Reunions

When my good friend and golfing buddy Harold Moody told me about his upcoming 1950s decade class reunion at the Nevada governor’s mansion, I was impressed.

Of course I knew that Gov. Kenny Guinn was a 1955 Exeter High graduate and the second Exeter grad to hold the Nevada governor’s seat in recent years. But I was impressed that the governor had offered to hold the reunion in the mansion and invite a decade’s worth of alumni to party and celebrate the glory of high school days long, long past.

I was also impressed that my buddy Harold had a unique reason to bow out of a friendly golf match with me and a couple of other guys. I mean pholks, how many times does one of your friends have to pass up a get together due to “a previous commitment with an out of state governor?

So, of course, we made tentative golf plans following the weekend trip Harold and his wife, Shirlene, made to Nevada in their motor home. I had a bit of fun telling other pholks that I was golfless that Friday because my partner had “an appointment” with the Nevada governor.

Well, of course I called Harold soon after his return to set up a game and find out about his “wild” extended  weekend” with his buddy, Gov. Kenny Guinn, and 700 or so other high school chums and chumettes.

Of course I knew he would say that a great time was had by all and how good it was to see some friends he hadn’t seen in decades and all that reunion type stuff. But, I wasn’t at all prepared for his telling me that someone at the reunion had won a $7.4 million slot machine jackpot.  That, I said, right away, had to be a joke. “No, it’s true. At first I thought it was a joke too,” Harold told me on the phone, explaining that the lucky woman had a casino photograph at the winning slot.

It wasn’t until later that I uncovered the rest of the story. In a nutshell, here is what happened. The woman, Faye Forbes, of Modesto had attended Exeter High for two years but left in l950 with her father to go to Modesto.
She went to the reunion with her sister and brother and their spouses but had not bought a ticket. Unable to attend with the others, Faye went to the Nugget Casino. She ran $20 into $160 on the wheel of fortune, gave most of it back then struck the slot for the $7.4 million jackpot. Casino employees got word to her family at the reunion bash and the Governor made sure she got to the party. Lack of a ticket wasn’t an issue then.

Even though my buddy Harold didn’t win the big bucks, he thinks having a decade reunion is a good idea. His class of 1954 had a separate bash in the hotel suite of a classmate with 40 or so classmates attending. Other classes probably did the same thing, he said. But being able to get together with school chums from earlier, as well as later classes, gave attendees chances to see many former students they hadn’t seen in decades, in most cases.

So even though Harold missed out on a golf match with one of his younger friends and he didn’t win $7.4 million, he seemed to be pleased with going to an old governor’s mansion to hang with guys and gals his own age.

And that, pholks, should cost Harold a couple of strokes.

ANOTHER REUNION, OF SORTS, DIDN’T HAPPEN, but I tried. With the vintage airplane event coming up this weekend at the Visalia airport, I tried to get my second ride on the wing of a bi-plane.

Wingwalkers are being featured in the weekend event and since I had walked on the wing more than 20 years ago, I offered to re-enact the stunt I reluctantly performed in my younger days. No go, said the promoters, so I was grounded, at least from getting a ride on the outside of an antique plane. My wife didn’t say too much when I told her my plans, even though I knew what she was thinking about a 56-year-old husband who should know better.

She didn’t say too much either when, with a sad expression, I told her it was a no-go. But I knew what she was thinking. Wives are like that, yes they are.

Anyway, I might get a ride inside the cockpit of an old plane prior to the show.  Maybe I will have pictures. And, maybe my wife will think I got smarter. Maybe.