A Reunion

Washington, NC
35 32.44 N 077 03.34 W

Well, we had a great day. In the morning I went to nearby Mimi's lunch counter to have a cup of coffee and to post my blog. Less than 5 minutes after posting I got a message back from Jim R. You remember Jim, he sailed to Charleston with us. Jim said, "If you are in Washington, then you're only feet away from Bill's Hot Dog Stand. Don't miss it." We took Jim's advice and went there for lunch. WOW Those were the best hot dogs I ever tasted. Therefore, I'll pass on the advice. If you are ever in Washington, North Carolina, go to Bill's Hot Dog Stand and order two or three dogs "all the way" They only cost $0.98 each.

Libby and I also took advantage of the free dock to do some maintenance on the dinghy, while it was upside down on deck. It had accumulated some dings and cracks, and she leaks. So we put a coat of epoxy resin over the bottom. Today I'll put a second coat on. Then, I need to find a pint of bottom paint somewhere and we'll paint her. We get lots of use out of that hard dinghy, but she does take a beating in the process.

Later in the day we met with Ian D. Ian and I went to junior high and high school together. We graduated FM'62 (Fayetteville-Manlius NY). Libby was my high school sweetheart, FM'63. Ian's high school sweetheart Lynn, is his wife. She is also an alumni FM'64. None of us have seen each other in 45 years since graduation. We had great fun reminiscing. Hearing mention of certain names and places triggered memories that we didn't even know were buried inside our heads. We talked about classmates, neighbors, teachers and incidents. Ian is also a boater and he keeps his boat near here. So we had fun with that too. Ian treated us to supper; thank you Ian. This morning, Ian and I went out for an early breakfast.

You may wonder how we established contact after 45 years. This blog! How else? Someone on Facebook, (I think it was Chuck G.) found my Facebook page by searching for FM'62 alumni. My Facebook page doesn't have much but it does have a link to this blog. Anyhow, Chuck runs a FM'62 blog. He pointed me to that, and he sent an email to his FM'62 mailing list telling our classmates about Dick and Libby's cruising life style. It's great the way these things work. Of course, we do almost nothing on Facebook compared to young people, yet still it leads to valuable contacts.

Ian says that we should come to the 50th reunion in 2012. Perhaps we will.