Our Pot of Gold

This weekend I had breakfast in Michigan.....for three days. Forty years ago (!!!!) I first met a group of women who would become life-long friends. We were all in our 20's and we all worked in the same school district. Most of us were Spanish teachers but we "adopted" teachers of other disciplines who were (in the words of our supervisor) "our kind of people."

As time went on some women left to stay home with children, a few moved to other school districts, and many continued working in the district until retirement. Remarkably, all but one stayed in the area.

During our working years--and in spite of no-longer all working together-- we celebrated each other's marriages and children and mourned together a number of losses. In the late 60's Bonnie, our departmental "right arm" and her husband, bought a cottage in Michigan and, soon after, "el escape" was born. While most of us had young children at home in the 70's and 80's, we lived for our couple of days at Bonnie's every summer. Family and work responsibilities melted away as we had thigh measuring contests (really!), re-enacted the Spanish version of "The Three Bears" for our non-Spanish speaking friends, drank countless bottles of "vino", and talked so much that our mouths hurt!

Then lift caught up with most of us and "El Escape" was on hiatus for a few years...and, though we still saw each other for events, we missed our regular times together and especially our yearly "escape"!

When the youngest member of our group turned 50, we got together for a celebratory breakfast and "Club 62" was born. For 12 years we have been meeting on the second Saturday morning every month for breakfast. Bonnie even drives 2- 1/2 hours from Michigan to join us for breakfast. It's that important! We're no longer talking about boyfriends, weddings and babies but we find much conversational fodder with adult children, grandchildren, travels, and caring for aging parents.

"Shop til you Drop" at the outlet mall in Indiana has become a yearly tradition along with 4th of July fireworks on the local golf course. The best thing, however, is the metamorphosis of "El Escape" into "Breakfast in Michigan." Bonnie stays put and we all travel the 2-1/2 to "have breakfast" for three days.This year the names of restaurants just sum up the weekend.

Dinner Friday was at "The Ideal Place" in Benton Harbor. Could it be more ideal???Saturday breakfast was at "The Wright Place" and it sure was right!Sunday appetizers under Bon's grape arbor was very appropriate! Bon is working to produce grapes to make up for the gran candidad de vino that we have consumed over the years.Saturday night's dinner was at a wonderful but not aptly named restaurant in Dowagiac. We did, however, get a "sign" while dining. There was a brief rain followed by this sight outside the window.

Look carefully to the left of the rainbow and you'll see that it's a double rainbow!

Then note the moon under the full rainbow!

What a blessing 40 year friendships are!

How wonderful that we even had a "vision" of the pot of gold we have found with these long time friendships.

Almost makes getting old exciting!

Almost............