Friday, September 11, 2009

Friday Night In the Park

One of the advantages of being retired is to be able to do whatever one desires and I did. I went to my hometown of Etowah, TN for the all classes Etowah High School reunion. I was the last freshman class of Etowah High School in 1966. I actually graduated from McMinn Central HS in 1969.


Our class was not included in the reunion but it didn’t matter because I wanted to go and try to get together with some classmates I had met on Facebook. Those who showed up were Susie Bledsoe & friend, Tom Reynolds, Joyce and me. We decided it was past time for us to have our 40th reunion.

It was time for me to pull out my tye dye shirt since it was my 40th year since graduation and it was the 40th year celebration of Woodstock. Oh yes, people were able to see me in my tye dye shirt but I think the effect was lost on this group. Yes, folks, I was celebrating 1969 and Woodstock. LOL

It was a wonderful night, weather was perfect, band was pretty good, however they didn’t play 50s & 60s music. The music was more or less big band, 40s, jazz and blues. Good music for a full moon night. It was fun getting to meet all these people who had gone to school with all my older sisters.

Joyce Arms Farley met me down there as we had grown up together, went to church together and kind of stayed in touch and when we saw each other, we didn’t miss a beat. It was like we picked up right where we left off. She has stayed in Etowah and raised her girls there so she knew just about everyone and I would have to say now who is that?

Danny, class of ’58, came up to us and said we looked too young to have graduated during his era. Joyce and I looked at each other and said oh, but we were only 8 when you graduated. LOL Now don’t you know that he didn’t appreciate that at all?? Oh well, it was fun to be able to do.

I reconnected with Sara and Johnny Austin who was my sister Wanda’s bff in school. Sara had heard that I was going to be an RV full timer and she wanted to talk about it. She and Johnny extend time with their 5th wheel. We talked about all the trips they have taken and what my plans were and that made the evening just extremely exciting. Of course, you know that was what I loved to do. Maybe one day we will see each other down the road, Sara.

For those of you who don’t know about Etowah, you should make a trip over to the lovely mountains of east TN at the foothills of the Cherokee National Park. The Hiwassee River borders on the south and that is good for tubing, rafting and fishing.

Etowah is blessed with outlet stores and surplus stores. More and more folks are moving in and renovating the downtown area. Antique stores abound and while walking through the street on Saturday morning there looked like a good selection of antiques. I would highly recommend stopping by Etowah. Below town you can RV at the Black Bear Cove that you can read about on my blog on/around Memorial Day 2009. During this time of year they have a rail excursion which runs up through Ducktown and it’s a great trip when the colors change. Check it out sometime.

But I digress. I have agreed to assist with our 40th reunion on October 24, 2009. Yes, you read correctly. That is soon but we figured we would get just as many people there on this short notice than if we had given them 1 year to plan. We meet this week to plan. Everything is in jello right now. More to come on this. Yes, Becky, I know what I said about my reunion. It will be good to reconnect with some folks.

Saturday night I went up to Nephew Roy’s house and went to the pond. There we had a huge bond fire and fished. I caught 2 HUGE catfish. It was so much fun that I do believe those were the first fish I have caught. They ran like crazy but they were confined to the pond so they couldn’t run from me. It was exciting.

Later…

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