Finally, gratitude

Socrates, Ace, and The Mouth came over for dinner today. Having them over was our way of saying "thank you" for helping us move. HD grilled two of Ali's farm-raised chickens, I made a potato salad and a pasta salad as well as as lemon cake for dessert. Thank you, gents!!! You have no idea what your help meant to us.

Since moving here 3.5 years ago, we made good friends with one of the senior faculty members, Wayne, and his wife Sandra, and with Brian who works for extension, but has an office in our building. Besides these two, we also befriended a small group of students. Most of them graduated and left town, but we are in touch with them regularly. A few are still here. It is a peculiar kind of friendship. They are on average 16 years younger than me, so the gap in life experiences is significant. Yet some common traits of character and values make it possible for us to talk at the dinner table for four hours without any difficulty. I am grateful for these conversations, because these young people for the most part seem to say what's on their mind much more freely than many of my contemporaries. And I miss the fearless hard-core discussions about all the difficult subjects: faith vs. religion, church vs. state, and of course potato salad vs. pasta salad. We have a saying in Poland which loosely translates into: "you shall find three opinions when two Poles converse". We are masters of splitting hairs. I miss that.

Macaroni and cheese party is next. :-)