The Reunion is Over until next time, or until the next Wednesday meeting

Thank goodness all the festivities are over and all the friends and family met and had pictures taken...even "Elvis" showed up to sing, but my cousin's wife said she had never heard any of his songs. Her daddy said Elvis was most probably the Anti-Christ personified. I told her not so much, I thought. Who knows, maybe I'm unkowingly leading her down the path to destruction. My cousins are fraternal twins. It had been an extremely long time since I'd seen the one of who lives in Oklahoma and several months since I'd seen the one who lives near Ft. Worth. There is another brother who lives in Colorado, and it would be good to get to know him, too. *thinking snow*

The other musical entertainment was really a great country music band called Three Fools on Three Stools and they played lots and lots of songs that were popular while we were in school and later on while we were busy making our families and/or professions. Lots of people later in the evening were dancing while the Three sang. Some were very good dancers and go out dancing at least once a week. I wish I was that "young"! They did the push and if there had been enough of them they could have done the stroll. We were debating if they were doing the Charleston to one song, but I thought not. It looked like how we danced a club called Jack's. We were all underage when we went there. I learned from another group of ladies that when the neon donkey on the sign was kicking the TABC was coming that night and to stay away. I learn the most astonishing things from very straight laced ladies. They must have gone to Jack's way more than I did. Actually I think the lady who told me about that was her best friend's dad, who worked for the TABC, Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission.



I'm happy to report nobody showed up in sweats and/or a ballgown. My clothes were just fine and thank goodness I'd done a lot of googling and stressing about it all. Coldwater Creek rocks for nifty clothes for country club casual. I wore a beautiful jacket with a dark brown sleevless sweater, and a dark brown skirt with lovely embroidery on it. I didn't take off the jacket to show off my arms, a la Michelle Obama mine aren't quite that good looking yet. I tried to copy/paste the pics from the Coldwater Creek website, but no dice. We really did have a fun couple of days with good friends....some old friends and some new friends...and one married couple went to high school with my husband and I worked with his wife. As we get older it seems Fort Worth gets smaller. They asked who came the farthest to celebrate the 50th reunion and it was a guy who lives in Israel. He won...hands down. At the 30th reunion there was a fellow who came all the way from Hawaii. He won that time. There was one guy who has a home in New Hampshire and an apartment in New York City. I heard from someone he is involved with some plays on Broadway. Don't know if that is true or not, but wouldn't that be something if he was.

Friday night was the cocktail party and registration...I had a diet coke...living on the wild side again you know. After the meet and greet we hung out for a bit, but decided to try the free trolley they have downtown. We caught the thing and it was uncrowded...that in itself should have been a heads up for me, but nooooo, we just had to try this trolley out. There was an Indian couple with their two small children and another couple from the reunion. When we got on it was so cold in there it was miserable. It is usually warm here, but the driver had the a/c turned to snow blower. Then we were off to the races. She drove so fast and turned corners like on two wheels practically. We got off as soon as we got back to where we could walk to pick up our car from the valet parking. That was a ride to remember. And I woke at 2AM with my back hurting a lot from being slung around so much. The Indian couple with the children were still on the thing when we got off. They live here and had just come downtown to see the sights. Hope they didn't get whiplash from the thing.

Downtown Fort Worth is a happening place these days especially at night. There are many restaurants and clubs that looked interesting, and several of the large buildings have been turned into really nice lofts. I don't drink anymore because of the arthitis meds, but sometimes (actually a lot of the time) I eat. Anyway, we finally got our car back from the valet parking and on the way home we checked out some of the more interesting places just driving around at night like we did a long time ago. One repurposed highlight is Montgomery Plaza. It used to be a Montgomery Ward store where you could call in an order from the catalog and then drive down and park in a space for pickups. There was a phone directly to the pickup desk and you would call to tell them you were there to pick up merchandise. They would run it right out to you while you stayed in the car with three kids and a dog or something like that. The Montgomery Ward store is a landmark for Fort Worth. In 1949 Fort Worth had a major flood. Here is a quote from another website :

"Long-time Fort Worth residents have always measured the severity of the flood with the same yardstick, the Montgomery Ward department store on West Seventh Street. The large Ward’s building saw the water level reach the second story, although each enthusiastic retelling of the story seems to elevate the water a floor or two." After that we built a new levee in the '60s and or 70s have not had much flooding since.

The Country Club turned out to not be quite as scary as I'd feared. When we attended his 30th reunion the guest of honor was a coach who had terrified generations of kids. It turned out he was just a little old man...but I swear when they introduced him there was a gasp from the crowd. This time it was the stately Colonial Country Club. I'm sure we were a hoot to the staff with our carrying on. I even got to get my picture made with my Jr. High class, now known as Middle School class. I wasn't in their class and asked if it would be ok...they all said you went there, so get in this picture. They took a class photo of all the ones who graduated from his high school in 1959, too. There were a lot of them. The photographer even had a riser for them to stand on....like when we were little kids and had class photos made.


The food was very good, but the club chef must have gotten a really great deal on Haricot Vert - French Green Beans, because I had a plate full of them. Some in a salad and some as a side dish. Good thing I like them.

I found out today that my very best real life friend had her 50th reunion this past weekend. I guess I was so scope locked on getting the right clothes I missed her telling me...or maybe she was so busy she just thought she had told me. Lord knows we all about have Alzheimer's after this weekend just from information overload.

Pretty much I'm looking forward to a day on the sofa with some movies. It is raining and cloudy. Good movie weather and good nap weather. Plus my knees hurt today, and her "highness, the big cheese", has gone shopping this afternoon for some new clothes befitting her altered status in the grand scheme of things. Hope she finds some really classy stuff.

All in the interest of keeping it real....which is the prime object of blogs...right.

I'm "much younger" than my husband, by 4 years. *grin* They just get so ticked off when I say that.