OLD FASHIONED FOLKS

Lois

WE WERE YOUNG together 60 years ago. On a chartered Amtrak train to a football game in Oxnard, the guys were together the night when Mr. Bob and I met. I was 17. Years later, we all became parents around the same time. We women were all influenced by June Cleaver (Beaver's mom) and were model housewives of the 1950s. The men became a policeman, a fire captain, a mathematical genius; Mr. Bob was already a printer. Missing, as usual, when they visited the Manor yesterday, was the car salesman.

Jane & Fran

Jim & Judy

We were the first couple to enter a retirement facility and there was curiosity about our living quarters. In the dining room a table had been set up for 8 and the food was especially good. The kitchen at the Manor excels in preparing tender pork spareribs and on occasion, garlic bread. 4 of us ordered the ribs, 2 ordered eggplant parmesan, 1 had fish from the alternative menu and Judy loves hamburgers. Her wish was fulfilled. Judy's the only one I know who takes as many pictures as I do. She does not, I repeat, does not like her picture taken. From her last trip, she took 188 photos and didn't appear in any of them, as opposed to moi. I've been known to take my own picture in the bathroom mirror. She won't like it when she reads this, but here she is:

Judy

She and her mathematician husband lived in Cuba when Castro was still a guerilla in the mountains. These days they enjoy cruising as often as possible and would welcome revisiting Cuba when that becomes a possibility.

Bob, Jane, Fran, Don, Judy, Dick, Lois, Jim

Don, Jim, Dick

Cindy, the dining room manager, suggested a group picture.

After eating, we stopped in the library. I don't think the ongoing discussion is particularly literary, which is why we moved along to the Friendship Lounge where the seating is better than it is in our assigned quarters.

There we continued to catch up on each other's lives and before they went home, I insisted on a group picture. Everyone moans and groans at that suggestion, but it serves as a record later.

Fran, Don, Dick, Lois, Bob, Jim, Judy

We get together about once a year. Once I gathered us in front of a mirror.........

This was before Don, a widower,  married Fran.

and the last time we met, we visited first at Judy & Jim's house near San Diego, then piled into two cars to drive the ten minutes to the chosen restaurant. Once there, I thought I'd get the requisite group photo out of the way, then realized that Lois was missing.

Bob, Dick, Fran, Don, Judy, Jim

I mean really missing. Nowhere to be found. We'd left her back at the house. What follows next is a picture of mirth, personified, but I didn't dare post it at the time until Lois's justified ruffled feathers were smoothed. Now, even she can laugh about it.

I suspect Dick spent some time in the doghouse after this. When Lois called Dick's cell phone, she heard it ringing upstairs.

Interesting, in this day and age, that none of us has been divorced.
Just call us old-fashioned folks.