"And A Good Time Was Had By All"

WOW !! What an evening we had.  First of all, the food at the Elks was fabulous !  Our buffet included green salad, fruit salad, pasta salad, potato salad, rolls, steamed baby carrots, little red potatoes, baked chicken and prime rib roast. The dessert table was equally full, with German chocolate cake, chocolate cheesecake, sliced pound cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, lemon cake and little dishes of chocolate and vanilla pudding and tapioca.  All for $20 a piece including tax and gratuity.   I think there were approximately  80 people there, we expected about 100 but there are always some who think they can come and then for one reason or another they can't make it.  We really didn't really have a program planned other than a few words by those of us who planned it and then a toast to the long time owner Mr Fite, who is now 95 years old.  His dear wife brought him out for this special occasion.  But one thing led to another and we had a session of "open mike" and one after another got up and shared humourous stories of their experiences while working at this dealership.  There was much laughter and then some tears as we remembered those who were special to us, who have passed away.  I gave a ride to Dorothy, who was in her early forties when some of the rest of us were only in our twenties.  She was like our "mom at work."  She worked in the Parts Department doing inventory control.  She knew how many of each little nut, bolt, muffler, etc the Parts Department had on hand at any given time.  Anyway, Dorothy is 81 now...she's in the picture I've included in the turquoise jacket.  In later years after she lost her husband she married Dean who was the Parts Manager back in the late 60's and they had 24 wonderful years before he passed away just a little over a year ago.  At one point during the evening she looked at me, with tears in her eyes and said.."Dean would have just loved this."  So like I said earlier, it was a bitter- sweet reunion of sorts.  Everyone wants to do it again, so probably sometime next year we'll plan another one and hopefully some who couldn't make it this time will be able to attend next years event.  

Over the years, I remained friends with not only Dorothy but Dick and Donna.  They met and married while working at the dealership.  Donna is the gal on the left end with the white blouse and her husband Dick is the second one over from her in the burgandy shirt.  Their oldest daughter is 8 months younger than my son Jim and when Donna went back to work after having her, I baby sat her for several months.  They have remained dear friends all these many years.

My Saturday didn't go quite like I planned.  My goal was to get some grocery shopping done, too.  I went over to the local Safeway and the parking lot was so full, I thought "I'll just get groceries Sunday afternoon."  So then I headed for a youth group car wash that  my grandchildren were participating in.  As they were washing my car, I noticed that my right rear tire was getting lower and lower. One of the men that was there helping the kids volunteered to change it. When he got it off we found a screw neatly imbedded in the tire.  After he put on the spare,  I headed to the nearest tire shop to have it fixed. Meanwhile, the minutes were ticking away and it was getting closer and closer to when I was to pick up Dorothy.  I still had to iron my blouse and get ready to go to the Elks.  I dropped off the tire, raced home, freshened up, ironed my blouse, got ready and then went back to the tire shop where they mounted the repaired tire and I was off and running.

Today I will be grocery shopping (unless another tire is flat) and getting ready to go back to work tomorrow.  It rained hard during the night and now it's 64 degrees, very windy, raining very hard and overcast.  This morning's paper said we have had our normal June rainfall already and it's only June 4th.  Hmmmm....does that mean we are going to break a record here in Western Washington ?   

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, until next time.........Linda