Monday, June 23, 2008

The Cabin

After Lib and I had been square dancing with the Grand Squares for several years we were invited one Sunday to come to “the cabin”, a hideaway beside a creek, surrounded by mountains, in a nearby county. It was a 45 minute drive from our Roanoke home.

At the cabin there was lots of yard space and the early afternoon was devoted to playing volley ball. We were all younger by ten years then. After volleyball.the men would begin the ritual of grilling steaks or hamburgers and the women would set up the tables for a picnic type supper. There would be 10-14 couples and assorted singles invited.

After supper, the group would divide into those who enjoyed card games or dominos and who just wanted to sit around and make conversation. Since almost all of us were over 60 there was a lot of common history to share. A number of the men had been in the military, so there were favorite stories to trot out.

This tradition of the Sunday afternoon day at “the cabin” continued for us until we moved to the Richmond area. Suffice it to say that in the recent years the game of volleyball. finally came to an end as we could no longer muster enough able bodied players.

Our hosting lady recently broke her other hip, but she and her husband aren’t the sort to let something like that prevent them from enjoying the company of friends,,,so it was that several days ago Lib got a call with an invitation to come to “the cabin”. And so we went.

We left Richmond around 8:00 am and were at the cabin by 11:20. Some of the old timers were already there. Another couple, a former square dance ‘caller” for the Grand Squares, who now lives in Bristol, TN had also been invited and they were there.

It was like a family reunion. What fun to catch up with the lives of people we had been close to for a decade. To see that most of us were still able to muster the energy necessary to enjoy life. Several couples had just returned from trips to Alaska or Ireland and recounted things they had seen and experienced .


A large tree had fallen into the creek behind the cabin and one of the men brought his chain saw and soon had it cut up to wash down with the next big rain. He was one of the younger men there, had fallen off his roof a number of years ago and done a job on his foot that incapacitated him for over a year....and here he was demolishing a rotted fallen tree. Told his wife it was a macho man thing that he would relish knowing that he could still do that kind of thing.

Nearly thirty of us enjoyed a meal together. It was good to see our hostess enjoying the stimulation of being with her friends. What a good time we had reaffirming that life was still worth living even though most of us were firing on less than four cylinders. Among us we had those who were cancer survivors, knee operations, back operations, and other serious losses.

After supper we said our good bye:s and reached home by 9:00 pm. It had been a full and happy day.