Auld Lang Syne

Of course, this (the title of this blog entry, not the picture....:D) is the title of a well known, and popular Robert Burns (the Scotsman) poem from 1788 which, according to Wikipedia has a literal meaning of "old long since", but has more popular translations in modern English of "long, long ago", "days gone by", or "old times"......personally, I like the first one.   On Thursday we began our trip south to Dallas, TX into the "long, long ago" to spend time with friends we made, and cherished in our youth during our college days.  The school we both attended was a small college operated by the non-denominational church we grew up in, both of which no longer exist.  By small I mean each campus (there were three) had fewer than 400 students.  My freshman class had just 100 entrants, and by the time I graduated four years later in the Class of '71 there were fewer than 90 remaining in my class....that is small by most standards.  This church school is where I met, and later married, The Lovely Elaine.

I've often wondered why those friendships formed during our college years were, and remain to this day, so strong.  Even though separated by thousands of miles, and in some cases years without contact, we get together and it is as if no time has passed at all.   We pick up right where we left off.  When we are together we speculate as to the reasons for this enduring bond, and there are many good theories (the 4 years comprised one fifth of our total years on earth at that time; shared experience; common history, etc.), but in the end, for me at least, the "why" is not that important....I just know I so look forward to, and enjoy my time with my "long, long ago" friends, who are still close friends in the most literal sense of the word.

TLE and I were up before 5 am Coeur d'Alene time, and in the 'Bird on our way to the Spokane Int'l Airport by 6 am to catch a 9 am flight to Dallas.  Of course, as we left the RV park it was raining, which intensified as we neared the airport.  We had decided to leave the car in a long term parking lot about 5 minutes from the terminal where they have shuttles running continuously over to the airport.  We had barely parked, and turned off the car when I saw one of the shuttles pull up right behind us.....cool, we didn't have to walk, or stand the rain waiting.  We transferred our luggage, and were whisked quickly over to the US Airways terminal arriving just a shade before 7.  Within minutes we had secured our "stand by" boarding passes (we were flying standby courtesy of my sister-in-law, Phyllis, who is a flight attendant for US Airways) which we got at a deep discount.....less than $400 round trip total for both of us.  We had priced this flight previously, and were coming close to $1,000 retail for round trip tickets, so were grateful for the guest passes.....thank you Phyllis!

Sometimes, as I am sure most of you know, going standby can get you stranded for hours at an intermediary airport, and Phoenix, where we were catching a connecting flight, is particularly difficult to get in and out of if you are on standby, but this day everything came together.  In both Spokane and Phoenix our official boarding passes were issued more than 30 minutes prior to take off.....often you wait until everyone has boarded, but Thursday there were a lot of open seats.  In all it took us 5.5 hours gate to gate to reach DFW.

We were met at the airport by long time family friends Scott and Debbie whom we have known for decades and shuttled over to the DFW Marriott where the college reunion is being held.  After we checked in, and dropped our stuff off in our room we joined Scott and Debbie for a drink down the bar, then we headed over to Riscky's BBQ in old town Ft. Worth for dinner, and to meet up with some more "long, long ago" friends.  Yelp gives Riscky's 3.5 stars, but I would have to make that at least a 4.0, or higher.  They have, by far, the best beef ribs I have ever had, and they have outdoor dinning, which is where we had our meal.  The guys all ordered "all you can eat" ribs, and we kept the servers busy bringing additional plates of ribs as we talked about the "long, long ago" days.  Joining us for dinner were Nathan, his wife Cherine, and their three boys.  Nathan is a friend from high school, and his dad was the one who taught me to snow ski way back in the early 70's.  At any rate, we had a wonderful evening reminiscing and catching up.

Scott and Debbie

Nathan and Cherine

We said our "until next times" and then Scott and Debbie drove us back to the Marriott, where we headed down to the hospitality suite being provided for our college reunion.  It was close to 10 pm at this time, but there were quite a few of my college friends still there, and we talked until close to midnight.  If this goes like the last reunion in 2011 by Monday morning I will have no voice left.

It was a great start to our trip into the "long, long ago", and as more people arrive Friday and Saturday it will only get better......life is good!

Thanks for stopping by!