Wofford Travels – 2019-10-26– Lafayette-2
Greetings,
Ah-h-h-h, a day we’ve been anticipating…visiting with the first of three sets of friends. The third one will be someone who I actually do not know, but was Tom’s next-door neighbor in Miami (Tom was 8 and he was 6.) Now, that’s going back a ways!
We left our hotel around 11:00 and headed over to our friends’ house. (NOTE: I will only use the first letter of each one’s name, just to respect their privacy. Don’t remember if I did this in previous blogs. If I didn’t, I will do so henceforth.) So, the gentleman will be “C” and the lady (his wife) will be “L.”
As we pulled up, there was L with camera in hand, looking to get a shot before we got into the house. (As one who takes a lot of photos, I could certainly appreciate this move, because once you get into the thick of the visit, the ideal photo never occurs or the interest wanes…the smiles [grins] become affected, and it’s more like, “OK, lets do this and get it done.” So, thank you L for being on top of it.)
Our last visit here was October 2011. How do I know that? Tom had a printout of the map we used to find the house.
Some background: C and Tom were college buddies at Florida State. Tom was a History major while C majored in English. They both have an interest in music and played in a band while at FSU. They also traveled to Europe after college and have a lot of interesting tales to tell, as you could well imagine.
I first met L during that previous visit. L was a school teacher (taught 5th grade) before she retired…and you could tell, because the first thing she did…after the “photo shoot…” was give us a test as to the theme of her dinner table. There were some clear plastic Halloween bags (with candy, of course) at each setting… ”Halloween? That was close, but not exactly. She pointed to the large white plate in the center…with a relief of turkey and foliage… ”Thanksgiving? Getting closer. We struggled a little longer and finally, she answered, “Holidays!” You see, she was covering Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all in one fell swoop! How thoughtful. We would be having dinner, after some appetizers, and there was a theme as well. OK, we failed the test, but who’s grading?
There was a lot of reminiscing with Tom and C. We got into a discussion of genealogy, as Tom and I had taken the Ancestry.com genealogy test several years ago. C, who had taken the 23 and Me genealogy test, brought Tom over to the computer and explained how that system works. We have been interested in these different genealogy tests. One of our friends took the National Geographic test and explained that one to us.
There was lots of great conversation before we sat down for a dinner of “premium” pork loin, jasmine rice, and shrimp crab cakes. It was excellent. The pork was particularly tender, and L prepared it to set off its flavor and emphasize the quality of the meat.
Dessert was a large tort, the size of a pie. I was given the “honor” of cutting it…or was it the “assignment,” as it was a little tricky? L is no dummy. You learn these things in the classroom, don’t you, L? Anyway, the tort was as tasty as it was beautiful. That’s a nice change of pace from the usual holiday pies.
More conversation and then towards the end of our visit, Tom asked if we could see the other house. So, conveniently, C has a house and L has one. There were a number of reasons for this arrangement, but at a minimum, C’s youngest son lives there. It also houses about 30 guitars. Anyway, we jumped in the car and went over…just 6 miles away. C pulled out about 10 of his collection for Tom to test out (without amplification, more to see them and get the feel of playing them). We were there maybe an hour or so. Then back to L’s house, picked up our paraphernalia, said our sweet goodbyes, and left for the hotel.
The commitment was to not let so much time go by before visiting again. Maybe, after making some progress on our house projects, they could come and visit us in North Carolina… a change of pace. Maybe…we’ll see.
Tita