After our last class reunion (40th!! say what!) the girls in my class decided that we would have a monthly BIRTHDAY BASH to celebrate classmates birthdays and get together at different restaurants and have a great time. This got to happen exactly three times before the C word reared it's ugly head, but during those three events, we had discussed some big MAJOR plans for 2021, when we would all become the big 6-0.
Even typing that, I am overwhelmed with emotion, because my dad lived almost one month into his 60th year before he passed away. So 60 has been a victory and a worry for me for several years.
As we hit the c-word, we didn't change our minds about the initial plans, a cruise (set for Sept 2021) because, hello the c-word would be over and done and figured out by then, right? Right? RIGHT?
Turns out, no. So in February, 2021 we made the decision to can the floating boat of germs idea and hit a beach, and man, am I glad we did.
We initially had almost 20 girls signed up for the cruise, and when we switched the plan we slimmed down to 12 girls, but what a fun 12 we had.
Many of us have been friends since childhood and all our memories gel together with warmth and history and color and fun and depth.
Most of us flew out of OKC (Fonda Lemons Nixon, Lisa Grider White, Jill Self Perry, arriving at the airport at the ungodly hour of 3:00 am, with Lois Hill-Maldonado and Suzanne Stevens Maltos arriving shortly after, staying at a hotel close by since they had been at the OU football game) Lisa Lipe Gillaspy arriving about 45 seconds before we started boarding, because we forgot to tell her that the flight had moved up half an hour, so it started with a small palpitation, and then of course, thudded to a halt,when the flight was delayed because the cab going to pick up our captain, drove to the wrong hotel to pick him up, so there's that) . Oh and another fun fact, because they oversold the flight, I got bumped to first class! How does that ever happen? We barely gulped our drinks down and we were in Houston, and here we picked up Kelli Lyday Stevens and Amber Kilburn Corjay and my roommate Melba (who flew in from August, GA to meet us there) and in two shakes of a leg and one delicious breakfast later, we were on our way to CANCUN!
I'm unclear of all the specifics, but it does deserve serious mentioning that due to Melba getting in a little later on her flight, she and I were NOT on the flight with the big crew into the first leg of Cancun, so I am going to have to rely on my bevy of sources from the parties involved and just share the first 12 hours of our trip. One of our very angelic classmates happened to be carrying medicinal "weed" gummies, due to her inability to sleep and other things and a couple of other classmates thought it would be a superb idea for her to share said "Gummies" with them to help them "SLEEP ON THE PLANE". Ok. In the weed carrying classmates defense, she warned their butts that they were not used to them and they were pretty potent and tried to waylay their enthusiasm of partaking of said substance. No avail. Gulp. Gulp, and then they board and are whisked away. I don't see them for almost 3 1/2 hrs and when Melba and I get to the resort, we walk in the find one of them basically passed out on the couch in the palatial lobby, just sawing zzzz's to the roof, and the other talking to a plant in the corner. From what I gather from different conversations with the plane mates (and pictures to verify), the two classmates that decided that gangsta life was for them on the way to Mexico, slept like dead people all the way, and their roommates kept checking their pulses and holding mirrors in front of their mouths to make sure they were still breathing they were so out of it. Oh, and then there is the fun CUSTOMS walk through, after arriving and trying to sober their dumb butts up, where all the classmates gathered around the drunken two and pretty much shoved them through, and then the most debilitated one of the two, HAD TO GO BACK WITHOUT AN ESCORT and no one was sure they would ever see her again. But she made it, to the resort, where she was sleeping on the couch when I got there. Those little suckers work, now. The first 18 hours of the trip for her was an unconscious, sleepy haze and she does remember lying down eating the quesadilla we made her eat, even though she didn't sit up to eat it and strew crumbs all over her sleeping quarters. HAWT. The other gummy popping knucklehead managed to fall down when her luggage went askew walking to her room. So within the first 5 hours of arriving in mexico we had had two falls (one at the airport, not gummy related, just maybe a touch of alcohol related and a whole bunch of uneven sidewalk related, and holy happiness I am glad it wasn't me this time), one fall on the hotel sidewalk approaching the rooms, and one very laid out, relaxed guest. I'm sure the resort was SOOO glad to see this delightful crew.
