Karleen Came!

Two years ago, Jan Noyes, Karleen's and my good friend, cooked up a plan.

  

Jan was in the U.S., visiting from Belgium, where she and Dave were living then, and she had never been to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City.

She contacted Karleen and I about when she would be in St. George and asked us if we wanted to go to three of the performances of the Festival with her.

Karleen has moved to Eagle Mountain from Ogden to be near her daughter after her husband, Joe's, passing, so she came and stayed with us and Jan had arranged to stay in a condo with her son.

We had so much fun - we were close friends in Ogden and were in a little dinner group that got together every month. We were delighted to be with each other again!

We had enjoyed it so much, Karleen and I decided to make it an annual event (Jan recently moved to Texas and is invited anytime!). So, last year, Karleen came in September and we went to all three fall plays. 

As we did this September. Yaah!

Roger picked her up from the St. George Shuttle on Monday, September 24, just in time for lunch. I prepared a pesto and chicken pasta salad and we had coconut cream cake (it's a poke white cake with sweetened condensed milk mixed with coconut cream poured in the holes, then frosted with light Kool Whip and shredded coconut) for dessert.

We talked our heads off all afternoon, catching up.

We surprised her by inviting some Ogden mutual friends for dinner.  I recently posted about Kathy and Jim Jensen recently moving to St. George from Ogden (they were in our dinner group, too), and Mindi Johnson, who used to live in our ward in Ogden, lives in our branch. Karleen and I were her visiting teachers. We love her! Phil, her wonderful husband, was out of town.

We barbecued marinated flank steak and had mashed potatoes, corn, summer tomatoes with garlic bruschetta and a roasted pear and toasted almond green salad. Kathy brought delicious dessert from Kneaders.

 What a great couple these two are! Jim was Karleen's bishop after Roger was released. We have been going to a Book of Mormon class with them taught by our beloved Wayne Brickey.

Mindi's got the best laugh ever!

Next morning, we took the long way to Cedar City. Roger had to conduct some business in Panguitch, so we drove through Hilldale and Colorado City, checking out the Polygamist communities, had lunch in Kanab, then drove on scenic Highway 89 to Panguitch, then by Panguitch Lake over the mountain to Cedar.

The leaves are changing in the mountains and it was gorgeous!

 We had dinner at Milt's Stage Stop, one of two well-known restaurants up Cedar Canyon, the other being, Rusty's. Kay and Ken told us about Rusty's, and we have had yummy food there, with them and a few other times. We tried Milt's when we first moved to St. George, didn't love it and haven't been back, but I kept hearing about it, so we decided to give it another try.  They have a good salad bar, which we enjoyed, and we decided that they are about sixes.

Then we went to see, Les Miserables. Though we have all seen it several times, including on Broadway, we thrilled to this performance. The music in it is so glorious and the voices were outstanding.

Roger took our pic by posters of the three performances that we saw. On Wednesday, we came back to Cedar City for the matinee of Stones in His Pockets, then saw Hamlet that night.

On the way to Cedar on Wednesday morning, we got off I-15 and drove through Kolob Canyon to show Karleen.  It was a beautiful day!

We had a tasty lunch at Sonny Boy's Barbecue, then went to Stones in His Pockets, a  two-man-show comedy/drama that was masterfully performed, tragic and funny all at the same time.

We had a couple hours after the matinee, so Roger took us on a drive high atop the mountain above Cedar City.  He's been curious about how people got to their homes that we can see high up on the mountain from I-15, so we found the road and drove there.

The mountainside was gorgeous!  When we got to the top, we found the dirt road to Kolob Reservoir and the one to the LDS Girls' Camp.

Roger stopped the car several times to take pics of the beautiful scenery.

As we did last year and the year before, we had dinner at The Garden House.  They have such good homemade soups and yummy salads.

We were so excited that it was Fred Adams, the founder of the Shakespeare Festival, who gave the pre-show briefing outside of the theater for Les Miserable and Hamlet. 

His knowledge is so vast and he is a master of presentation.  His info really enhanced our enjoyment of Hamlet.  This play is so famous and Roger and I had never seen it.  
Some of the famous quotes that come from it are:

To be or not to be: that is the question.
Something is rotten in Denmark; 
This above all: to thine own self be true.
Not a mouse stirring;
Neither a borrower nor a lender be . . .
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.
That it should come to this!
What a piece of work is man! . . .
The lady doth protest too much, methinks!
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
And it must follow, as the night to day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
In my mind's eye

. . . and several others. 

It is amazing to me how many turn of the phrase quotes we have heard our entire lives and didn't realize that they come from Shakespeare.  I majored in English in college 100 years ago, and my proudest grade was an A in a Shakespeare Histories class.  It was the only Shakespeare class offered the quarter I needed to take one, and I learned a lot about European history studying King John, King Henry IV and King Richard III. But I always wished I had studied Shakespeare's Comedies and Tragedies. Now I have a chance to see them come to life!
Fred, your idea to keep Shakespeare alive in Southern Utah for all of the world to see is brilliant!

