Date:

7/28/98 (Amazingly, one year to the day from my last year's "wrap-up" note!)

To:

Lisa & Michael
Maaike & Howard
Lorraine & Lon
Brenda & Ralph
Dee & Robert

From:

Gene Kincaid

Subject:

Follow-up to the Silver, Texas Homecoming Reunion 1998

cc:

Alison, Jessi, Emma, Emily, Kim and Laura

____________________________________________________________________

All,

Wow, this year's trip and reunion was totally different from last year! Such a trip merits getting a note out to you before the crush of school begins.

First, and most importantly, I want to say thanks to the girls for being such good sports and putting up with a cranky trip host. Laura and Gail hit the nail on the head in a Monday conversation with the following comment, "All of Dad's friends couldn't make it to the reunion this year, so he didn't have anybody to play with."

It worked out that my best friends didn't make this year's reunion and, in fact, the overall reunion attendance was very low, perhaps half of last year's total. Steve was stuck working in Columbia and couldn't rotate home in time. My brother couldn't make it because he got called out on a well testing job. Lonnie ( one of my best friends who still lives in Silver) couldn't make the Saturday night event, and had to be absent for most the Sunday reunion itself, and Jim was in Canada with his dad on a well deserved vacation. In short, I didn't have anybody to play with.

However, and this is a big however, the girls were great. A little noisy, a little slow getting ready at times, and a little quick to be ready for a change of scenery once or twice, but overall they made the trip a success. On Monday afternoon when I was feeling a little sorry for myself it dawned on me that it was our girls that pulled the whole trip out of the dumpster. They laughed a lot, made all kinds of noise, fussed at each other, told jokes, pulled stunts and pranks all the time, pushed-shoved-jumped on & flopped over each other, nagged among themselves, crabbed back and forth, then gave each other a helping hand or shoulder and generally dragged the whole group along for the whole weekend. In short, they were the perfect troopers in difficult territory. And I want them to know how much I appreciate that, even though I was on a short fuse for most of the trip. So, to each and every one of you young ladies, I thank you. You made the reunion this year, in every sense of the word. And you gave me the pluck to volunteer to take on next year's event and make it more fun. Thanks girls. I really mean it.

Second, although the trip had a decidedly different tone from all prior years, I had a great time. Yes, I did get a little wound up trying to do the right thing when one of you got sick. But that was because you were all under my care and I take that responsibility very seriously. Yes, I did get my head down occasionally and tried to bull through the schedule from time to time. But that's because I forgot that you're all teenagers and there are six of you and that getting six girls moving all at once just takes more time than I'm used to. Yes, I scowled every now and then this weekend. But that's because I tried too hard to give you six a sense of what Silver was and is. It was a magical place in time, and it shaped me into who I am. I want you to experience a bit of the community and sense of belonging that I feel when I go there. Even though I know that's an impossible goal.

Enough of that. Now to the business at hand of recalling the weekend!

Friday afternoon's trip to San Angelo was a curious mixture of dead silence caused by four sets of headphones being placed in use all at once and a variety of blasting music on the van's stereo. I did subject the girls to a few songs off the now-infamous "The World's Most Famous Polka Hits" cassette, but decided that it put such a damper on the mood in the car that it endangered the whole trip so I cut those selections short. Of particular note was the playing of side #1 of "The Lion King". I'm pretty certain that this one tape has been with us on every trip, and this year everyone (I think everyone) piped up at the top of their lungs and sang along with every song. It sent a little dose of nostalgia down my spine when it started, but then dawned on me that when these girls sing now, they can crank out the decibels! Wow. Not one bug hit the van's windshield during this tape's playing because of the sound wave barrier the girls pumped out. Yikes, when the girls are together they're loud, but this was a new high note, in a manner of speaking.

Arrived at hotel and the girls immediately hit the pool. Screaming hot sun and screaming girls in the pool combined into an odd cosmic West Texas symmetry. Afterwards I only had to bark once at the girls for exceeding the noise limit in the room as they got ready to go to dinner. Dined late at the Golden Corral, which I've now decided is not the best place to take six girls for dinner. It's too generic for this group. They need a full menu to pick and chose from to differentiate themselves among themselves. Does that make sense to you parents? I just reread the sentence and it is correct if you think about it for a second. What a group these girls make. There's almost a seventh person in there when these six get together. Maybe next year I'll ask her where she wants to eat. Alison didn't eat much and said she felt a little queasy afterwards.

Breakfast Saturday at the hotel buffet --- straight West Texas fare. But now, bless her heart, Alison has tummy ache and headache. No fever, but to give Alison a chance to sleep I packed her off to bed with a couple of aspirin while the rest of us went shopping in the antique district for a couple of hours. Once again, the girls contributed significantly to the San Angelo's downtown economic revitalization with a variety of purchases ranging from a single "hard-candy" sucker to a tiny ceramic birthday cake to two of the most awful/hilarious hand puppets in existence. No, check that, maybe the puppeteers made them the most awful & hilarious puppets anywhere. What a hoot. With the addition of these two characters the trip took on a whole new dimension and aura. Hard to describe. Suffice it to say that you had to be there.

