Memory Monday: Daddy's 69th high school reunion

I received (well, Daddy received) a letter from a high school classmate of his last week. It seems she had recently attended their 69th high school reunion. I gather from the odd-year designation that they're meeting more often than the obligatory 5 or 10 year variety of reunion. She included notes about mutual acquaintances and reported that of the 86 members of the 1940 Everett PA graduating class, 31 were still alive.

I remember going to a couple of these reunions. As Daddy usually picked up the "farthest away" prize, we would accompany him to the dinners. The one which left the most vivid impression would have been his 20th. I was in upper elementary, certainly old enough to behave myself and take it all in. It was held at a hotel in a green dining room. Don't remember the meal, but I was so amused by one of the gag prizes. The woman with the most children got an apron with the saying: "I should have danced all night."

The rest of the time would have been spent visiting family and buying my sister and myself more yarn to knit and crochet in the back seat of the un-airconditioned red Studebaker station wagon. That was probably the trip where my aunt and my mother exchanged witticisms and my aunt got the better of Mother by shipping via train the black tom cat she had so admired from afar.

In order to keep him (or so the lore goes), we had to let Daddy name this long-haired ball of fury. Daddy is colorblind. The cat's name: Snowball.