We had a very interesting discussion over Friday dinner: what "stayed with you for life" about the Coop. Two things came out: first, the group dynamics of consensus decision making of our Sunday night meetings. It's interesting that we were completely non-hierarchical -- we had a chicken each week, but no "board of directors" or "Chairperson" of the dorm. Second, the experience of cooking for 35 people. Several of us shared this; Cheryl (Clayton) Thornton said on Saturday: "We had 30 people over for a dinner event last week; my friends were saying: 'I'm sure you're stressed over that.'" and she responded: "No, it's really no big deal." After dinner RDB showed up. We talked and drank wine until midnight.

Saturday
Saturday morning we had a slow breakfast, with Tim, RDB and Darol coming back (they're local), and Hans Reinhardt and his family (Marg & Peter) showing up. Sue Ann and I walked down to Fairhaven to see the yuppification. The walk down and back was past dozens of former homes we'd visited and played in. It was a nice trip down memory lane.

We went out to Tom and Cheryl's farm. We were met there by Tip (& girlfriend Reis & their 3 daughters), Tim P, Sandy, Sue Ellen, Paul, Lorraine. We toured the farm -- amazing -- and talked in their home for a while. Visit the farm at: cloudmountainfarm.com.

We got home, and got to work on dinner. Frank Reinhardt showed up, Madeline arrived, Brandon came later (and stayed late). Susan Woodward appeared. Tony Ickes breezed through briefly. We had a total of 24 people at dinner, including Tip's sweetie, Reis, David Mason, Tim Wahl and Eden Alexander (not residents, but, both close to many of us), and one or two other guests. Ribs, chicken, corn, broccoli, blueberries, strawberries and Madeline's peach cobbler. And more wine. I'd saved (well, lost for 20 years and then saved) 3 bottles of BV 1974 Cabernet and 1 bottle of BV 1975 Cabernet that Sue Ellen and I had bought on a trip south in 1977, so we celebrated a 30-year reunion with 30-year old wine. The '75 was exquisite; the '74 was significantly past it's prime. Jim showed some slides, we played Penolope's new "best of" CD, eighteen stories down. We talked until midnight.

Sunday
Sunday was back to the hard core -- Sue Ann, Paul, Madeline, Hans, Frank, me, plus Darol and Tim T. came by for a few hours. We cleaned up, and Sue Ann and I went over to Pat Karlberg and Bob Keller's house for a bit of chat before heading south.

- Jim Lazar