The Central High School Class of 1966 is big on lunching and partying. Let’s get the IDs out of the way first. According to my best sources, the folks are, from left to right: Dick McClard, Judy McClard, Marilyn Maevers, Lynn Davis McLain, David McLain, Brad Brune, Terry Hopkins and Gerald Ruessler.
Brune was there when I arrived
I wrote about the semi-official monthly luncheon attended by Mother and me. The ’66ers invited us, I’m sure, so they’d look younger in comparison.
Terry Hopkins blew into town on Wednesday and we made a Blue Hole BBQ sauce run and stopped in at Nickie’s Cafe and Sweets in Altenburg before looking in on the L&M Tool Exhibit at the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum.
He announced that he had invited a bunch of his classmates to lunch on Friday at noon, “but I told Brad Brune we were going to meet at 11:30 because he operates on Brune Standard Time and is always late.” (His excuse last time was that he set his cellphone alarm for 12, but got confused between noon and midnight).
Thursday I got a text from Brune “Come on, Guys!! This is not funny. I’m standing down here in the rain playing pocket pool. It’s 12:23 and I got here at 11:15 so I wouldn’t get razzed about Brune Time late again!!! You guys are DEAD TO ME!!”
It gave me great pleasure to point out that he couldn’t differentiate between noon and midnight for our last gathering, but, now, he didn’t know the difference between Thursday and Friday.
I arrived a few minutes after noon on Friday to see that Brune was already seated. For all I know, he may have slept in the restaurant overnight to avoid further humiliation.
The Dick McClard Memorial Watch
Long about this time last year, a package from Dick McClard arrived at my house. Ever since a stalker ex-husband sent a live snake to his ex at work, and I made the mistake of volunteering to open the box for her, I have been very cautious about unexpected things that arrive in the mail.
Inside the box was a piece of very fine jewelry. It didn’t fit my wrist, so Wife Lila decorated her kitchen wall with it.
At the time, Mr. Hopkins hinted very strongly that he would love to have that watch or one just like it.
I left town to go to Cape, and Mr. Hopkins came visiting in West Palm Beach. He slept on my nap bed, ate us out of house and home, and departed with my precious watch. I wasn’t sure how I was going to break the news to Dick that his gift had gone missing from my life.
Hopkins displays his prize
Terry has been showing his prize to anyone who will look. When Dick saw how good it looked on Terry’s arm, I thought he was going to ask for it back. The Man of a Thousand Hawaiian Shirts and One Tuxedo says he may auction it off since it has become so popular. The only catch, he added, is that the recipient must promise to wear it for at least a month.
By the way, the reason the colors are so funky is that the restaurant has a wall lined with red neon signs. There’s only so much color correction you can do in that situation.
Adjourned to Main Street
After the raucous group drove away all the other patrons of the establishment, someone suggested we adjourn to the out-of-doors where Brune passed around some of his signature cheap chocolate-flavored cigars bought for about $12 per railroad boxcar.
When one of those things fires up, Bob Dylan was right, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Photo gallery from the lunch
Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the images. They have been filtered to remove the smell of cheap cigar, but I couldn’t get the red out of all of them.