This was my first view! When we got there we were joined by Leslie Terry Aziz and Val McCormick Jarner (flown in from Florida and Michigan) so the GANG WAS ALL THERE!
We had exhausted people all around us, so we all did separate dinner plans that night. Several opting for room service and an early night. What they missed though, was the most gorgeous full moon.
Absolutely incredible.
It was fun getting up in the morning and seeing the beautiful sunrise (yep, Melba and I are early risers), and walking over to the buffet and every single morning, seeing Suzanne and Lois there (other early risers) and getting other people to make our food for us. An omelette please. Some potatoes please. Why yes, some bacon too. And could you bring me sweet tea? and an OJ? and more water? And people fall all over themselves to do your bidding. We quickly became the "Birthday group" and waiters loved us because they knew they were in for a BIG tip if they took care of us!
The pools were another level and we took over one pool (as it should be) and it was just so amazing.
We spent about 10000 hours at that pool. And used about 120 bottles of sunscreen between all of us. There were some major sunburns and I think everyone's lips were burnt to bits at some point, but did it stop us?
Like I said earlier, we made dinner plans pretty much every night. Mexican was amazing (beef filets to die for and after a very skeptical first night decision "corn cake" became me and melba's favorite and we ate it THREE times while we were there because.... yum.) Another night we did Mediterranean and did our group "Birthday Party" (along with pink tiaras and sashes and birthday present dirty santa style) OMG we laughed our faces off that night, and it was soooo much fun.
I want to add that Fonda usually did a selfie picture with all of us in it at almost every restaurant and it was epic. One dude walked by and someone overheard his say "Look at this group of Karens" and I'm just saying that it's a good thing I'm deaf because I may have gone all Mr. T on him. Most everyone at the resort knew who we were and what we were there for and really super gracious to us. Except for the narcissist (and he was "over friendly" to a bunch of them, if you catch my drift), who after hanging with the group one evening with his wife, and all the girls giving her a good talking to about what to expect from a husband, and what NOT TO TAKE FROM A HUSBAND, pretty much saw us after that and walked a big circle around us.... lol (don't mess with 60 year olds, yo) and a super sarcastic comment "you guys go ENJOY THAT" as four of us carried food for 12 back to the group from the outside kitchen. Yes it looked like we were walking up to the trough carrying that much food for the four of us, but come on man, don't be like that.
Lisa told this iguana that if he knew what was good for him, that's as close as he better get.
Breakfasts of champions....every morning....mimosa's for the win! good times
Dancing, cavorting and general merriment at all times.
Fonda's famous selfie of one our many dinners together
We loved our breakfast and our hats about equally.
Some loved the social distant statues a little too much after a few shots.
But what a fun group... Valerie, Me, Lisa G, Lisa L, Amber, Jill
back row: Kelli, Fonda, Melba, Suzanne, Lois and Leslie.
Suzanne (always the planner) and I think Kelli had a pretty big role in making it happen too, chartered us a catamaran on Friday to go snorkel, dance, and general merriment. I've never been a big snorkeler, always opting to lay on a floatee and stick my head in the water from the floatee, so this was a big deal for me, and I found out for Jill too, who wasn't a big water person either. The water was so crystal clear, I felt like I would at least see the shark coming to eat me and give him plenty of target practice as I was flailing my way back to the small boat that carried us to the reef (the reef being the second largest in the world, if I'm lying I'm dying or maybe a bit deaf and didn't hear that right, but it's one of the biggest reefs) and be able to draw his attention away from the other girls, but thankfully none of that happened, though we did see a sting ray and 3 barracudas (though a few of us have been married to those so they didn't impress us much) and a cute little lobster and a beautiful conch shell. Suzanne, Leslie and Lisa Lipe impressed us all with dives off the giant catamaran (at least 8 ft drop), and I'm convinced that Leslie is half mermaid because she swam the whole time without a life jacket to bob around in. Lisa Lipe tried to show me how she actually sat in hers and was bobbing like a cork and while I basically held my legs out of the water so she could shove them through the arm holes, I got so much salt water up my nose I won't have to use a neti pot for about 18 months, she said to me, "Well you made that look easy".
about to get on the catamaran
The boat taking us to snorkel
I can't even begin to describe how much fun that was, and how much we all enjoyed the water, the company, the sun, the crew, the sprite shots (cough), and the general merriment.
