We drove last weekend, as I was at the AIRPO meeting in Buffalo. I took the train with my colleagues Lisa and Laurel and Ken, after flying in from Pittsburgh on an inevitably late plane, got up early and steered our green girl VW Bug west. We left Buffalo about 1:00, crossed over the Peace Bridge and took the QEW, 403, 402 and 401 to the Ambassador Bridge over the Detroit River. We stopped at the retirement party of Linda C, who, after 40 years of teaching at the Redford Union High School that both Linda and Ken attended, is retiring amid her family, friends, former students and loved one. It was Ken's past, spread throughout a room at the Idle Wild Golf Course in Livonia where he and I attended a party in 1979. We saw Bobby, Linda's older brother; Nancy, weak from radium treatments; Shawnie, her oldest daughter, and Jay and Jackie, her younger children. We say Mikey, Linda's pip of a son, who is now 31 and a fellow teacher at RUHS. We saw Pat V, who was a brief dream for Ken. Saturday held more memories, as we spent more time in the Detroit suburbs than we have in years. We toured two college campuses that nurtured us both: Schoolcraft College, where Ken attended in 1967 and 1968, its 2nd and 3rd years of being; and Washtenaw Community College, where I worked from 1984 to 1999 and where we both served, attended classes, taught classes, danced, sang and provided ice cream. After breakfast with Kathy at Beezey's in Ypsilanti, she, still a daughter of WCC, took us on an insider tour. What an amazing place! The citizens of SE Michigan should be proud of this gem.
We then had a small celebration of Jess' graduation, with lunch in Novi for Erica, Jess, Chelsea, Jennifer, Karen, Mike and Jody. It was lovely.
We moved to Midge and Jay. We stayed at their house on Ashley in Ann Arbor, had dinner and hatched a trip to the British Virgin Islands for Thanksgiving. The SaJay is moored there and we'll have clear water, warm skies and fish in late November. Seeing as we have had no summer yet, the thought is enticing.
We met Tony, Erica's friend, at breakfast on Sunday, then went to an ice rink in Northville (not sure exactly what suburb it was in). Graduation is a major positive ceremony in a life, so here assembled a father, a step father, a mother, a grandfather, a step grandfather, a grandmother, two step grandmothers, a stepfather, two half sisters, and a panoply of relationships that needs a chalk board and a diagram.
Then Ken and I got in the car and drove east. First north to the Blue Water Bridge, then straight east across the NY Throughway. We left the lot of that ice rink at 3:30 p.m. and pulled into our driveway at 2:30 a.m. For some people, 2:30 is an alert time - for us, it's about as dead of night as it gets.
So we have a weekend at home. On Friday, we get on a plane for Detroit Metro and build more memories.
Ken has been very busy in the past few months. We are happy, because with the economy, the viability of a small, family owned business could be worrisome. Yet he has been on planes that have been more late than on time and lousy weather and long days and the use of planes, trains and automobiles that sounds unbelievable when recounted. Ken is an excellent, patient traveler who knows how to work transportation systems. He is amazing.
This Saturday at home means a 5K for me, the Rhinebeck Arts and Crafts Fair, a Roosevelt lecture at the Roosevelt Library. For Ken, it means gardening between the expected rain and a look at what is under the floating floor in the ground floor in prep for a ceramic tile installation. Father's Day is tomorrow and I hope I can honor Ken enough. He is the most wonderful father and he has the most wonderful father.
I hope, dear reader, that your day is sunny and dry.
