Friday’s group was large! We even spilled over into a second room!

It’s been nearly 30 years since Nyel and I first asked a few friends to come to our place in Oysterville on Friday Nights — “Five to Seven, you bring an appetizer, we’ll supply the drinks.”  It was our answer to moving into a big house that had been my family’s gathering place since 1902 when my grandparents moved here and lived for another 66+ years, raising seven children, welcoming many grandchildren and their children and then serving as the social center of Oysterville and beyond when my folks moved here permanently in 1972.  “This house needs people,” I said to Nyel.  “The two of us aren’t enough…”

Gordon Schoewe at “Friday Night” in 2014.

As I remember, Gordon Schoewe and Roy Gustafson were among the first to come regularly, along with Charles and Kaye Mulvey, our Oysterville neighbor Carol Nordquist, and occasionally the Red House relatives when they were in town.  It was a time to talk about the status quo, the latest “news” from the community, sing an old song or two, or just reminisce. Hearkening back to our parents’ generation, politics and religion and sex were “off the table.”  Except if Gordon was having a silly streak.

Catching up with friends last Friday.

Gradually, “Friday Nights” gathered in popularily.  Friends brought friends.  Newcomers to the community joined in.  Sometimes, if we were unexpectedly called out of town — especially if Nyel was suddenly hospitalized — people would gather without us.  “Friday Nights” seemed to have taken on a life of its own and so it has continued, though I think I am the last of the “original” crowd and now folks are beginning to refer to it by other names:  “The Gathering,” “Sydney’s Soiree,” “The Oysterville Salon” are among the references I’ve heard in recent years.  I have to smile.  “Way too elegant for our Friday Nights,” I think to myself, and wonder what Nyel would say… if anything.  (He was the strong silent type, after all…_

The best part of every Friday gathering — a chance to talk with folks we don’t see all that often!

Recently, though, I heard a comparatively “newcomer” call our get-togethers “The Friday Night Conversation” — a term I thought was just about right.  I thought about that last Friday (maybe with the addition of an ‘s’ at the end of “conversation” as there were a great many people that night and more than one discussion in progress at any given time.  It was an especially joyous Friday — at least four of our number back after weeks of absence due to hospitalizations and isolations for health reasons and another who had been dealing with the death of a loved one… How glorious it was to catch up, welcome a few newcomers, and laugh a lot during ‘The Conversation.’  I loved every minute!  Long may “The Conversation” continue!