Just a marvelous marvelous day.
We ended our last evening at a hibachi show, after making friends with the waiters, they managed to get all 12 of us at a table, (WILLIAM shout out man, you were the bomb) and he put us on a show. He liked Kelli more than the rest of us (pretty much the story of the week, lol) and the food was so delicious and so cool to watch him cook it and his funny dialogue ( the chol-es-te-ral, to make it YUMMY) and the laughter and the fun.
It's a very special class that can maintain friendships and truly, care and love each other like we do. It's a miraculous thing these days, with the friction and the division in the world. We are a diverse group, with very different lives, but one thread that holds us all together is our history. We knew each other before we had boobs (most of us), and have stayed together over the last 40 years, planning reunions, many of them still travel together through the year all the time. We decided that we were definitely going to have to do it again, and again, and again, that we wouldn't grow old gracefully, and I left that week feeling refreshed and feeling like a teenager again.
Oh I forgot to shout out to Lisa Lipe, who decided to give a bunch of us "Blow outs" though due to my non-hearing I didn't get the memo we needed to have our hair WET when we hit her room so she could literally BLOW IT OUT, so mine was water patted down at the sink and blown out, and still looked good, but Jill, Leslie and Val looked like a zillion bucks. Kudos to Lisa's Locks Shop and Bar. What a fun time.
I always love getting back together with my Melba, and hanging with her, we've been through so much together, best woman at our first marriages, kids, terrible choices, Alaska, Barry Manilow, volleyball tournaments, Knee replacements in the field of the volleyball tournaments, (if yk, yk) and now Mexico. I'm so glad she got to spend time with the rest of the girls and get to know them better, she was only a Shawnee Wolf for about 2 years before she got out of there, so I'm lucky we connected then, and are connected still. Roomies forever, missy! And she was so worried about me not being able to sleep because she says she snores, but you couldn't prove it by me, I didn't hear a thing! Bless!
A whole bunch of 60 year old babes right there now. And as one of our classmates told us, "You can't make old friends." You either got em, or you don't. How incredibly blessed we are that we have them.
We are good, we are fine, we are the Seniors of 79. (catchy, huh?)
The first incident happened in 1992. My grandma was in the mid stages of Alzheimers and even though we knew she probably shouldn't live alone, you couldn't blast her off her "hill" with dynamite. Mom kept very close tabs on her, but late on Saturday night of Labor day weekend, she somehow ended up outside on her road in the middle of the night and a young man, driving home from his late night shift, didn't see her in the road until he was up on her and even though he didn't hit her head on, his mirror on his truck caught her and knocked her to the ground, breaking her hip. Mom and dad brought her to Shawnee, where she had surgery with mom's orthopedic doctor that she worked for, and long, sad story short, she never went home. She lived a few more years in the nursing home right by my mom's house, and that sad story became the first of what would become my least favorite holiday.
The second incident happened in 1994. My dad had been sick with something we couldn't really nail down, and was in the hospital in OKC. He turned 60 years old in the hospital, and had surgery to remove his adrenal glands on Labor Day weekend, 1994. Somehow in the process of the surgery, contaminated sutures were put in his body, and in his horribly weakened state, he ended up with sepsis and died on September 12. I was in the hospital room when he died, and no one should have to ever watch someone they love pass away. It takes a piece of your heart and your soul, and it's very very hard to erase that pain from your heart, even years later, I can feel it.
The third loss came Labor Day of 2012. My nephew (my cousin's son ALWAYS called me AUNT Laura, even though we told him repeatedly I was not his aunt, he just didn't care), precious Austin Gaffney, drowned in the lake at his grandma's home, while swimming with his sister. It's been 9 years and I still can't wrap my head around this loss. We had just seen him in June, with our Texas adventure to pick up Kip after her big world race. We spent the afternoon with the Gaffney's, eating mexican food and embarrassing Austin and Hallie in the mall with our loud antics and raucous laughter. He was so tall and I couldn't get over it. I licked his cheek after we took a picture together and he rolled on the floor and asked me, "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" and I told him, "I just had too, you're so yummy". He tried to pick up our tiny Mazda 2 that we had rented to run around in that day, he was convinced he was strong enough to do it. He had just gotten his driver's license and had a girlfriend and it was just a lot of living left in this young man. A stellar athlete, a rock star overachiever, lover of animals and anything military and militia, this kid was a wunderkind of knowledge. I still gasp at the loss when I allow my mind to go there. My cousin, who is close as a sister to me, and her husband, a brother... Shannon and Mike lost their baby that day, and have had to learn to live a life a little less bright without him in it.
