56th Reunion Coming on October 2-5, 2022
Hello Classmates -
I am thinking of all of you. I've just looked through all the reunion files I have from the 10th through to the 50th. This is the list of the 6 times and places we've celebrated our relationship to each other:
10th - Ohio, July 16-18, 1976
20th - Estes Park, CO August 22-24, 1986 (noted in an article in the local newspaper)
30th - Snow Mountain Ranch, CO July 6-9, 1996
35th - Buchannon, VA, July 26-29, 1991
40th - Estes Park, CO, July 27-30, 2006
50th - Port Townsend, WA, July 15-19, 2016
So the tradition is 7 reunions strong counting the one we are planning. Maybe the last. I am awash in so many emotions, hard to separate them out. First is marveling that we've kept this up for all these years - just the fact that I have persevered through all the organizing of 6 of them - the fine example set up Phil and Rajan of the first one was my guide. I have such a vivid memory of being in the Miss Cressman's room where we girls were being taught to knit red Christmas bells. I was frustrated because she couldn't really tell me how to do it because I am left-handed. So I said I wasn't going to finish mine at which point she said "Cathy Whitcomb you never finish anything." That did it. I have finished everything for the rest of my life, from books I didn't want to read to finish my PhD whether I wanted to or not. Some of you might point out that I didn't "finish" my first marriage, but as others of you have experienced, sometimes a marriage just finishes on its own and you have to move on.
Before all these times we've gathered and you wrote and told what your lives were like each time. I am going to bring some of those letters with me to Amaicalola. You can see your own or others - take them or pass them on to your kids. Then we can have a bon fire of what's left and give them a dignified farewell. Here is the first announcement from Rajan Kose with such great artwork - thinking we might want that CHPEBUH for our 56th reunion t-shirt.
Followed by Phil's Directions - it was a great weekend in the Ohio countryside - 2-seater outhouse and all.