CHARM: Me . . . A Senior?

At the bottom of today's blog, there is a link to a wonderful local magazine my friend Denise Hoepfner edits. Charm is distributed with our Lufkin Daily News and is found at various shops around town. It's fun because it is about local people, places and things and you'll often see someone you know in there. The cover this time features a couple who have been married for 60 years! Gee, they sure don't remind me of my grandparents from the 50s! (You'll find me on page 9 in a story about social networking.)

Denise was in the theater lobby when Keith & I exited the first showing of Charlie Wilson's War here in Lufkin, to ask us questions. When I joined Facebook, I found her there along with Ashley Cook who is now the City Editor of Lufkin Daily.

Ashley has been to our home because she wrote a couple of very nice stories about me when I was becoming an American Citizen back in (finally) 2004. Yup - I've been a Citizen for 5 years now!

When I joined Facebook, I also found two local friends who are pretty close to me in age, so I will have to live with us being called "seniors". That's what we like to be called when it means a discount, right?

Denise also has featured the year 1959 - because of course, that is 50 years ago. So, now is a good time to mention again that Keith & I will be travelling to Toronto for my 50th St.Clement's School Reunion. (My friend, Nina once asked me why our reunions did not coincide and of course that is because we used to have five years of high school in Ontario. )

Now, St.Clement's is a girls' school where we even had religion classes and an assembly each morning. I used to get there on a TTC (Toronto Transit Authority) bus, and the building then was a lot different from the one I will see this year. When I started in fall of 1954, the "Upper School" - grades 9 to 13 were held in a modest building with a small laboratory and a basement where Phys. Ed. , Assembly and Lunch were held. Junior School (grades 1 to 6 or 8) was in a two-storey house., across a small area where we could play basketball.

I should mention here that for "lower school", I went to Havergal College which had boarding students, a large, grand building and massive grounds where I learned to play tennis, my sport of choice in my youth. During Grade Eight, my friend, Judy, invited me to her place in a Detroit suburb for the Easter vacation. Her father just happened to be the Executive V.P of Ford Motor Company whose executive Canadian offices were still in Windsor.

Judy and I flew on a DC-3 and it was my first flight. I was thirteen and what a week that was! Judy's family lived in a house with about 17 rooms on an immense property and had staff and two Boxer dogs. They were wonderful people and treated me like royalty. When I got back to Toronto, my parents started seriously looking for another girls school (no distractions for learning, you know) with a mix of girls from families more like ours. (They were probably disappointed to ultimately find lots of wealth there as well, but the school itself was certainly less unpretentious. )

Today, I still get a kick out of checking the bottom of the hymns I remember so well from assemblies at that school because Frances Ridley Havergal wrote many of them and that is why they are so familiar! So Havergal was not totally lost on me!

Back to St. Clement's. I am a Life Member of the Alumni Association and logged two years on their Executive back in the 80s when it was created. I have gone to some of the reunions since I have been in East Texas and they are enjoyable. It is fun to see old classmates - sorry, girls - who have aged right along with me.

A few years ago, a new building rose on the same site - on St.Clement's Avenue, near YONGE STREET, about six blocks north of Eglinton Avenue. It was about four or five stories with a basketball court on the roof.

One of the most interesting things for me this year will be to see the newest St.Clement's building. Toronto real estate is extremely expensive (compared to East Texas) but probably no worse than cities like New York and Los Angeles. One of the parents and his company worked at picking up the block of houses on that side of the street. From my own real estate sales experience, I can assure you this is one of the trickiest achievements and that was a wonderful feat for the school!

So, when I go up in May, I will see a structure totally unlike the original one with high tech facilities and equipment, still in that wonderful North Toronto location! On Friday evening, they will treat me to wine and a viewing of art by students. (Wine at St. Clement's! That was a shock to me the first time we had that reception!)

My friend, Andrea has said she will come in this year. She sends detailed messages at Christmas each year of her events that keep her commuting from Canada to England and back. Well, heck, is that any bigger commute than Texas to Toronto to Texas? Ah Ha!

There are some girls who live in Western Provinces, and one in Florida, but most have stayed in the Toronto area.

There is another perk I received this year, not so much because I am a Senior, but because I have been a member for 30 years. Canadian Kennel Club (CKC) has made me a Life Member. That is really nice for me because (perhaps some of you know) my late husband, John Devlin, was not only a Life Member of CKC but also served as Vice President and Chair of many committees during his 50 years as an International All Breed Dog Judge. (I was happy they did this even though I am in Texas now.)

I have never been sure of the expression, "With Age Comes Wisdom", but I do know that if you are healthy and able to get around fairly easily, there are lots of perks that come with being a Senior!

http://shopping.lufkindailynews.com/SS/Page.aspx?secid=59744&pagenum=9&sstarg=&facing=false&