So, needless to say..... I am a zero fan of Labor Day weekend.
This year, we are facing the loss of Lacey and Kristen's grandpa Walter. He's been declining rapidly the last few months, and I'm just so sad about all of it. The thing is, the ornery stink is 89 years old. He was working in the garden in May. He wasn't running circles or anything, but he was up, in a chair, manning the process. If you know Walter, you know what a story telling, ornery, booger he is. But what a heart of gold. He would literally give the shirt of his back if he needed to. Lacey and family moved out to the farm about 2 years ago. What a gift and blessing that has been. The four generations living together and those little great grandsons bringing such a light and energy to that house again. Carl has been an amazing rockstar. His selflessness in all the things regarding his mom and dad has just been something to see. He handles all the things and just gets it done. His wife, Evelyn has been amazing support too and I really stand in awe of those two and how they've stepped up to take care of his parents. It really, really takes a village to care for aging parents, and what an amazing village they have created on the farm, with all the generations kicking in to help. Beautiful to witness.
So many heartache situations all around. Friends in the hospital with covid, friends having health issues and loss and so many things could take us down.
Thank goodness Jesus Christ sits on the throne and beckons us to come walk with Him. He carries us through our hardest days, and our darkest hours, and is there for us to cry our sorrows and anger on Him. He is our hope, our healer, our salvation. Without Him, I'm not sure how I could bear all the pain of the losses.
When we moved back to Shawnee one of the most important things to me was getting the boys in a good school. With both boys being excellent students, I knew grades wouldn't be an issue. The issue was good friends. Solid parents. Fun sports.
We have found that with Dale Schools.
The boys both love basketball and if you love basketball, Dale is the place for that passion. Baseball and basketball are the sports of the pirates. We hadn't pursued baseball in the past, so we settled on basketball. (FYI, Zach is playing baseball this spring, so I get to drive to two practices a week and 470 games and sit outside in a chair in the wind and in the heat and in the wind and in the heat and in a chair outside in the wind and in the outdoors and watch Zach play baseball. For this new development, I am pumped) But more about this later.
For now, I want to talk about Dale Pirate Basketball.
Steven made the team last year in JV. He was a short little guy with glasses. But man oh man, he has a 3 and he is a fast little motor scooter, so he made JV.
This year in a new astonishing development, covid quarantine gave him some growing powers and he has grown to an amazing 6 foot tall. I think it's all the slim jims. They must have growth hormone or something, but it's working and my tiny precious asian is now a tall buff man. It still throws me off.
I only watched JV boys last year, would slide in the gym as they started and watch Steven run up and down the court and then leave when it was over. Never watched varsity, just watched Steven and leave. One evening, after a game when he arrived home and was relating the awesomeness of what I had missed and informed me, "You leave when it gets good, you need to stay". I mean, I have been to MANY high school sporting activities, with both Lacey and Kip on Pom squad at Carl Albert (allll the football) and watching Hallie play volleyball at Norman North, and meandering up to watch Trae Young shoot from the half court at Norman North, I mostly avoided high school sports because, welllllll, they are high school sports.
