Old friends, old times, new times and most certainly a good time. Every so often my old potluck group gets together at various locals for reminiscing and updating on our lives, such as they are. This time I was able to make it to Bismarck for a weekend. They convened on Friday but I couldn't get there until Saturday morning. It wasn't too late to get in on the fun.
Kathy Wilson Mayer so graciously opened up her home and entertained us with the utmost expertise. Thank you from all of us. It made for more pleasure since she just happened to have a pool.
Some of these girls go back with me to the third grade at Clara Barton; others from seventh grade when the elementary schools united for junior high and later on to Fargo South High. I thought it was interesting how I still see the same girls we were just older and wiser. I also marvel how unique we all are. None of us has escaped the battle fields we call life, but yet we all have been resilient and marched on.
Deann and Nancy a.k.a. Pants, are my oldest friends in the group.
This potluck group was started when we were freshmen, with our first event at Mary McNamee's house on a beautiful autumn evening in 1968. We had a meal (why do I remember red Jello with marshmallows?), and then went to the Canteen dance at the Y, our first inclusion - as we were now in high school!
As memory serves me, the first night after the invites were sent, there were 12 in the original group: Mac, Ike, Pants, Reed, Rob, Dav, Colleen, Maureen (Co & Mo) Dee, O'Day, Wils, and me - Snit, (using our familiar monikers). Fargo had been having potluck groups for decades prior to this union, it wasn't something we had invented, and it really isn't unique to Fargo, but if your from there you know the term. I wonder if the concept still lives on or did it fizzle out from attrition?
Nancy, Mary and Randi had to get back to the lake by Saturday night. This is the reduced version.
On Saturday night we took a side trip to the capitol. Nancy's grandpa William Kurke of Fargo and Joseph DeRemer were the onsite architects for the contruction of this "skyscraper on the prairie." Nancy had gone earlier in the day to a cathedral he had designed. Bismarck now has dubbed the area, the Catherdral District. Nancy lives in LA and doesn't get to ND often, let alone Bismarck.
What a great bunch of old friends. Not to sound corny, but thanks for the memories.
