The festivities of the Bear Creek High School Class of '69 reunion concluded yesterday. They included an informal social Friday night at the Inverness Hotel and then a Saturday night banquet/dance. Yesterday, we finished up with a picnic at a park. We had a very pleasant time.
It was perhaps a bit anticlimactic compared to the 35th year reunion but I fully expected that. After all, that reunion five years ago represented my very first contact with schoolmates since graduation. My curiosity was at its highest about a lot of people. And for many of them there was the novelty of meeting a much different Denny Hartford than the one they had gone to Bear Creek with -- meaning, though time changes us all, religious conversion changes us even more radically. So I'm sure that those differences (see the September LifeSharer letter) added a bit of extra drama relevant to that particular reunion.
This time around was more mellow. A more serene pace, longer conversations, more about life "in the now" than merely life "back in the day." That was good.
As was the case last time, the success of the reunion was due to a tremendous amount of work performed by a handful of dedicated people. Ron Rizzo and Cris Dorr Howell were the leaders of this noble "band of Bears." I knew neither one of them well during our student days (I still don't) but I owe them a great debt for the various blessings these two reunions have yielded.
There was plenty of time to weave other activities into the weekend too. For instance, we went back to the old neighborhood back in Green Mountain with the highlights being visits with Ron House (a close friend of my parents) and Norris and Jean Lusche who lived right across the street from me when I grew up. (Their daughter, Linda, was also at the graduation as was her husband Scott, another BCHS grad. Linda graciously served on the reunion committee doing a great job of telephoning prospective attendees.)
We also managed to squeeze in a Saturday lunch with my brother Ric and his wife Ellen, and then a brief visit on Sunday morning with Claire's sister Peg and her husband, Vince Canino.
Like I said, we had a very pleasant time.
After the picnic we headed down to Manitou Springs where we had a place waiting for us. We listened en route to the Denver Broncos pull off a remarkable, last-second victory over the Dallas Cowboys. Very cool. But when we got to the cabin we had reserved (we had stayed at this place many times before), we were disappointed to find that it was extremely little with only one chair and no table -- not the easiest place for a working vacation.
So, it was back in the car and back on the road. But hey; if you've got to be on the run, where better than colorful Colorado?