2A basketball is a whole league of it's own. The first time I stayed and watched, I was hooked. Never missed a game again. I love these kids like I birthed them all. How ridiculous is that? I cheer until I'm hoarse, and most of the girls don't even know me. "Who is this crazy old woman screaming my name at me? Why does she keep telling me to "D" up?" Same thing with the parents. Since my sons and I bear such a marked resemblance, shouldn't they know who I am? I've finally met some/most of the boys moms, so they don't think I'm some weird stalker anymore. These parents are polite clappers (except for Trish Sheppard, Lucky's mama who screams louder than me) and I don't think they knew quite how to take me, yelling at them to stand up and cheer for their team. I was told it's because they aren't a football school, and they don't really know how to yell. Well as a mom of two pom girls, and a volleyball mom, I stinking know how to yell. (Much to steven's chagrin) As they have all come to figure out who I belong to "Oh, STEVEN?? WE LOVE STEVEN", I'm slowly becoming part of the whole
The past two days have been a roller coaster of adrenaline and emotion. Last year, state got cancelled right at the "Covid breakout". Dale was ranked #1, boys and girls. Huge let down. This year we donned our masks and headed to the "Big house", both ranked number 1 again. The girls won every game on the way to the big house, like bosses of the highest magnitude. Destroyed every team, didn't even look fair. Did that most of the season, losing only 2 games in my recollection, always close, always a heartbreaker. One of those teams was Silo. They have a center the size of a behemoth baby and she just stands under the basket and puts it in, She's so much bigger than any of our normal sized girls, it's just a lot to defend and rebound against. Brooklyn Rutland is a standout power forward and she could sneak in and grab it, but in the end they just couldn't get that last bucket to land and they lost in the semis to Silo land of the giant, and their road was ended. All the girls are amazing, Elaine Witt (Sr) is a tiny little girl/woman and she is the toughest, quickest point guard in all of the land. I've already talked about Brooklyn, our sophomore, fiery redhead that isn't afraid to take an elbow, or a charge. Faith Wright, the queen of the 3 pointers, thankfully is a junior and will be back. Danyn Lang is a senior, and I loved watching her guard and shoot that ball. Makenzie Gill (jr) was on fire yesterday and put up some critical threes for us, and is always a solid guard down the floor. Other amazing seniors, Anna Hester, Miya Miller and Emilia Idleman will be missed next year. I was always jazzed when Emmie would go in, because she put on a show. Tough and ready to rumble. I felt a little sorry for whoever she was guarding, because that chick was going down. . Like I said, I love them like I birthed them and only a couple know me. Justyce Shirey and Makenzy Herman are a couple more that I loved watching play. Addie Bell will bring a lot to the table next year as well. Just a talented team.
BUT THE BOYS. We had a crazy good season. Stayed undefeated for the longest time. Took Kingston tournament, kept winning, kept winning, and then Cashion stunned us in a 1 point buzzer beater. Ugh. ouch. Then a couple of more upsets later down the line, but a ton of wins in between punched our ticket to regionals, area, without a loss on the way. Usually destroying them and making me breath easy without any heart palpitations or stress eating peanut m&m's. Then state. First round was an intense battle of wills against an very motivated Morrison team. Carter Crowe at the buzzer for a 1 point win. Then on to Yukon to play Howe in the semi finals. These punks are super intense AND their coach and his enthusiasm (nice word for arrogance) gets on mama's nerves, so I choose to try and not look at him. The ref's were blind at both the boys and the girls games, so we not only had the team to defeat but played the refs too (I hate that) but honestly, the boys just didn't play their best game, and I think they knew it and the parents knew it, and in the end we lost by 10. On a good playing day, this team would have been toast. Our seniors Dallen Forsythe, our point guard and man of steel, who can literally jump over me without even touching me, he jumps so high, had two men on him pretty much the whole time. Palmer Jones our power forward, made his incredible strong, quick moves, but couldn't get a bucket to stick (Which just never happens). Carter Crowe, our crazy strong center) bless his heart, left everything he had on the floor. Fun fact about Carter: when he would land a 3 he would salute running down the court and I stinking loved that. I left the game with about 45 seconds on the clock, because I couldn't even bear to watch it unfold. After struggling so hard with the defeat of the girls earlier in the day, I couldn't watch it happen again. Deken Jones (freshman, brother of Palmer) and Dayton Forsythe (Freshman, brother of Dallen) left it all on the floor as well. Connor Kuykendall (jr) did his amazing stealing and fresh energy that he always brings, but in the end, it just wasn't enough to take it home. I love these boys. Not little love but capital L O V E these boys.
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I've played poker with some of them, dominos with most and fed/housed all of them at one time or another. They call me "Mama Steve" and say "Yes, ma'am" or "No, ma'am" (their mamas taught them manners, whereas I just tried to keep mine fed and dressed, manners, do what?).
