This particular New Year's Day was in fact a beautiful day, sun shining, moderately warm, no snow as I recall, and I was standing on the back steps behind the garage when Lonna came out to say Jack and Pat had invited us over for the day. Since Independence was only about 30 miles away, we went over and enjoyed the day/afternoon socializing, watching football on the tube, and quaffing a few brews.
Over the next couple of years it became a standard for us to do this at one home or the other until we moved out of LaPorte. Then, 25 years ago, Jack and Pat moved to Glendale when he took an administrative position in Phoenix, and we just plain lost touch.
That's too bad because Jack was always a guy to socialize with about practically any topic, and he had a side to him that was altogether enjoyable to be around. For example, at a party one time he noted one of his teachers wearing a tie, so he said he would cut it off - if he just had a pair of scissors. Since the party was at our place and I knew where the kitchen scissors were, the next you knew the tie was lying on the floor, the teacher was very red-faced, and everyone was roaring with laughter.
Jack has a side of Cliff Klaven in him, although it's not because he's a know-it-all smarty but because he does know SO much. Today, for example, he was talking about the Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey books, all from Arizona locations, and the movies filmed on the desert sands over near California, The Flight of the Phoenix and Lawrence of Arabia. He just knows all this stuff . . .
Son Billy lives nearby so we were pleased to see him when he came over. If you look closely at the photo you will notice the grapefruit in the tree behind him. We also enjoyed fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast, from the orange tree somewhere on his right. Bill is in sales, of home/commercial security systems, and is much a chip off the old block. Jeff, the oldest. also lives in Glendale, and Vic now lives in Miami/Dade, where he teaches history and coaches baseball.
I watched the Ice Bowl (Packers/Cowboys) with Jack at their home in LaPorte, on New Year's Eve 1967. We were both convinced Boyd Dowler, handsome fellow that he was, would become a television announcer . . . until he was interviewed and we realized he was best suited for silent films.
It's just one of those amazing things that you can "lose" people, but pick up the conversation 40 years later like you'd never gone away. I'm sorry I forgot to snap a photo of Jack and Pat - and tomorrow will add the photos from our day with the Kenslers at Effigy Mounds National Park back in '68 or so. Seems like every day we ever shared with the Kenslers was a day to remember.
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