Next morning, we just hung out in our home, then went to lunch with Roger at Player's Grill for their wedge salad.  Karleen had emailed us before she came, telling us she wanted to treat us to that salad, having had reoccurring memories of it's deliciousness ever since we had it last year together! It is one of Roger's and my favorite lunches.

Then we dropped her off at the shuttle, having thoroughly enjoyed our time together.

Can't wait 'til next year!

Weber High School Class of '62 50th Reunion

Here at last!

The pics from Roger's 50th got posted on the WHS website, so the story can be told!

My husband has looked forward to this ever since the Reunion Committee (this is the first time he hasn't been a part of this, since we moved to St. George) first set up a website and notified everyone about a year ago. 

Weber's Class of '62 had almost 400 students. 53 have died and a little over 200 classmates attended the Big Friday Night on August 10. It was held at Earl's Lodge at the Snow Basin Resort, above Ogden, that was built for the 
2002 Winter Olympics.

We drove up the day before and stayed in Rick and Jodie's beautiful Stratford Hotel. 
Jodie took pics of us in their front yard as we were leaving.

You probably won't believe me, but our color coordination was strictly coincidental!

The photographer got a pic of us entering the beautiful facility.

The Reunion Committee worked so hard, making great displays of the Class of 62's past high school days.

Roger and I have gone with some of Rogers classmates to Lake Powell on Jerry Moyes's houseboats through the years, so we've been in touch with about 25 of them and gotten to know their spouses.
 We've missed the last three years, so it was fun catching up with them. 
Below is John D'Agnillo, Linda Stettler, Elaine D'Agnillo and Fred Stettler. 

Chatting with Nancy Sivulich and Judy Barrett

We lived in Roy before we moved to Ogden and across the street lived the Karrases. Next to me is Rosalie Karras, Roger's classmate, and Dad's friend, Steve Jones, and his wife, Alice.

We enjoyed a lovely buffet dinner and sat at the table with Brigitte and Jess Hunsaker and I sat by Joan Walsh.

I totally scored, because Joan was probably my most interesting dinner companion ever!

 Now retired, she worked for the CIA, basing out of Frankfurt, Germany, which is an airport gateway to the world.  Each time she was sent on assignment out of Frankfurt, she assumed a new name and did intelligence work at various locations in the world.

Her assignment in 1979 was working out of the US Embassy in Tehran, and she was taken hostage by Ayatollah Khomeini militants with 70 others inside the Embassy. She was one of 17 women released after 33 days. The Hostage Crisis lasted until 1981, when the final 52 were released.

I was fascinated with every detail she told me and continued to pick her brain throughout dinner. 

She shared one incident that happened that I consider a small act of heroism. They were tied to a chair and blind-folded most of the days, then at night, they were allowed to sleep beside their chairs, with guards holding guns on them at all times.  

They were separated from each other and could not communicate, but Joan knew that a female friend, also a hostage, wore hard contacts, was virtually blind without them and was suffering without her saline solution. Joan knew where it was in her desk, so, several days into this, when the guard took her to the bathroom, she sneaked it out of the desk and put it up her long, blousy sleeve.

When she was returning from the bathroom, she took a chance and passed by her friend and gave her the solution.  She got severely punished for this and put in solitary confinement.

 Despite being constantly interrogated, the militants never discovered that she worked for the CIA, thinking she was a secretary at the Embassy. The end of the story for her would probably have been very different.

The senior class officers conducted a program about fun memories

 and special tributes to those who have passed away.

There was also a clever poem read by its author and a classmate sang and played on his guitar.

Below are Lyle Johnson, Senior Class Vice-President, Suzanne Wood Ferre, Senior Class Secretary (she was a counselor at OHS when some of my kids attended there), Fred Stettler, Student Body President and Tom Grimm, Senior Class President.

We just have pics of what the roaming photographer took, but Roger was able to chat with many classmates whom he had not seen since he graduated.  It was such a fun evening, and if the spouse can say that, then I think that speaks very well for the overall friendliness and kindness of the WHS Class of '62!

Next day, there was a picnic held at John Rhees's lovely home by Huntsville.

Josh took our pics as we were leaving Rick and Jodie's.

(Again, I promise I did not purposefully plan the color coordination!)

John's lovely home

We got there a little early and I helped decorate the tables.

This is John Rhees, Roger's good friend throughout school days.

Joan Walsh came and sat at our table, so we enjoyed talking to her again - she had flown here from North Carolina just for the reunion.  She has no family in Utah anymore.

Roger was tickled that "Dutch" Belnap (seated right), old coach at WHS and coach of the USU Aggies, came to the reunion as a special guest. Craig Peterson, classmate and sculptor, is on the left.

Janey and Wayne Stevenson, Roger, Suzanne Wood Ferre and Lois Ann Ward

Jerry Moyes is standing and talking to Liz and Val Taylor.

Richard Crawford entertained us with a funny song about how we are all now so forgetful.

Jimmy Smout has told us many, many jokes on the houseboat through the years, 
and he has his comic timing down!

A small gathering of some of us at the picnic

What a great reunion!  

Hope there is a 6oth!