SOC ANNUAL CHRISTMAS LUNCHEON

Sunday, December 4, 2016 at 1:00 p.m.

Salads, breads and nonalcoholic drinks will be provided by your hostesses

Peaches Walker

Celi Hamilton

Rodger Davis

Connie Olimpio

Ouida Rose

GailBarrett

Mary Kay Crowder

Shannon Morehouse

Betty Gibbs

Barbara and Bobby Moffett

Phyllis Kelley

If you wish, you may bring dessert

8791 Oak Stream

Dallas, TX 75243-8011

Must RSVP to Peaches Walker

214.553.0232  peacheswalker@gmail.com or

Mary Kay Crowder mkaykathryn@sbcglobal.net

ADDITIONAL PARKING WHERE THE SIGN SAYS

PRIVATE PROPERTY CLUB HOUSE AREA

Must leave this parking area by 5:00 pm

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 

For reasons unknown I woke up early this morning thinking about Gary Tilory. He was a bit of a scoundrel in Singing Hills during my junior high years. Did I imagine he later lived in Burkburnett, Texas? So I got out of bed and pulled out our 20th Reunion 1983 Class Directory  ... the one that allowed us to post a blurb about our lives at that point. Sure enough in '83 Gary was a Supervisor for Southwestern Bell and living in Burkburnett.

"Burk", as my family called it, was a podunk town near the Red River and Oklahoma border. My Uncle and Aunt owned the hardware store there and I spent many wonderful summers with them as a boy. In 1954 the "business district" was a single street, two blocks long that included an ice house, theater, bank, cafe, beauty shop, Hatch's Hardware, some other small establishments and a grain silo at the end of Main Street. It was difficult to comprehend that 30 years later someone from Dallas (Tilory) would choose to settle there.

I made some coffee and continued to page through the 1983 Directory. It pleased me to see so many of us had become "educators". Many had traveled and worked in foreign countries. There were quite a few who out of ambition, or perhaps necessity, had their own businesses. Some had as many as four children, some had very young children late in life, some had chosen to not have kids. By 1983 you could tell many had changed partners. A few were widowed. Some had never married.

1983 was an interesting junction in life for our group. As I read on a bit of sadness set in. Now with the benefit of another 33 years having passed, we know how some of our peers lumbered forward in time toward a variety of predestined discontents. Circumstances conspired. Our parents aged and suffered. We watched our children thrive and/or veer way off track. We wonder if we are the author of our own accidents?

And so I sip more coffee and ponder how it is that I made it to age 71 and so many others did not? Back in 1983 it seemed we were invincible. Now the unthinkable feels more like the inevitable. I feel undeserving but at the same time, amazingly thankful. Is it naive to treasure this old directory and my SOC yearbooks? Are they not central to the roots of my past?

Happy Belated Birthday, Sharon Reeves!