But THE BEST PART of all of this story -- on the way back from regionals I get a text from Steven, "What is that song at church that I like?" (OK son, Give me more clues) "Another in the fire?" Bingo. (Man I'm good). Find out later, they had a worship set on the bus on the way home. The Home skillets are listening and singing praise and worship music. I don't know about y'alls high school experiences with sports teams, but this doesn't happen very often. I had already asked Dallen, Lucky and Steven if they wanted to do a bible study with me on Youversion, and we had been making our way through one together, so that got them thinking, after the worship set, they set a bible study with several of the team on the app, and several even did one with ole mama steve. Their insight and input on the discussion boards give me hope for our next generation. I thought I loved Palmer Jones before the bible study, but hearing his mature thoughts and his great knowledge of the bible...this guy is a gem. They all are. Loving Jesus and following him is a priority and that's what makes them the jewels they are.
I know they are disappointed about the gold ball, but in the scheme of it all, they won a much bigger prize. They know the joy of following Jesus and reading His word and being immersed in faith and grace. I hope it gives them a foundation of a life following Christ and being a sold out Jesus freak. What they have found together is a bond of brotherhood, joined by the blood of one who loves them more than any of us, and gave His life to die on a cross so that we can live free and enjoy basketball games and honor Him by living a life well lived. That's the prize. That's the goal we want to make. And they are doing that.
It was a great season. It is a great life. On to the next thing. God is So Good.
It's hard to believe that Hallie's West Point journey is about to be over in 100 or so days. To her it seems like an eternity, to me it was a blink of an eye.
She found out in November that she would branch Air Defense Artillery. She will train for 4 months (starting in August) at Ft. Sill, and then she selected Fort Bragg, North Carolina as her post. The vacation potential is overwhelming and strong.
Her exuberant video made the USMA instagram page.
If you watched "post night" anywhere they were streaming you would have seen pretty sedate people walking to the front, and calmly picking out their posts and everyone politely golf clapping. Pretty much across the board. Then you click over and see Hallie, basically bouncing up and down, impatiently waiting her turn, praying there would be a Ft. Bragg on the board left for her to claim, then practically skipping to the front to take her place! Everything sooooo Hal. Lee. (except the guy calling her Haylee. DUDE. Hal. Lee not Hay. Lee. Hal. Hal. Hal.)
She knew the guy in front of her was on the fence about it, and if he had taken it, she would have been stuck at Ft. Sill for 5 years instead. We have talked HOURS about this possibility. I told her several weeks ago that God had her plan and if HIS plan was for her to be in Oklahoma, there wouldn't be any Ft Bragg patch up on the board. And I've always said this girl should be a lawyer, because her negotiation style is on point. She had already told me she had figured out how she was going to try and convince the guy ahead of her that Oklahoma was the PLACE TO BE. I think he didn't really care where he was going, and because she was so passionate about where she wanted to go, he deferred to her impassioned argument and let her have it.
HALLELUJAH!
The best part of the video is her goofy goofy self, forgetting to take off her mask, and then forgetting to hold up her post page for the picture and not even understanding what they are pointing to -- everytime I watch it I roll.
My mom heart is sad she won't be 2 hours away, but the past 4 years have taught me that distance doesn't stop my girl from calling me 4 times a day, so 12 hours south of New York, won't be any different. Plus I can drag my happy butt out there any time and actually seeeeeee her. WHAT? So, yeah, I'm pumped. Beach, mountains, lakes..... Melba(one of my besties) just a bit south. So, it's all good.
Now if we can get everything open so we can all attend graduation like we have been planning for 4 years. We have a magnificent house reserved for the entire gang (like 25 of us) in Bear Mountain and we are STOKED with our fingers crossed and our airplane tickets bought and ready to go, praying that nothing weird goes down and that everything keeps opening back up so we can all attend.
What a crazy, bumpy ride this journey has been. I will be forever grateful for the time she got to be home with us this past long "spring break". What a blessing and so much fun.
I feel pretty sorry for the class of 2021, the entire existence of West Point is all about the "firstie" year. The freedom, the civilian clothes, all of that gone from them this year. They are surviving and thriving and counting down the days until they are out of there!
