Read chapter 51 here
Photo by Retiring Guy
June 9, 2020
During the past decade or so, JoAnna has scheduled weekend mini-reunions with her two best friends from high school, Kathy and Jill. Last year the three of them met in Chicago to see a Randy Rainbow concert. Actually, I dropped off JoAnna at the park-and-ride near the Interstate and Kathy drive down from Neenah to pick her up there. Jill drove up from Lexington, Kentucky. Jill hosted the gathering in 2015, and, for a change of pace, the husbands were invited to participate.
This year’s reunion was planned well in advance, I.e., pre-Covid, as a reprise of 2015 Lexington weekend. Home to the University of Kentucky, the city is one of two islands of blue, the other being Louisville, in a deep red state. It definitely has a Madison vibe. As with all of our other travel plans from mid-March to the present, our Lexington road trip was cancelled. Early in the year, JoAnna and I talked about a two-week ramble that would take us from Middleton to Warren, followed by a ‘blue highways’ meander to Kentucky via Pittsburgh and southeastern Ohio, possibly stopping in the Columbus area to visit friends. Not to be.
We salvaged a day of togetherness after Lee and Jill decided to get away from home for a week, visiting her mom in Two Rivers and Lee’s sister and her husband in Middleton. As a result, JoAnna and I served as hosts last Saturday, Kathy and Dave driving down from Neenah to join us. It was a lowkey but very enjoyable day, if only for the pleasure of interacting face-to-face with friends.
Our guests arrived at 11:30. We sat on the patio and talked over a light lunch, then took a midafternoon walk along the Pheasant Branch Creek Corridor on a made-to-order summer day — sunny, mild, low humidity, which also allowed to remain comfortably outdoors all day. Returning to our back yard, we sat in a circle in the shade provided by the evergreens, beverages in hand, and enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation, keeping to positive topics, i.e., leaving Trump on the sidelines, for the most part. With four high school classmates being together – Lee is also a class of ‘81 Two Rivers High School grad -- a lot of reminiscing took place. JoAnna even brought out her high school yearbooks.
Read chapter 53 here
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