, but we didn't hear that anyone had been injured.  A dump truck was alongside the highway cleaning up the mess.









It did finally quit raining during this delay, and the sun came out.  I kept looking for more lilacs but I guess we are too far north now.  But the redbud trees were really pretty in Oklahoma.  In Missouri, they are just beginning to bud out.

We buzzed around the bottom of St. Louis on I-270, which becomes I-255, and got on I-64 in Illinois.  We had not been through this way since this new bridge was completed, and it certainly simplified getting around St. Louis.  We crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois at 5:45 (Joe was driving for this state line).  We found a Cracker Barrel in Caseyville, IL (still in sight of the St. Louis Arch) for dinner at 6:00, and asked if we could park there overnight (we had read in Motorhome Magazine that they allow this), which they did allow, so we were off the road for the night.  And I finally had a chance to start my 2015 blog.

We drove 585 miles today, another marathon day.  We have driven 1,447 miles in 2 1/2 days, which is way beyond our comfort zone.  But this is an unusual trip -- Joe can't get around to do any touristy things, and I need to get to Vincennes for my 50th class reunion, which is this coming Friday.  So speed is of the essence, I guess, as well as perseverance.   And another day, DAY 3 WITH NO DISASTERS.

Socorro, New Mexico to Clinton, Oklahoma - Day 2 (April 4)

We didn't sleep too well, and both of us woke up about 4:30 a.m. cold because we forgot to turn the furnace on.  (Who thinks about the furnace in April when you live in the desert??)  And Joe needed a pain pill. But we got back to sleep for a while.  The top of his cast was rubbing again his other leg, making it sore, so  we walked(?) over to Walmart to get a headband for him to try on his leg, and some AAA batteries for the thermometer we keep on the dash so we know what the outside temperature is.  Then, we had to wash the bugs off the windshield, Joe on his knee-walker, and me assisting.

Then we shut down the RV and hit the road for Day 2.  He has been trying to use crutches, at least to maneuver through the RV, but he is an accident waiting to happen on them.  He almost fell 2-3 times, so after we finished washing the windshield, I set the knee-walker inside the RV.  It's tight going down the hall to the bathroom (works better if we put the front slide out a little), but it is safer for him.

We pulled out of Walmart at 9:15 a.m. (having lost an hour due to time zone).  Another sunny, windy day.  Temperature was 42 when we got up, but warmed up to the 50s and 60s as we headed east.  We saw our first wildlife today, in New Mexico.  First a hawk, then several groups of pronghorn antelope.  We saw a total of 37 antelope, in 5 different herds.

Parts of New Mexico are very colorful, very pretty.  I haven't been taking many pictures since we have traveled these roads before, but I did try to capture some of the colors in the canyons and rocks.

We stayed with U.S. 60 to Vaughn, NM, then took U.S. 54 to Santa Rosa, where we picked up I-40.  We took a 45-minute lunch break in Santa Rosa, at a little Mexican cafe but were on I-40 at 1:00 p.m.  We crossed the Texas state line at 3:40 (we lost another hour to time zone here).  I drove about an hour, 61 miles, including driving through Amarillo which wasn't fun.  Gas was a little cheaper, $2.13 in Amarillo.  Jeff and Brenda are always looking for a good windmill, and we found one for them, right before the Texas state line.  Since we are fully loaded, they will have to drive over to get it.

Coming into Amarillo, we passed the Cadillacs that are partly buried in the dirt, and on the other side of Amarillo at Groom, Texas is the beautiful "Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

"Ten million people pass by every year. One thousand stop each day. This 190 foot tall free standing Cross can be seen from twenty miles away."

We have never stopped at this cross, and this wasn't the year to do it, but it's something we want to do in the future. It is really a beautiful sight.

One nice surprise was that the lilacs are in bloom in East Texas.  We pulled off for a bathroom break for Joe, and there were lilac bushes blooming on the other side of the highway.  I walked back to the dinette to get a picture from that side of the motorhome, I had it all sighted in, and just as I clicked the camera, a semi went by.  I had to laugh at that. So I got a wonderful picture of a YRC semi trailer.  But I did get a picture of the lilacs too, although they don't show up very good.

