My wife, Jennie, and I belong to a supper club at St. Francis of Assisi parish, in Fulton. It's a great way to meet other couples in the church family. The last dinner party for us took place May 31. A lot of work went into the preparations for the evening -- cleaning the house, getting all the yard work done, planning the meal, shopping, cooking and then, of course, the evening itself.

Usually only four couples participate in the dinners. We had five couples, plus my mother-in-law, Jennie Thompson. Besides us, there were Pat and Buddie Bruce, Tracey and Dave Eberhardt, Deb Crabtree and Bob Burnett and Margaret and Bill Leishear. It's amazing how fast the evening went. I think we all had a wonderful time. I'm looking forward to next year.

Mike Beltz and I participated in Rolling Thunder XXI over the Memorial Day weekend. The primary mission of the Rolling Thunder organization (www.rollingthunder1.com) is to "publicize the POW-MIA issue."

And this year's gathering was larger than those in the past. We met up with one of my co-workers, Henry Reynolds, and a group of his friends at Timbuktu in Dorsey May 25. Once the rest of Reynolds' friends showed up, we headed down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to the Greenbelt American Legion where we joined up with about 400 other bikers. The Legion put on a big feed for us all. We grabbed a cup of coffee and waited for the escorted ride to start. There were about a dozen police officers, most of them motor cops (i.e., biker cops) and their job was to get us all down to Washington, D.C. safely. Before the ride, we were told to break up into two groups. The lead group would be heading to a parking lot near the Jefferson Memorial while the back group would continue on to the Pentagon parking lot. Beltz and I chose to be in the first group.

The police did a fabulous job escorting us down to Washington. Once we parked, we walked over towards where the Vietnam Memorial stands. We stopped at the Rolling Thunder tent, checked in with the vets there, purchased the official patch and pin then headed over to The Wall.

Beltz knew several guys whose names are on The Wall. It was a very moving experience, shuffling along the walkway, looking at the black granite and all those names. As always, there were hundreds of personal memorials laid at the base of each panel. I've been told that each night, the park rangers gather up the stuff and send it to a warehouse where it is cataloged and stored away.

In front of me, walking along was a young man from Tennessee. He was wearing a Harley Davidson T-shirt that had a familiar name on it. When I asked him about it, he said that his friend, who was killed in the war on terrorism was from Cookville, Tenn., and, when they went down there for his funeral, they were given the T-shirts.

The back of the shirt said, "Boswell's Harley-Davidson, Cookville TN." It made me think of our Sam Boswell and his family.

From The Wall, we continued around towards Independence Avenue and visited the other booths. We eventually wound up next to "Thunder Alley" (AKA, Independence Avenue) around 11:45 a.m. The parade of bikes started promptly at noon, but didn't make it to where we were standing until about 12:20 p.m.

We watched the bikes for about an hour and then decided to walk back to our bikes and see if we could join the parade. After riding around for about 20 minutes, we were able to join up with the ride near the Forestal building. If you've never experienced Rolling Thunder, I would heartily encourage you to try to make next year's rally. It was awesome. We left the area around 3 p.m. and arrived back home close to 4 p.m.

Congratulations to Greg Blaney and Eris Geoghan who made were confirmed in the Catholic Church recently.

Flag Day, June 14, is a special day in the Gait household. On that day, 19 years ago, Charlie, our youngest, was born. Happy birthday, son. Your mom and I are very proud of you.

One more day of school! Woo hoo! Oh, uh, sorry. Got a little excited for the kids.

I know school's not even out yet and here I go, talking about next fall already, sheeesh! However, there is a summer reading program for Reservoir High School and the book is "Choosing Civility." If you didn't place an order, there are some extra copies available for a discounted price of $6.50. Call the school office at 410-888-8850 if you're interested in buying a copy.

Also, if your child will be eligible to drive to school during the next school year, then you and your child must attend one of the mandatory parking meetings. The first will be held Aug. 19 at 7 p.m.; the second is Aug. 27, also at 7 p.m. Call the school office at 410-888-8850 if you have any questions.

You've got to check out the new neighborhood blogs that the Howard County Times has put up. They can be found at www.explorehoward.com under the Neighborhood menu. Now you won't be tied down to the print newspaper's deadlines to read about events and people in the Highand/Fulton area. Let me know what you think.

Well, that's all for this week. Look after your neighbors. Remember our troops who are serving in harm's way. And their families. Commit a random act of kindness.

user comments (0)