Saturday lunch at Schlotzsky's and then off to Silver. Stopped for a visit with Marla Bloodworth (Lonnie's wife) for a few minutes, and then went for a hike to the top of "second mountain", the larger of the two hills situated just behind the Jameson camp (my home). All girls were game and climbed like goats to the top then returned to the van in record time. And Kim gets the "putting-up-with-dad's-nostalgia" award for putting on an interested game face and listening to me describe Silver's layout from the top of the hill. What a sport. Here I am pointing out where streets were ("see those telephone poles over there...") with Kim being a major good sport, listening to the whole thing while the rest of the group rolled their eyes to the sky. I know they rolled their eyes because I could hear ten eye-balls hit the tops of their eye lids in unison. And they thought I didn't know what was going on. HA! On the way back to the van Jessi found a cow bone worthy of saving for display in her room. In all probability she'll set a new southwestern decorating trend that Neiman's will pick up on later this year. Look for it in all the Christmas catalogs.

We then migrated to the old store for a round of gourd hunting and rock throwing. The building is literally crumbling down but managed to present a few unbroken glass bricks as targets. Everyone managed to lob a few rocks, crack a few bricks and smatter a gourd or two on the walls. Reminded me of days gone by.

A quick trip to the Colorado river for an even quicker stone skipping session followed. Then I took us on a slow trip around the little county road loop that passes through all of the farms in and around Silver. It was a 15 minute trip that must have been boring as dirt to the girls, but I remembered every curve, every oil field side road, and every farm house along the way. Decided not to bore the girls with those memories.

Back to the hotel for a quick swim and clean up for Saturday's pre-reunion dinner. I'll skip lightly over that whole event --- it wasn't a highlight of the trip and by now Alison was really under the weather. So, I called it an early night with a command decision.

We got a late start Sunday morning and missed church, but that actually worked out OK in the end. By then I was knotted up because the turnout was going to be low (I could tell from the number of cars in the church parking lot) and was a little bit worried that Alison might take a dip for the worse. So, Brother Blackwell's sermon, which can be a little ... "hellfire and brimstone"-ish ... wouldn't have been the best thing for my spirits.

The Silver town meeting was OK, with about 60-70 people attending. The highlight for me was the singing of our Silver Peak Junior High school song. One of my friends had made copies from an old SPJH annual. Once the first few notes were sung, time fell away and everyone in the room remembered the tune. It sounded as sweet and stirring as it always had. Funny, but those few moments will stand out in my mind for a long long time. I was standing at the end of the pew with all of the girls to my left. As I sang I could pick out the girls' voices. Beautiful, clear voices. The same voices I heard growing up when we Silver kids would sing the song at pep rallies and school assemblies. That made the whole trip worthwhile. Thanks girls.

The trip home was part sleepy heads, part headphones with eyes out the window, part "rounder song" for the last 20 minutes.

Overall on the trip, Kim gets the award for being most upbeat, energetic and alert morning person as well as the best sport for allowing the others to pick their seats in the van, leaving her in the middle of the back seat for the whole trip --- which is the worst seat in the house. Kim, if you can make the trip next year, you get to pick your seat every day. Emily is handed the most polished award --- at all times you seemed to be in total control, wardrobed to the "T", and smooth as glass in every surrounding from restaurant to tossing gourds. A strong showing after your rookie year and being the first-to-the-top-of-Silver-Peak mountain last year. Alison gets the grace-under-fire award. Sick but game. Tired and droopy but willing to rest and make a go of it. Thanks for putting up with a "press on regardless" schedule. You are a real trooper, exactly what I would expect from a veteran of five years. Jessi and Emma get the comedy team award for double-handedly saving the trip on too many occasions to mention. The puppets were simply an extended venue that doubled the double team into four "characters". I'm not sure I caught all of the humor, but I know I completely missed the undercurrents. Then again, I'm a dad and was just glad that you included me in the fun. And once again, Laura gets the dad award for taking the brunt of my barks while maintaining both the laughter and trip's spark. If you'll keep cheerfully bearing up under the pressure, I'll work harder on recognizing when to pull back on the throttle. Keep reminding me that it's a vacation to Silver, where I had more fun than any one kid should have had.

Parents, I really enjoyed having your daughter along on the trip. Without each of them the trip home would have been somber indeed. With them along it was a trip to remember. And finally, thanks for letting me show the girls a little bit of what my home town was like. It always means a lot to me to share this. I hope they'll want to return next year.

Take care,

Gene

PS We came in under budget, so I've declared and enclosed a $10 dividend. I've also dropped a mesquite bean into each envelope as a little West Texas reminder. It's no competition for Jessi's cow bone, but it rattles when you shake it.

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