We gathered at Pablo's Mexican Restaurant on Monday night for the ceremony, preceded by dinner and drinks. As the mother of the groom and the honoree for the evening, Wanda was privileged to wear the lavender crown that Susie brought.
Saturday we'll be moving the party to Auburn, where we'll all be wishing Braxton and Catie a long and happy marriage.
Back in August when I celebrated my blog anniversary, I offered to do a blog makeover for a reader who was interested in a new look. You may recall that I designed my own blog background and header, and I was just itching to do another one.
Martha at Mid-Atlantic Martha was the winner, and I contacted her about what kind of changes she wanted to make. She told me that her favorite colors were pink and green and that she wanted a vintage look that featured roses, butterflies and crabs. With that in mind I set out to find elements that I could incorporate into a new look for Martha's blog.
Here's the new header design that features everything Martha wanted, except for her four granddaughters. We settled for this beach picture, but if she comes up with a picture of the four grand girls we can always change it.
And here's Martha's new background. You can visit her blog by clicking HERE to see the finished product. We changed some of the colors for borders, titles and sidebar items to coordinate with her new look.
Let me know what you think.
The Farmer's Market is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. We were living in Fayetteville when it opened in the spring of 1974. Hunter was a baby, and I had bought a book with recipes for homemade baby food. The Farmer's Market was a great source for fresh fruits and and vegetables. I cooked everything from applesauce to carrots and green beans and froze it in ice cube trays. When it was time for a feeding, I just popped a cube or two into the electric baby food dish for warming (those were pre-microwave days).
If it's not too early in the fall, I always like to find an unusual pumpkin or two to bring home. In fact, it was at the Farmer's Market a few years ago that I first spotted the green Jarrahdale pumpkins. I thought they were so pretty that I brought one home for each of my friends.
On a recent Farmer's Market Saturday, the square was closed to all but foot traffic. Plenty of friendly folks, most decked out in Razorback red and carrying steaming cups of coffee or hot chocolate, were milling around in search of produce…
flowers…
and handmade Ozark crafts.
Volunteers from the Humane Society walked a variety of dogs that were looking for new homes, and musicians provided amateur entertainment.
Beginning with the 10-year reunion, we've been gathering every five years since we graduated from Camden High School in 1964. This year at least two of our classmates, Bill and Jim, returned for the first time, and it was Martha Sue's first reunion since the 10th.
On Friday night, Elaine's daughter and son-in-law hosted us at their house on Mustin Lake, a small lake near Camden where a number of local residents have weekend homes. Without the GPS, I'm not sure Susan and I would have found our way there even though as teenagers we spent many days at Mustin Lake swimming and just hanging out with friends. Back in the day, we didn't take senior trips to Disney World or Caribbean islands, but Mustin Lake was the scene of our senior outing.
Saturday several of us met for lunch at the location of the Duck Inn, another of our teenage hang outs. Now a Mexican restaurant, it just isn't the same. Once we started driving, we could leave school at noon, and Duck Inn was one of our favorite places to eat lunch. There was nothing better than Duck Inn homemade French fries dipped in their special homemade salad dressing.
After lunch Susan and I took a short driving tour of Camden. Most of the traffic lights, where we used to do Chinese fire drills, are gone from downtown. Watt's Department Store closed years ago, and Belk-Jones is now an antique mall.
We took a quick drive through the old high school campus. The main building is long gone, with the steps leading up from the street the only thing remaining. Coleman Stadium is still standing and looks pretty good, but the old gym where we held sock hops after every home football game is pretty run down.
We tried to find the homes where some of our friends had lived. Virginia's house on Clifton Street is for sale, and the Helen Street Grocery is now a residence. Incidentally, my grandfather named Helen Street for my mother's oldest sister when he helped develop that part of town.
Saturday night's banquet was at another familiar spot. Located on the Ouachita River, River Woods was once the Supervisors' Club, owned by International Paper Company and operated as a benefit for mill employees.
The Supervisors' Club played an indirect role in one of our biggest "crimes," a story that gets told at every reunion. When we were seniors, International Paper Company sponsored a day long outing to the Supervisors' Club for our class. I suggested that it might be fun if all of us brought alarm clocks that day to put in our lockers and set them all to go off at the same time. Plans were made, and we pulled it off, but Freddie Ann got blamed instead of me, and she won't let me forget it.
So now we are looking forward to our 50th reunion in just five short years. We all seem to get better with age, and we long ago stopped trying to impress each other. As I overheard one classmate say about another classmate, "She's so much fun; I wish I had hung out with her more."
Sometimes you just wish you could go back and do it all over again, this time with the wisdom of age.
When I rated the three stores, I was most loyal to Office Max, which I gave a 6. Staples came in second with Office Depot earning a loyalty rating of 1 on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest.
The second part of the survey noted that I had given Office Depot a 1 and then presented a series of scenarios and asked how they might change my loyalty rating of Office Depot. These scenarios all had a common theme—NASCAR driver Tony Stewart. It seems that Tony Stewart and Office Depot have a relationship.
So how would my loyalty to Office Depot change if, for example, I had a chance to win a trip around the track with Tony Stewart or dinner with Tony Stewart or Tony Stewart merchandise. Not one iota. Although I'm not a NASCAR fan, the survey never once asked my why I have no loyalty to Office Depot.
The answer is simple. I can get to Office Max in about five minutes from my home office. It takes about 15 minutes to drive to Staples. The closest Office Depot is about 30 minutes away.
So my answer, if they had asked the right question, is simple. Build a store closer to me, and I'd give Office Depot a shot at my business. After all, copier paper is copier paper, whether it comes from Office Max, Staples, Office Depot or even Wal-Mart.
The two bottles of vodka, probably left over from Luna's days as a flight attendant, were original to the box. They are still there, never opened. However, they did go missing for a while.
When Karen presented the box to Becky in March of 2007, the bottles of vodka were nowhere to be found, and we accused Karen of consuming them, mindful that she had every right to do so. Karen, however, told a different story, insisting that she removed them from the box and hid them so that her mother wouldn't see them. Later on when Karen moved and was cleaning out a chest, she found the vodka and returned it to the emergency box. Maybe Glenda will find a use for it this year.
With swine flu in the news, Sherri included hand sanitizer. A huge Alabama fan, she also graciously contributed some Auburn orange Tic Tacs for Glenda to enjoy.
These special special bridal beads that Luna brought last night can be worn by the MOB or MOG so that everyone knows just how important she is.
Sadly, one original item is missing from the emergency box, but nobody will confess to taking the leopard skin undies.
I'm heading for Camden on the Ouachita (pronounced Wash-ah-taw) tomorrow for my 45th high school reunion. I graduated from Camden High School in 1964 with about 100 other eager young people.
Back in the day we had two school districts in a relatively small town of about 14,000. The other high school was Fairview High School, and we were bitter rivals. Fairview was in the area of town dominated by an International Paper Company mill, and although the whole town often had an unpleasant odor about it, Fairview smelled worse than the rest of Camden.
Sadly there is no more paper mill and there is no more Camden High School. A number of years ago, the Camden School District was absorbed by the Fairview School District, and the high school is now called Camden Fairview High School.
But there are still proud graduates of CHS, and I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of them Friday night. After the reunion, I'm sure I'll have more to say and pictures to share.
