Executive Committee Meeting – 19 Jul 15

As scheduled and predetermined, the Executive Committee meetings of the Austin branch of the Stephen F. Austin Class of 65 held their by-whatever meeting yesterday at the Aplebees on the corner of Ben White Drive and MOPAC Blvd.

Those in attendance were the following: Jimmy Phipps, Jerry Nance, and our new member (under consideration) Ernie Lee.

To begin the discussion, a toast was proposed and drank (Big ole Iced Teas all around) to our recently departed Charter member, Bobby Buntyn. Bobby is greatly missed. His council was always positive and truly respected.

Here’s to you, Bobby!

Although, not totally unexpected, a large part of the discussion was held at my house by the early arrivers (always); the biggest part detailing the Texas open carry decision and the Governor’s recent decision to arm the National Guard facilities in light of the Chattanooga incident. Pros and cons exist on both sides of the argument and just how this order will be carried out. The number of guns present downstairs was no way near those present upstairs. Be that as it may, the heat didn’t rise above a simmer.

I will state that Little Gus and Otis welcomed their old friend Jimmy with much more exuberance than either of the other two attendees. They like his Boxer, Bella, actually more than they like Jimmy, but that’s to be expected.

Once we arrived at Applebees, were seated and saluted Bobby, we jumped into the meal ordering. I know you can tell from the picture that there haven’t been many meals missed by this group. Ernie started his order off with a TRIPLE Bacon Burger and chips—see how he worked those slimming chips into the day.

The remaining three of us chose one of the new menu choices: the TRIPLE HOG Burger (that’s Bacon, Ham and a nice serving of Pulled-Pork BBQ)—we didn’t hold back and settle for the chips though—we went whole hog and got the French FRIED potatoes of one kind or another—no willie-nillies in this part of the group. All things considered, Ernie may have jeopardized his chances of full membership by taking those chips—just saying!

Somehow Ernie, without the benefit of knowledge of the established agenda, got us off on a discussion of the carrier Kitty Hawk, the Constellation (Jerry’s Boat) and the riots carried out on them during the VietNam skirmish. After Jerry had taken the opportunity to tell fifteen or twenty war stories, we finally got back on agenda. Have I mentioned before that we need to take a binding vote on whether Jerry is an official member of the Class of ’65. Somehow the previous votes have not held him back from barging in on our frivolity—that’s just wrong somehow.

If you cogitate on the situation for just the slightest, Jerry hardly makes a good runner and his abilities as a gopher are barely passable.

At some point around this time, Jerry sidetracked the discussion and stated he was looking forward to a Trump-Cruz ticket for the Republican Party. Not wanting to get too political we determined that it was not in the Committee’s interest to issue a Trump-Cruz endorsement—the issue was tabled for later consideration.

About this time, the chow showed up and the meeting took on a quieter tone for some five or six minutes—just long enough for Jerry to get BBQ sauce all over his polo.

While Ernie followed my lead and tried NOT to war story the others to death; with both Jimmy and Jerry, it’s a no win situation. Now, I’ve heard ALL of Jimmy’s multiple times and most of Jerry’s several times, none of us had heard any of Ernie’s in the last fifty years—he’s been lost that long. I will say that I enjoyed the Houston induction center desertion story the best of the few Ernie told—was that James Fridel who was the black hat there Ernie?

As a result of their showing today: Jimmy Phipps has been elevated to full membership on the Executive Committee and Ernie Lee has been awarded junior membership—he’ll have to attend a significant number of more meetings. And, if you are still wondering, Jerry Nance’s status was again tabled for later consideration.

Before you know it, lunch was over and we were back at the house standing there passing around Jerry’s new concealable .357 revolver. As a side note, I will acknowledge that as the last looker prior to returning the pistol to Jerry, I willingly passed up the opportunity to shoot any and all of the other three.

The 50th

Last night some one thousand of us attended the Class of ’65 50^th High School Reunion at the Phillips Center (old Briarcrest Country Club) in Bryan, Texas. Lydia and/or Dianna will provide actual count later as usual. What a time it was! I’m still reeling from the activities.

Wasn’t that picture taking just the best you have ever been tortured to endure? Were we ever that hard to control in the past? I bet that photographer was ready to pull his hair out. Wait! He didn’t have any hair. Maybe he has met us before, possibly individually. The Veterans pix was almost as bad, but fortunately most of us were fairly well behaved.

 

 SFA High School Class of 1965

 

 Class of 1965 Vets

While waiting to have the shutter close on the class picture, I actually heard an utterance that almost caused the blood to drain from my head. Lana Reed told somebody behind her, at learning some recent Brazos County news, that she didn’t know that. I could not believe my ears. Could Lana Reed actually be admitting that there was some morsel of fact that had happened in the County of Brazos that she had zero knowledge of? I ask for clarification and upon assuming that I might pass on this tidbit of information, she immediately changed her story and informed me that I had misheard. Oh ya! Right! I had misheard! Ain’t gonna believe that for a minute.

I asked several people in attendance if they thought there was a stronger representation of the Bryanites in attendance than usual last night and got varying degrees of mumbles and answer dodging. The only one to answer truthfully sounding was Vernon Young: “I dunn know!”

I was tickled to get more hugs than any other attendee from the beautiful women in attendance—by my count at least.

As an aside; it was great to connect personally with many of my Facebook friends that I have almost daily contact with—catching up on their lives and the lives of their offspring.

