Meeting friends at our age

I don’t know about you, but finding new friendships at our age is difficult. Everyone is set in their social groups or busy with grandchildren.   Except at Lakeside.  Tonight we enjoyed for dinner the peach cobbler Arlene sent back with Bob when he went over to chat with Roger, who’s been on the mend from various ailments.  We met them about 3 years ago when they bought their cottage after being long time Lakeside renters.  Ironically, we discovered that in the summer of 1967 we lived on the same block in Upper Arlington. 

Also today, Bob decided he’d just grab a few leaves out of the gutters (while I was napping and couldn’t stop him) so he asked Tom to help him drag the ladder out from under the house, so Tom did, and just ran up the ladder and cleaned the leaves out himself!  Last Sunday our neighbors John and Katy Martin invited us for brunch at the CIC club with other neighbors Richard and Rosemary who are here for 6 weeks as renters across the street. 

Then this morning as we sat down at a table for 4 at the Patio restaurant we invited Jim and Margie Norris of Olmsted Falls (or New Olmstead) who were waiting in line to share out table.  Normally, we would have never met them because they have 6 children and 12 grandchildren, but had come for the week-end to see Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits.  We had the best time, then ran into them again in the afternoon outside the coffee shop and down on the lakefront where they went to watch Bob helping with Kids’ Sail, a free program to help young children learn about sailing. It turned out they’d also stayed in the past at the Idlewyld B & B with our friends Dan and Joan Barris whom we’d met about 8 years ago.

Friday night we invited neighbors Ron and Mary Ann Janke over for ice cream and then went to the evening program, Mike Albert and the big E Band, an Elvis tribute program that’s been to Lakeside to perform over 12 times.  We’d met them about 3 years ago, and the guys are in the Guys’ Club, but Mary Ann and I sat together at a volunteer luncheon recently and got acquainted. Friday there was an open house for the cottage across the street which is for sale.  We ran into more neighbors and chatted for awhile (from NC).  Our neighbor Dorothy Crutchfield was widowed last year, so we had her over for dinner last night.  Although she and Cleo had purchased their cottage in 1974, she’d never been inside ours, although we’d often been at neighborhood events together and they were at out 50th 8 years ago.

Yes, it only lasts 10-11 weeks, but it’s casual and easy to sit on a porch or fall in step on the way to a program. In 2 weeks we’ll all say good-bye until the next summer.