The Good Old Days.

These are pictures from my first yearbook from the Sachan of 1963, St. Charles, Minnesota.   The photos capture some of my dearest friends from those years.  Here they are--top to bottom:
     John Gregoire (7th grade social studies and reading), Roger Traxler (the science teacher who wore ties and dress shirts to teach, but who we called "The Great Hunter"), two pictures of me with debaters and a play I directed, John in a pep skit, Myself...Maryann Nitzke--with no glasses, and Harriet Winters (now Harriet Plotz), two pictures of home economics and FHA.
     It was my first year of teaching, and when I remember all my assignments, and the fun that we all had, I can't believe I could accomplish all that.     Since I lived at home during college, it was also my first time away from home.  I found myself in a very small town with 9 or 10 single teachers, and only three of us were women.  Good odds and good times.
     Of course with 3000 people to chaperone us, we did most of our eating and sipping at Kermie's Tavern in the nearby village of Elba, MN.  Kermie made a great rare hamburger steak--something we don't dare order today.  Twenty years later my husband and I stopped at this little tavern where I claimed "I had a meal and a drink or so here."  Inside Kermie leaned over the bar, slipped me a lemon-gin tonic, and asked if I was still drinking the same thing.
     We had many games of poker, parties like Halloween and assorted tricks  (we used to swap pumpkins out in the neighborhoods), and constant pranks on each other at school.  One bachelor who shall go unnamed used to wash his laundry in the Home Ec washers, and my friend Harriet replaced soap with powdered milk.  I was more famous for breaking into bachelor's apartments and putting crackers in their bed.
      A month ago we had a mini-reunion.  Below is John, myself, Roger's wife Barbara on the left, and Roger, Harriet, and her husband Merlin on the right.  Time has been very good to us all because none of us needed walkers or attending nurses.  We had a great meal at Michael's in Rochester, MN, a place we had visited many times in our youth and all left under their own power.

    

Valentines Day

Since he has been gone a year.
or an eternity,
I searched through my vases
for that glass decanter with rosebuds.

Several years ago he gave me 
a dozen red roses
with the usual sweet valentine,
probably the biggest on the shelf.

I kept the roses until they
were dry,  still fragrantly intense.
Too beautiful to discard,
cherishing each petal, I
stored them in the vase.

Today each petal is so dry,
their fragrance dust.  When
each petal reminds me
of a touch, a hug, a  kiss,
I cannot throw them away.