How about that chow? For a meat and taters guy, I was OK with the pork (and slightly OK with the chicken); but where were the taters? I do rice frequently, but still gotta have my taters.

The other area of astoundment I came across was the vast number of first time attenders: how about Earnest Lee? He told me he’s a “contract analyst” for Pearson. I would have never (and I told him so) have put Earnest Lee and analyst in the same sentence no matter how I might have been challenged. I also ask him when did he stop giggling and become serious. Ernie responded: “About half way through his first day in the Air Force.”

Fantastic to see and spend time with my old buddies: Edward Herrera (my Fish Old Lady at A&M), Joe Santana (my Best Man at my wedding) and Don Taylor (who I spent many-a-hour on the back seat of his motor scooter).

I tell you that these events do not last long enough, especially when there are that many people in attendance and especially how important we are to one another. I could have spent the entire weekend talking and catching up and still have four or five hundred people not contacted yet—we just have to spread ourselves way to thin at these events. I got Dianna’s spreadsheet out this morning and determined that I made contact with 75 of my classmates. That’s far too few!

I was even getting Facebook Messages from some of those not in attendance (you know who you are Pam Perry) to take lots of pix and take good notes so I could share them today. Well Pam, I was far too engaged to spend time taking pix. Patsy did manage to get the two I attached of Edward and me.

 

 Edward Herrera

 

Edward Herrera and John Howard Hatfield

I would also like to address the alternate universes or dimensions some of seem to be traveling in. Just how did some of you guys get so OLD? There must be a dimension that periodically coincides with the one I exist in where you guys come back into focus with the rest of us. Your dimension seems to “age” people at a much faster rate than mine. What’s up with that? I can’t believe we are rolling along at the same rate; you look so OLD!

Didn’t Dianna and her committee do a fantastic job?

Sadly the evening had to come to a close. But just a little effort gets you right back here on the last Wednesday of the month to dinner with the “Catholic Girls” and a few crusty OLD Men; just make sure Dianna has you on the email notification group and we’ll see you then.

Crowed Red Lobster & Stephen F Austin High School Class of ’65 (monthly) Dinner

What a time we had at the Crowded Lobster last night! By my count, there were between 25 and 30 attendees. I’ll wait and get the exact count from Lydia later; I‘m sure she will let me know. She keeps up with this stuff much better than I anyway.

I managed to get Jimmy Phipps to again ride over with me. This allowed me remember exactly the stories he had already told and firm up some of the details I may have inadvertently forgotten—after all, I did miss last month’s agenda. While we were placing our drink orders several at the table suggested that Jimmy number his stories so he only has to call out a number and we can recite back to him our best recollection of the details, obtain our score and name a winner at the end of the evening,

 

 

Because we had some stragglers last night, we were sat at a table set-up for only twelve and when everyone had finally arrived, several of us had to share seats and trade off taking drinks and bites with each other. I, myself, was lucky enough to be able to talk Marlene Scanlin into cutting my salmon into bite-size chunks so that I didn’t lose a piece to John Hughes who, unfortunately was sitting next to me. Boy!! Can John talk when you get him started? Trouble is that when you get him started, it seems his maker somehow forgot to attach or wire up his “off switch.”

 

 

 

I’m pretty sure Geneva Patranella won the nightly award for having the most people sit next to her. Everybody showing up late was ultimately directed her direction and made to sit and listen for some 30 minutes or so before being allowed to try to find another seat. Come to think about, it may actually have been Janice Patranella that caused this; just maybe they were in cahoots!

 

 

I do believe that Lydia had the biggest entrée of all of us. It took more than several plates to get all her’s to the table. I’m ordering what she orders next time.Wish I had a picture of that plate!

Dianna got onto several of us for not responding to her 5^th of July email referencing “Upcoming Events.” It seems that we were supposed to answer back by the 9^th of July. As far as I can tell there are two “stiff” penalties for not doing so: (1) We no longer have any say as to the month and date of our 50^th Class Reunion, (2) Dianna reserves the right to take all the accumulated $$$s and travel where, when and with who she wants to conduct the 50^th reunion by herself or with only those she chooses. Be careful how you respond to any requests for funds relating to the 50^th reunion between now and next summer.

 

To turn the scrutiny off her at the time, Dianna directed the conversation to retirement and eventually to MediCare. Boy howdy! Did that MediCare discussion go off in 50 or so tangents?  Record keeping, doctor’s waiting rooms, doctors themselves, billing procedures and even who had the worst procedure at the cheapest cost. I just couldn’t keep up with them all. I am pretty sure that if I had been given time I coulda developed a story that’d topped them all—I just ran outta time.

After all is said and done, even though John Hughes wasn’t through talking, he was kind enough to reach into my back pocket to retrieve my billfold so I could pay my bill. I wasn’t thinking correctly by that time (lack of sufficient blood flow coming back from my lower extremities, and completely forgot to check to see if I still had all my credit cards before leaving the Crowded Lobster. Well, I guess I might be able to sneak my bill next time under John’s while he is talking!

 

I did manage to get a few pictures but will have to admit that Lydia took some of them because of the angle the crowd had me sitting at the table—I just couldn’t get an angle on everybody.

 

PS: You can tell which ones Lydia took very easy. They’re the ones out of focus and with heads turned away from the camera.