My wife, Lyn, continues to recover, but due to continued times of extreme pain, she decided to get a second opinion. After an MRI, she was told she has a crack in the leg bone and a muscle tear in her knee that requires surgery, which is scheduled for Friday, setting back her recovery a few more months.

Last weekend, my high school class celebrated a three-day reunion. Lyn and I were signed up to enjoy all three evenings, but she took a pass on Friday evening after receiving the news about her impending surgery. She felt a quiet evening at home with Stuart, our therapy dog, would be advantageous.

My class graduated from Southport High School in 1960, several years before the opening of Perry Meridian High School. At that time Southport covered the entire township.

When it came to reunions, we sort of got off to a goofy start. We had no plans as we approached our 10-year mark, so our first class reunion was held on the anniversary of our 12th year.

Our 20th reunion was held at the Holiday Inn, corner of US 31 and Thompson Road. Several of us wish we had stayed home from that gathering. Lots of stories; none of which I will share in this column.

Over the years, our reunions have improved by doing one yearly. Very enjoyable, multiple-day events and all casual. This year we celebrated in three different locations. Some of the classmates could only attend one or two evenings. I enjoyed looking around the group and seeing a few new faces each evening.

We even added a breakfast just a few days before our reunion. Several of the guys from our class enjoy a monthly breakfast at the Hotcake Emporium, just North of Bluff and Southport roads.

I contacted my good friend, Bill Bain, and invited him to join us for that breakfast. Bill started his teaching and coaching career at Southport High School, I believe in our junior year. It was a great surprise to have several classmates present when he showed up at the breakfast.

Another very good friend, Richard Smith and his wife, Marsha, were at the reunion for all three evenings. They stopped by our house to visit with Lyn and to meet our chicken girls. Richard recalled his years of working on diesel trains for the railroad.

Our final event Saturday was held outside at the Greenwood VFW near the same railroad tracks that also come through Southport and Homecroft. Just as Richard began to say a short prayer, we heard the sound of a northbound train. He picked up his pace and had completed a wonderful prayer a few seconds before a very long train passed our reunion.
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Later, another train passed by on the same track, and he ran across the field to wave at the engineer. We had a wonderful reunion.

Lyn is coming along nicely with her recovery. She has gone from a wheelchair, to a walker and now a small cane with 4 small legs. She’s driving again, has an electric scooter to ride to visit her chickens, and has reconnected with her zero-turn lawn mower. She has follow-up testing this week. Stuart and I returned to South Grove Intermediate and Central Elementary schools in Beech Grove to begin listening to students read great books to us. The first group of students got off to a wonderful start and I’m certain they will improve over the next couple of weeks.

Saturday was Stuart’s 15th birthday and he received several very nice presents, birthday cards delivered in person, through the mail, in emails and Facebook posts. When we adopted him from The Southside Animal Shelter, they guessed him as being a year-and-a-half old, so we counted back 18 months which came to September. My dad’s birthday was September 7, so Stuart accepted that wonderful day to celebrate his birthday. His health is good and he gets excited on Tuesdays before leaving home to make our nursing home visits. It’s very important to him that he gets to visit with all of his special friends and he sure doesn’t seem to be contemplating retirement.

We made our special trip to Stuart’s favorite place, Ritter’s Frozen Custard, where he was served a cup of vanilla custard with a small dog cookie placed on top. We enjoyed our treats and Stuart even had some to finish later. He had a great birthday.

We celebrated Labor Day, which also was the 50th anniversary of something that a few of my best friends and I accomplished on the very weekend. One day we formed a plan and for a few years we were interested and slightly involved in drag racing. 

Over several months, we rebuilt a 1960 large Ford 9 passenger station wagon into a legal drag racer in the H/SA class. We then needed to successfully compete our race car on a very regular basis throughout the Midwest. It was necessary to accumulate a certain amount of points by competing and winning to be invited to the US Nationals. 

The US Nationals have been held at Indianapolis Raceway Park (Now known as Lucas Oil Raceway) in Brownsburg for many years. In 1959, I was the driver of a well-designed race car at the US Nationals. We did not have the winning car, but we really enjoyed the experience.

I’m sure that most of the people that have had the opportunity to ride in a car with me in the last few years would find it hard to believe that I drove in the US Nationals. What is really very interesting is that on the Tuesday morning after that Labor Day, I drove a school bus. It’s always important to always survey the situation then drive and act accordingly.

Sunday was the final game of the season for the Indiana Fever. Lyn and I have been season ticket holders for close to 10 years. We missed several home games this season due to her terrible injuries she got while in Ecuador.

A wonderful thing about Fever season tickets is if for some reason you can’t attend some of the games, they will reissue tickets for you to share with friends or family. We had 24 unused tickets that we were able to share with neighbors, friends and family.
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I’m so glad that we had the opportunity to share those tickets on Sunday because it was a great game. The Fever scored over 100 points in their final game of the season. Three of their new, young players have really bettered their game this year. I’m sure everyone enjoyed the game.