by Tom
I just have one of two little words to say.
I’m sorry I wasn’t there to say goodbye to you Steve R. It was really great seeing you after 40 years. I must add though, either you are losing your marbles or I’m a liar (a very good posssibility) but I still can’t believe you don’t remember that morning about 40 years ago when I travelled with you (along with the two women from the ride board) from CA to Ohio, and in Kingman Ariz, at the intersection with the Circle K we were pulled over by five wailing cops cars and told, by bullhorn, to get out, put our hands on the roof of your Travellal, while they searched your van and one by one carded everyone until they reached me, and for some reason, bored I guess, gave up and let us go.
Brian, I’m quite sure I can speak for everyone in hoping that what made you at least an hour late both mornings for breakfast, was a sucessful ‘very special moment’ back in your motel room with Roz. (You do still have ‘special moments’ once in a great great while with Roz, don’t you Brian, even at your advanced age?)
Asha, In the 2 days you were here, you hugged me more times than in the entire 3 or 4 years we spent together in SC and Arkansas.
I don’t quite know why but somehow I have this uneasy feeling that should worry me, You don’t by any chance have, like, scabies or something, do you?
Asha, I’d also like to thank you for buying my breakfast, but please, next time would you mind letting me know, before I order, you are going to do it, so I don’t order what I always order when I’m paying -the cheapest special.
Oran, thank you for the personal copy of the book you wrote -‘Fair Food’. So far I’ve read the introduction and already I’m on the edge of my seat wanting to know ‘whodunnit’? (It is a mystery novel, isn’t it?)
Rick, your are forever the dreamer. 40 years ago you told me you weighed 140 pounds and then spent an ungodly amount of time telling me how you were going to gain weight. And now, 40 years later you again told me you weigh 140 pounds and then spent an ungodly amount of time telling me how you were going to gain weight. Boy, I just can’t wait for the next reunion.
Leonard, thank you for putting this thing on. I was never quite sure if you were actually there. Were the guy with the bushy beard wearing the cowboy shirt who walked around with a camera glued to his face most of the time?
Dave Roberts, Thank you for shooing me away from barbequing the chicken. From the way things had been going with me trying to burn my place down, I most likely would have served little pieces of dried up charcoalized chicken if it hadn’t been for you.
I would bring up one or two of the few good points my ex has, but, since she only lives blocks away, I don’t want her then spreading true rumors in the neighborhood of the few good points I have.
Larry, as an independent Pest Management Specialist from the valley, thank you for letting us all know the orchard at the UC Farm is one of the sorriest specimans you have ever seen, that every tree is covered in disease and infested with worms and bugs. My only hope is, it will last at least long enough to let me do what I’ve been doing for the past 25 years -secreting out in my backpack 150-200 pounds of apples every year.
Somehow I feel like I’m owed that.
Steve Holst, Unfortunately I didn’t attend but I heard you gave a very very short speech when everyone was going around the table quickly telling their bios and somehow tying their bios to the food movement. It turns out your very very short speech was a success. The UC Farm has now decided to chuck organic farming and take up the Asphalt Striping Business.
,
I know this list is heavy on the ‘males’, but, after learning, in the 2 days everyone was here, the women managed to have not one but TWO womens group meetings,
AND easily picturing Ayn 40 years ago wielding those big wooden mallets building the equipment shed,
AND being the chickenshit guy I am, I think I’ll keep the list that way.
Jim and Lyn, thank you for your salad. I’d also like to commend you for your frugal ways. In my fridge there is now, after you made your salad, not only a jar with a little bit of leftover mayo, but another container with, at the bottom, the tiniest amount of leftover salad dressing from your salad I’ve ever seen. I look forward to carefully scraping it out and putting it on the tip of the next carrot I eat.
Who else, I know there are many more juicy pieces of gossip to relate – like Les deciding that from now on out he is going to permanently be 42 years old, to Linda telling us what her 15 year old estrogen filled teenage daughter said after Linda nicely bought tickets for a vacation to Ireland “I’d rather kill myself than go to Ireland!” to Larry describing his new diet, so someone else help fill in.
Well I guess that’s about it then.
Hah. I’ll bet you thought I forgot about you.
Fat chance.
After watching you dump salt, more salt, and soy sauce on my already salted mac and cheese,
AND watching you walk around muttering, after learning that some of the other home farmers now subscribe to the notion that a gluten free diet is good for you, “Don’t they understand! Grain is what got civilization STARTED! WITHOUT GRAIN MAN WOULD NOT BE HERE!” ,
AND, on the ride back to the farm with you from breakfast, you made your two passengers, Eloise and myself, listen to the ding ding ding of the seat belt buzzer for at least the first ten minutes because you didn’t want to wear your goddamn seatbelt,
AND, you wove in and out of traffic, turning right and left without using your turn signal (do you have a gimpy left arm or something?), it is now undisputable you are a CRAZY FUCKING LUNATIC!
Continuing on. The SC contigent made clear they didn’t want any reimbursement, but still a can managed to get passed around. Yesterday we opened it and it contained: one fifty dollar bill, three twenty dollar bills, one five dollar bill, and one one dollar bill. Now normally I am a very calm, collected, and measured guy, and I know we said we didn’t want donations, but I do have my limits.
After spending all that time preparing the Friday night get together, whoever had the nerve to leave that one lousy stinkin’ one dollar bill in there, we’ve sent the bill off to the FBI to be fingerprinted and when we find out who did it, I warning you, at the next reunion, if you attend, you better bring some antidote for rat poison.
We did have a summit meeting to decide what to do with the money and the idea we came up with is to give it to Asha so she can give it to her TNTC (Too Numerous To Count) children who all seem to be either going to colleges with names like Harvard or MIT, or running companies what are just on the verge of overtaking APPLE as the largest in the world so they can turn it into $100,000 by the next reunion.
Lastly, I agree with Doug that the reunion was like getting hit by a freight train that’s been gaining speed for the past forty years. I’d like to add, my heart and brain are still in the emergency room on life support systems.
I could actually bore you with some more but my lunch is ready. Since everyone left, for breakfast, lunch and dinner I’ve been having leftover mac and cheese, rice, salad, grapes, chocolate cake and cheesecake. And from the looks of all the pots and pans still in my fridge, and the containers on my kitchen table, I would hazard to guess I’ll be having that same diet for at least the next month or so.