We kept plugging along, and crossed into Oklahoma at 6:50.  Joe just kept driving, and we didn't get off the road until 9:15, traveling 508 miles today.  We ended up in Clinton, OK for the night, on a casino parking lot.  I, of course, had to check out the casino, leaving Joe alone in the RV.  But I had a good night, walked away $170 to the good.  The wind was bad all day.  Joe remarked once that he was going around a left-hand corner turning the steering wheel right.  Makes it hard driving, especially for a rookie like me.  But, DAY 2 WITH NO DISASTERS!

2015 - Getting Ready to Travel and Day 1

Joe has spent weeks (3-4) polishing and buffing the motorhome to get it ready for our spring trip.  While I was busy loading the inside, he just kept polishing and buffing, going over the same thing time and again because he thought he had figured out the buffer.

He even drafted me into helping with the scrubbing!

 It does look much better, he was able to "de-oxidize" it, especially the purple, and he worked really hard on it.  Our planned departure date was Sunday, March 29, a couple days later than I had hoped, but that was as soon as he thought he could be ready (because he had spent the last 3-4 weeks polishing and buffing!).

His mother flew back to Indiana on Wednesday, March 25, along with her granddaughter Lori and her friend Ara, so I was really in the "get out of town" mode.  However, calamity befell -- on Friday Joe fell off the ladder with about one hour's work left of his polishing and buffing.  He scraped his right leg pretty good, and thought he probably bruised his left foot.  So I cleaned up the blood and he went back to his tried and true remedy -- soaking the foot in ice water.

He rested for about an hour, then got back up on the ladder and finished polishing and buffing!  So, no, we didn't go to the emergency room, we waited until the next day, Saturday, and when he got up, his left foot was badly swollen.  Then we went to Urgent Care

 where they xrayed it and informed him he had two broken bones in his foot -- the 5th metatarsal and the tip of his fibula.  The Urgent Care doctor told him to see his orthopedic surgeon asap (fortunately, he has an orthopedic surgeon).  But we couldn't get anything done until Monday, at which time they put him in a Jones compression splint and told him to come back Friday, when the swelling would hopefully be down, and then he could cast it.  So that's what we did.  No leaving town on Sunday, or Monday, etc.  Friday, they removed the splint, and re-xrayed it.  It was badly bruised, but the swelling had gone down, so they put him in a hard, non-weight bearing cast, told him to see a doctor in Indiana in 3 weeks, and we were good to go!

The one bright spot was that we stayed home late enough for our Easter Cactus to begin blooming, and it has such beautiful blooms that we hate to miss them.  And they bloomed right on time, 3 days before Easter.

So we got home from the doctor's office, finished our last minute loading, hooked up the car, and were ready to hit the road by 12:15 on Friday.  It was a pitiful sight to see Joe's knee-walker right beside the steps to the RV, but that's what he's back to using. 

BUT, the RV looks great!

So we headed out of town, grabbed sandwiches in Payson and continued driving - well, Joe continued driving.  It was a nice day, but windy.  We had considered all sorts of different routes to take to Indiana, but once we got delayed, and Joe became somewhat incapacitated, we decided on the most direct route, so we took Hwy. 87 to Payson, then Hwy. 260 to Show Low, where we picked up U.S. 60 and stayed with it to Socorro, NM.  We just stayed on the Walmart parking lot in Socorro because we didn't need any hook-ups (which I would have had to do), and we didn't get off the road until dark, 8:00 p.m. AZ time, 9:00 p.m. NM time.  I had called ahead to make sure that was ok, so we knew where we were heading.  We fueled in Socorro for $2.29/gallon.  I drove for an hour and 40 minutes (believe me, I was watching the clock) through Springerville, across the state line into New Mexico, while Joe rested his foot and got in a little nap.  There was snow on the north side of the mountains south of Springerville/Eager.  We drove 360 miles today (Joe drove most of them) but we ended Day 1 WITH NO DISASTERS.