Chairs Stacked and Ready for a House Concert

The weekend didn’t go quite as planned.  On the plus side, we had an unexpected visitor on Saturday.  On the other hand, we had to cancel Sunday’s House Concert.  It proved to be a bittersweet couple of days.

Saturday, we were just schlepping chairs from the church to the house – taking advantage of a lull in the rain – when a handsome man with a familiar face walked up to our gate.  He was beautifully dressed in slacks, shirt and tie and sported a jaunty soft cap.  Earl Taft as I live and breathe!

Earl was a friend of my folks back in the seventies and though that friendship extended on to me and I knew vaguely that Earl had moved from Surfside to Long Beach, I hadn’t seen him for years.  It seemed that he hadn’t changed a bit, though he told us he is now 92!  Time flies, as they say!  He had come calling to bring me an envelope of “stuff.”

Treasures from Earl

Two of the items were bits of correspondence from my folks – a postcard dated December 18, 1989 inviting him to a “Merry Christmas Party to be held in the Merry Month of May,” and a thank-you note dated January 3, 1990 mentioning his support for their fund-raising effort for the church which to [that] date had brought in $17,233.00.

Two other items were a bit bulkier.  There was a little booklet called “Directory of Secret and Fraternal Societies, Pacific County 1910” and an unused, leather bound pocket calendar and almanac from 1915 which had been given to my grandfather: “Compliments of Pacific Coast Department of Springfield Fire and Marine Insurance Company, 304-310 Kohl Building, San Francisco.”

Both looked familiar.  Tom Downer had shared one of the little 1910 Directories with me some years ago.  The pocket calendar is like several that we have in the house except that this one is not full of my grandfather’s cramped, but very legible, writing.  Earl said that both had been given to him by my mom years ago.

Steve Cheseborough in Oysterville 2012

I couldn’t have been more pleased – first and foremost to have the opportunity to catch up with Earl.  It was Earl’s son Larry who had transformed Noel’s drawings of my Bay House plans into the architectural drawings acceptable by the County.  And it was Earl, himself, who had made me a fabulous hat when I acted as ‘Wizard of Garlic’ at the first-ever Garlic Festival at the Ark.  In those years he, like I, had been active in the Peninsula Players, as well.  And, of course, I was mightily touched that he had hung onto these bits of memorabilia and that he was thoughtful enough to return them to the ‘seat of their origins.’

I was still aglow with all of that unexpected treasure Sunday morning when Steve Cheseborough called to say he was too sick to do that afternoon’s House Concert.  We were disappointed to the max but got busy contacting everyone who had made a reservation.  Then we began putting the house back in order, stacking the chairs in the living room to await another lull in the rain before returning them to the church.

And, wouldn’t you know… there were three couples who didn’t get our message and who showed up right at concert time.  I felt badly but some days are just like that… On balance it was a memorable weekend in all ways.