50 years is a long time!

Lobsters for dinner

One of the things we did with Sherry and Joe during our stay with them in Portland was to go for a hike along the coast, ending up at the Black Point Inn for a lovely, albeit expensive, lunch. But it wasn’t that easy. We drove to where Joe thought we could park, but we couldn’t. So Randy and I and Sherry got out to do the hike—well, it was really more of a stroll—while Joe would go to the other end of the trail, park, walk in, and meet us. Oh, how the best plans can be bollixed up! First of all, Sherry didn’t really know the path so at every turn she wasn’t exactly sure where to go. Not that it was all that difficult; after all we had the Atlantic Ocean on our right!

Sherry texting while hiking

Then we kept losing Sherry because she had to answer her phone or send text messages and she would kind of drop back. Finally she called Joe to see where he was relative to us. Well, that wasn’t much good because she didn’t know where WE were. We sat down to rest after a mile or so (by my not so accurate pedometer) and she texted and texted and texted. By now we could see Joe waaayyy, waaayyy back. Eventually we all got together and with the help of some passersby, found the Black Point Inn.

Also, while we were in the Portland area, we had to go to L.L.Bean heaven, the main store. We did actually have a reason to go there, we had lost yet another item, our Gorillapod. That has been so handy on occasion that we thought it necessary to replace it. The new one of course has lots of bells and whistles. Well, OK, two new things: a quick release and a level.

After four beautiful weather days in Portland, we headed off to Hartford for Randy’s 50^th reunion. Our hotel was in beautiful downtown Hartford and we got an upgrade to a better room so that was kind of nice, especially since we were going to be there for three days.

I didn’t really expect to have a good time, since I didn’t know anybody in Randy’s class other than a couple of guys I hadn’t seen in 50 years, but I ended up having a really nice time. We had signed up for a lot of meals at the college and a couple of activities so we had little time to doing anything else while we were in Hartford. Except that I really wanted to go and see the Institute of Living, the “insane asylum” where Randy and I met. Those who don’t know the story will have to figure out which of us was the inmate. We found it but it was not recognizable to either of us—after all, it had been some 52 years since we had been there.

The only truly memorable function we attended was the dinner on the quad. We had ordered lobster as our entrees (that was before we pigged out twice in Maine on lobster; there is only so much lobster I can eat!) but they allowed us to trade our lobster tickets for steak tickets. The memorable part, however, was that I lost my purse. We both spent a sleepless night worrying, called a staff person we knew to check security (it had not been turned in), went to a meeting at the college hoping that someone had found it and would bring it to the meeting. Hurrah, that was indeed the case. Dhuanne Tansil, one of the wives we had met, found it and hoped she’d see us at the meeting or the lunch later. I had no idea how traumatized I would be by losing my purse—and I didn’t even have much in it, just one credit card, my license, and a small amount of money. Needless to say, I am eternally grateful to Dhuanne!

The Class of '61 donates $25 million to their alma mater

Everything after that was anticlimactic! We had a great time (in spite of the rain on the day of the “parade of classes), and it was fun being part of a 50^th reunion. Randy’s class was the darling of the campus for three days and after they unveiled their class gift—$25 million!—they were especially adored, particularly by the president of Trinity, Jimmy Jones. Yes, that’s what he likes to be called, Jimmy.

Cooperstown, Baseball Hall of Fame

After Hartford, we headed for Chicago by way of Cooperstown, NY. For those who happen not to be great baseball fans—is that even possible?—Cooperstown is the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and it is Mecca for any red-blooded American baseball nut. Cooperstown’s population is listed at 2032 in the AAA book but the popularity of the BHOF makes it seem much bigger. It’s charming if you can look past the seemingly infinite number of baseball-themed stores lining the main (and pretty much, only) street. Baseball overwhelms the fact that James Fenimore Cooper’s father founded the town. Such an emphasis on baseball also means, I guess, that it’s OK to charge whatever price you think you can get away with. We had a hotdog each and a glass of water (tap water, not that bottled stuff) in a cute little restaurant; the bill for lunch was $25 (including tax and tip). $25!!! for 2 hotdogs. I still can’t believe we did that.

Anyway, the museum was nice. I told Randy that I thought 80% of the visitors would be male and he didn’t believe me—doesn’t he ever learn? One nice touch was that they supplied free wireless internet access so I could use my iTouch to look up things to do with baseball. That seems to be a coming trend in various places (except a lot of timeshares). I expect that within a few years, not having wireless internet access will be a rare exception pretty much everywhere. Even timeshares.

Our next stop on the way to our friends, the Nobles, was the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY. Corning is in the extreme south central part of New York. I had always thought Corning was in “upstate New York.” Randy assures me that anyplace outside of New York City is “upstate.” So south-central New York is upstate New York.

Glass blowers at work

Glassblower using a torch

Another of my favorite pieces

One of my favorite pieces

The Corning Museum of Glass is a fabulous combination of a museum of static art, a museum of kinetic art, and a museum of hands-on creativity and I wish we had had more time to spend there! We did get to see three shows: glassblowing using a big furnace, glassblowing using a torch, and glass breaking; and a tour. All were fascinating. We’ve watched glass blowing demonstrations many times before, but never before have we had a narration so that really added a dimension to the show. Unfortunately we did not have time to try to make our own glass product, one of the other options available to the visitor.

It also had the largest museum store I have ever seen! Including a store inside the store devoted solely to Steuben glass. Wish I could afford some of it. The most expensive item Steuben makes is a bowl decorated with 12 gazelles. If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. But anyway, it is $65,000.