65 years

What is it like to live with someone, to be married to someone, for 65 years? I don't know, but I know a couple of people who do. Their five children, three of their grandchildren, all four greatgrandchildren, and six spouses-in-law converged in a central location near the Ohio River this weekend to celebrate Mom and Dad's years together. I think they had a good time.

The ride to southern Indiana from central Ohio was a breeze. We started encountering relatives as soon as we got out of the car and pretty much took over the hotel Friday and Saturday nights. My sister Jeanie Beanie Golly Gee did a fabulous job of coordinating everything, so we had the run of the meeting rooms, which came in handy when it came time to eat, drink, talk, meet the newest members of the clan, play cards, and watch football.

Friday night Mom and Dad brought out a big box of games they have held onto forever and wanted to get rid of. Any takers? Someone found the Pit deck (copyright 1919, printed 1947), a card game based on the Chicago grain market that we used to play as kids. A game of Pit started tentatively, but it is easily learned, and the newbies quickly got the hang of it. Maybe it comes naturally to us Midwesterners. Hours of raucous fun ensued. "Pit open...corner!" You had to be there.

When we weren't doing the abovementioned eating, talking, etc., we were piling into two or three vans and going on excursions in beautiful downtown Jeffersonville and Louisville. To Schimpff's Confectionary, for example, where we took the nickel tour and learned more than we thought it possible to know about the nineteenth-century art and science of making candy from scratch. Hint: temperature is everything. The modest smalltown storefront is quite a place. The back room filled with old candymaking implements, packaging, vending machines, advertising, and other memorabilia provided an interesting history of American candy culture.

It was a nice day in the old river town, so we took a short walk down to the water, past the chic shops, the bars and restaurants, and the floodwall straddling Spring Street. I guess going places together is just an opportunity to have a conversation with my brother-in-law Barney Gee Golly about both of our daughters' moving out on their own, or where the economy may or may not be headed, with my brother Rock Golly about his ski trip to Utah with his son last February, or his most recent motorcycle acquisition.

By now it's time for lunch, so we piled into vans again and found a place up the road that would accommodate most tastes and not take all day. We've got more places to go and baseball bats to caress.

That's right, the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum is just across the river on Main Street in a very cool art and theater district. If you have even a passing interest in baseball, it's worth seeing how they make the bats from a billet cut from an ash or maple trunk, shape it with one of hundreds of forms placed on a lathe, brand it, and finish it. I didn't have time to get in the batting cage, but my nephews Todd and Greg did, and it's probably just as well, since I don't think I could have hit the machine's pitching.

Everything in greater Louisville seems to be only a few minutes away, so we were back at the hotel in plenty of time for a workout and a change of clothes before dinner at Buckhead's Grill on the riverfront. With 20 people sitting at one long table, you can't really talk to everybody, so by the luck of the draw I got to talk to my nephew Greg Gosh Golly and his wife Christine while they fed their one-year-old Jonathan. We always seem to have a lot to say to each other: summer travels, our place up north, their place in Canada, the relative strengths of schedule in the NCAC and the MIAA, and the sad fact that the Yeomen and the Flying Dutchmen both lost all their nonconference games.

I was also in a position to observe from across the table my nephew Sam Gee Golly's three well-bred daughters - beauties of 7, 10, and 13 - conduct themselves like young ladies, each with her own distinct, witty, vibrant character. These occasions are instant validation for any parent, especially the daughters-in-law, and it was fun seeing Sam and Kayleen relax and bask in the reflected light.

The drive home on Sunday was equally uneventful, except we came a different way, up I-65 to Indianapolis, then east on I-70 instead of down I-71, but western swingstate is just as flat and boring and southern swingstate, so six of one, half-dozen of the other. It gave Gven and me a chance to rehash the weekend briefly, what was new or different from other reunions, and think about when and where the next one will be. It felt good to get home, put things away, eat a meal in the dining room, read the paper, watch the ballgame, and split some wood.

Zelda came by the house to touch base after taking care of the animals while we were gone. She was tired, and I was happy to see her and hear about recent changes at the store. She works hard. The renovation at the Lane Avenue HPB is complete at last, but there are seven pallets of books that have no shelf space. Another day, another bit of problem solving for...Zelda Golly, Shiftleader!