Catching up after the holidays

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Good news update from last week’s trip to Sunriver! BJ and I went to lunch in Sisters, Oregon and I got a haircut at the “Outlaws Barber Shop.” Better news is that they give veterans a five dollar discount PLUS a free beer while your hair and head are being pampered. What’s not to like here?? I was reminded that even though I am almost bald I kept my comb. I just couldn’t part with it.

The “Booze Brothers” were back in town last weekend to help Cheryl Wheeler celebrate her birthday. For seven years Steve Gross and I dressed like the Blues Brothers from the movie of the same name and put on a “Sock Hop” raising money for the food bank. Cheryl remembered how foolish we looked so she prevailed upon us to re-enact those days when we wondered how much money we could lose with the Beach Club rental and the cost of the band. Not to worry, we ended up donating around $3,000 cumulatively over the years. Cheryl says she is turning seventy and appears to not care who knows it. In today’s vernacular, “she owns it!”

Did you see the article by Jenise Harper in this month’s “Port Ludlow Voice” entitled “Bay Club Swimming Pool”? She seems to be celebrating her self-confessed status as a wimp when considering the courage, strength and stamina of those almost twenty hardy souls, including BJ and me, who participated fully in the Beach Club’s December Polar Plunge in the outdoor pool. Jenise then extols the virtue of the indoor pool at the Bay Club, that being a temperature of 85 degrees. News flash: the Beach Club also has an indoor pool with a desired pool temperature of, guess what, 85 degrees!

North Bay Pot Luck “Chili Cook Off” is this coming Saturday evening at the Beach Club. Several locals are putting up their chili recipe for judging and Vic Draper is again running the Bingo Game. There may even be a surprise guest!

My “Pretty Woman” and I are going to see The Lonely on Feb. 1 as they deliver a sensitive and dynamic tribute to Roy Orbison. The group is another fine offering from Port Ludlow Performing Arts as it also includes the performance of hits from the Traveling Wilburys and the Everly Brothers. Enjoy it at the Bay Club at 7:30 p.m. If you do not know who any of these performers were, you need to not trouble yourselves with coming.

Once again this year my friend and neighbor Bob Sowatsky’s electrical engineer son came from North Bend to install a terrific Christmas light display. Unfortunately he returned last week to take the lights down and a significant source of good cheer has been replaced with the darkness of winter. Well, at least until I take ours down!

The weather is pretty rugged now with wind, rain, cold and even some snow. Shoot, my trash can has blown over twice in the last month as it patiently waits next to the street for the unbelievably mechanized garbage truck to come and gobble up its contents.

If you are blessed with children or grandchildren or just young people in your life, try to teach them to respect their elders. I mean, we graduated from whatever school without the internet.

Love a curmudgeon and have a great week!

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive who just passed the 10-year mark as a Leader columnist.)