The Moment of Truth

Today was the big day. I remember thinking, when I was back in Manila, "Please God, Don't let me be the worst looking. Just somewhere in the middle would be good for me." I got a taxi to the venue which was Hurley's Restaurant on West 48th St, between Broadway and 8th Avenue. Went upstairs and found about 20 ladies and 4 husbands already there. Now, some looked vaguely familiar, some I could recognize right away and others were a puzzle. Thankfully name tags were given out and I was able to recognize more people. It would have been a help to have their old photos on the ID but then again, it might have been unkind. At one point I turned to Chris Callanan who was seated next to me and referred to a lady at the next table and asked,"Are you sure she was in our class?"

There was a photo taken of the group which I shall post after I receive it. We all put our cameras on a table and the husbands volunteered to use them and take the group photo but somebody goofed and didn't use mine. We reminisced about the people who were unable to come, those that couldn't be found and those who had passed away.

We spoke of the pranks we had committed that we would have punished our own children for. We spoke of the career changes and the husband changes. We spoke of the accomplishments of our children and the numbers and activities of our grandchildren.

I won the prize for the longest trip to get there. The second furthest was Chris Callanan coming from New Mexico.

Hopefully, we will now be better able to keep in touch. With e mail and Facebook, it should be a breeze. We hope to be able to upload our fotos to a Facebook page that I will start when I get back to Manila.

When the gathering broke up, it was around 4 PM. I couldn't get a taxi so I had a good long walk to the hotel. I was not wearing walking shoes and breathed a sigh of relief when I got back to the hotel and kicked them off.

No rest for the weary as I had to go down to 42nd St. to photograph the building where my mother grew up. The building was not to be found as again, offices were on the site. Walked back to the hotel to prepare for dinner with my Aunt Jean,cousin Jeanine and cousin Gerard and his family. When I got to the hotel, I found a message from Jeanne that we would meet at St. Bartholomew's Church Park for dinner. Dinner at a church? I was able to get a taxi to the site and found Jeanne waiting there. Turns out the park has an out door restaurant. Everyone arrived eventually and I was able to meet all of Gerard's family. A lovely wife and beautiful offspring. Unfortunately I spilled champagne on his daughter. (Better than ketchup!) We had a good dinner and again, I had brought old family photos. The younger generation were most interested to see the photos of their grandfather as a young boy.

When the dinner broke up, Jean said that she was walking to Grand Central to get the train back to Conn. I offered to walk with her. Talk about the Energizer bunny!! So again, I was walking in dress shoes back to my hotel. Did my packing, set the alarm for 5AM and stayed up until 2AM watching TV.