MFR - CHS88 Day 3
There are some activities today for folks at the reunion - I'm not attending, however. I have a 13:30 flight home. I knew I needed to sleep in.
The facilities guy at the hotel last night told me that all this haze & junk in the air was due to fires - he said there was a big one down by Happy Camp that had been going for 3 months. The air got worse yesterday as the day went on.
The banquet was great. It went off better than expected. We had 10 people show up to pay at the door--great! I don't know if we really needed to up the catering headcount, but we did. People started showing up a few mins before 6p. Most everyone was there within 30 mins. Got dinner served. I thought things were going to putter-out and people would start heading off for the after-party at LandMine about 8:30, but that's about when they got *started* -- girls started pullin' their guys out to dance -- or the DJ played "Macarena" and that got about 10 of the girls (same ones from high school haha) out on the floor havin' a good time. We ended up going til about 10p -- everyone was having a good time, I really felt proud having been able to help pull this together and that everyone was really enjoying themselves.
I stuck around after to help clean up, take away the party things. Got to final bill from the caterer. Cleaned up, changed clothes, got over to LandMine Productions about 11p. FYI, that's a production company/warehouse that one of our alumni, John Foote, started & is doing quite well at. He offered to use the stage/warehouse as an after-party location. I rather expected more people there, honestly--but maybe only half those from the banquet showed up. A handful of folks went to the after-party but not the banquet. I heard one of them make some comment about the "$100 dinner." He missed the point, apparently. That's fine, his loss.
I think I took off about 12:30a. Had said goodbye to everyone I could think of. I think I missed Bill (sorry Bill!).
Overall, it wasn't as bad as I had in my mind it could be. I was in "host-mode" during the whole banquet. Walking around, making sure people were doing ok, that everything was to everyone's liking. Tracey Worley pulled me out to dance at one point haha. During the last song, actually--I had the DJ play "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks (good DJ, btw, I need to write in & mention that).
I wasn't sure how this crowd would react to me being gay. Only a handful of people knew (Rob, Adam...maybe that's it? or all I know that know). Darren Davidson knew, however, and asked if I had any S.O. at the time. Very nice of him. Shelley Lockwood (now Rose) maaaaaaybe caught on? Not sure. She made some comment about "someone with so much art to his photos..." LOL. But she did press me about, "now you never answered my question [from email a couple months back]--did you ever get married?" I think perhaps that "settled it" for her. She hasn't hardly changed--she's a riot, I loved spending time with her. She seems very happy with everything in her life and I'm very happy for her! It was good to reconnect with her, and others.
I'm going to finish packing--drive around a bit more, take some imagery in, find some old haunts, and then get to the airport. I'm eager to be home, to not have to travel for a while. I'm exhausted (mentally mostly!), and dehydrated (the fire-air here is driving my sinuses nuts!) and will be happy to find my routine again.
The facilities guy at the hotel last night told me that all this haze & junk in the air was due to fires - he said there was a big one down by Happy Camp that had been going for 3 months. The air got worse yesterday as the day went on.
The banquet was great. It went off better than expected. We had 10 people show up to pay at the door--great! I don't know if we really needed to up the catering headcount, but we did. People started showing up a few mins before 6p. Most everyone was there within 30 mins. Got dinner served. I thought things were going to putter-out and people would start heading off for the after-party at LandMine about 8:30, but that's about when they got *started* -- girls started pullin' their guys out to dance -- or the DJ played "Macarena" and that got about 10 of the girls (same ones from high school haha) out on the floor havin' a good time. We ended up going til about 10p -- everyone was having a good time, I really felt proud having been able to help pull this together and that everyone was really enjoying themselves.
I stuck around after to help clean up, take away the party things. Got to final bill from the caterer. Cleaned up, changed clothes, got over to LandMine Productions about 11p. FYI, that's a production company/warehouse that one of our alumni, John Foote, started & is doing quite well at. He offered to use the stage/warehouse as an after-party location. I rather expected more people there, honestly--but maybe only half those from the banquet showed up. A handful of folks went to the after-party but not the banquet. I heard one of them make some comment about the "$100 dinner." He missed the point, apparently. That's fine, his loss.
I think I took off about 12:30a. Had said goodbye to everyone I could think of. I think I missed Bill (sorry Bill!).
Overall, it wasn't as bad as I had in my mind it could be. I was in "host-mode" during the whole banquet. Walking around, making sure people were doing ok, that everything was to everyone's liking. Tracey Worley pulled me out to dance at one point haha. During the last song, actually--I had the DJ play "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks (good DJ, btw, I need to write in & mention that).
I wasn't sure how this crowd would react to me being gay. Only a handful of people knew (Rob, Adam...maybe that's it? or all I know that know). Darren Davidson knew, however, and asked if I had any S.O. at the time. Very nice of him. Shelley Lockwood (now Rose) maaaaaaybe caught on? Not sure. She made some comment about "someone with so much art to his photos..." LOL. But she did press me about, "now you never answered my question [from email a couple months back]--did you ever get married?" I think perhaps that "settled it" for her. She hasn't hardly changed--she's a riot, I loved spending time with her. She seems very happy with everything in her life and I'm very happy for her! It was good to reconnect with her, and others.
I'm going to finish packing--drive around a bit more, take some imagery in, find some old haunts, and then get to the airport. I'm eager to be home, to not have to travel for a while. I'm exhausted (mentally mostly!), and dehydrated (the fire-air here is driving my sinuses nuts!) and will be happy to find my routine again.
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