Weekend

Maureen and Jim - Avis and Gary //  Christy and Cam

"Would you like to go to a local high school presentation of the 'Sound of Music'?"  

"Sure," we said, after all it was 1966 when my sisters invited me to the movie on May 7.  That's almost exactly 56 years ago.  My sisters were a freshman and a sophomore in college where I was a senior.  They each had a date and suggested I do the same.  I invited Gail.  Eventually we all married our dates.  The one making the invitation was my sister and her husband, Avis and Gary in Volga, South Dakota.

There's more to this story.  We drove to the high school and found a note on the door stating that the performance was cancelled because there was illness among the cast.  We repeated the process the next night and the note read "Postponed until May 20 and 21."  No "Sound of Music" this week for us.  Instead we spread out a jigsaw puzzle on the dining table.

Enroute to Volga, near Brookings, South Dakota, we drove through fog and rain.  Gail awoke from a short nap and said that things looked worse.  My reply was "You missed the bad stuff.  I won't have been able to see that car in front of us just moments ago."  Today the local news is with regard to local flooding.  Last week the news was about the snow storm that has a small town in northwest North Dakota with no power for about two weeks.  And yes, we have seen snow in the shadows along the roads - in North Dakota in May.

Just miles before reaching Brookings there is the town of Clear Lake.  My records indicate that our daughter Becky's grandmother's headstone is there.  The Internet identified her block, lot and site, but without a map that would be useless.  Fortunately as we rounded the corner into the cemetery there was a map and within moments we found her headstone (Nona), her father's headstone (Becky's great-grandfather) and Nona's brother.  Another check-off the bucket list.

Now we're in West Fargo with our sister-in-law Mary after a Italian meal at Olive Garden with Gail's niece Christy and her daughter Cam.  They live near Ayr, the motherlode of the Cameron family, and were able to fill us in on all the local events.  They had brought with themselves a picture album of last year's Cameron reunion on the farm.