ANNIVERSARY

No not my wedding anniversary. Yesterday at work, I was thrown a party for being with this company 25 years. I have been the Office Manager for 24 years.
Does this twenty-five years at one place make me a great employee or a sap?
In the old days, staying on a job was a good thing. In the eighties, people hopped jobs like freight trains and it was considered a smart thing to do.

I know I could have a job that pays much better. I actually had an interview set up with the state when I took this one. The thing is I like the people I work with. We have now about 120 growers and I like almost everyone of them. My Board is a great group of guys. My mentor who used to be President of the Board retired from farming and I miss him a lot. Also, the President of the Board before that just recently died. He was a wonderful person and a good friend. Still the guys left are great.

I am now the oldest person working in this packinghouse. I am fixty-six. I am not the oldest person to attend the Board meeting but I have been attending Board meetings about ten more years than my Board Members. This whole thing is just a little depressing. I want to be young (maybe around 40).

When I was forty-one, I still didn't have any wrinkles. I've always been active, so I wasn't in bad shape. I decided I wanted to go home for my 25th class reunion that was taking place in two years. It took the whole two years but I lost 40 lbs (I am 5' 8"). One of the boys I went to school with asked me to dance and asked me how I stayed so trim. Do you think I told the truth that I spent two years preparing? Not on your life! I just replied that I worked at it. He probably thought I spend all my time in a gym instead of knowing that I just inherited good genes. What a crock.

I will never go to a reunion again. I now look my age and so would everyone else. Who wants to remember the handsomest boy in class as an elderly gentlemen. It reminds us of our own mortality.

One of my girls here is leaving to take a job closer to where she lives. She asked if she could now toss the envelope that says "in case something happens to Bev".
I said no. This morning I asked the girl she is training to be in charge of my "Dead Envelope". It is simply instructions about what needs to done regarding my insurances and things here through work. I don't know why that bothers people. It is terribly irresonsible not to be prepard for death. We have a will. The original is with our Attorney. In a file cabinet at home, are letters and instructions for my Girls.

People seem to be horrified by death. I wouldn't want to die right now but we don't get to choose. It's part of life. It's also part of a wondrous mystery. Do we really get to know all the answers when we're dead? I believe in God. Can anyone who is near death not even be a little excited also to know? My mother-in-law was and she was one of the smartest, kindest, most wonderul people I ever knew.

Enough about that! I am looking forward to the weekend of the 28th. My best friend in the whole world (and my daughter's MIL), Bunny, and I are getting to spend a whole weekend together at an Indian Casino out of Fresno. We haven't done a weekend together for a couple of years. The rooms are gorgeous and include a coffee pot (my most important requirement). The gambling is good and there are seven restaurants.

There is nothing like a weekend with Bunny to get my head on straight. It's like a tune-up for my brain. We talk a lot. She's always very frank and I always come away from the weekend with a better feeling about the person I am. She is also the most funny and clever person I have ever known. I wish she could spend time with my Brothers. Repartee was king in my family!

Anyway, I'm signing off.

Love you all.