“Original Picnickers” Patty and Noel

It was a small gathering.  Truth to tell, it gets smaller every year.  Not like the picnics of the old days when there might be as many as twenty or even thirty of us.  We’d meet with scarcely any notice at all — throw together a salad or grab the rest of the pie out of the fridge — and meet wherever Gordon suggested.  He was the instigator.  But not any more.

Since Gordon died five years ago, the remaining members of the old “picnic group” gather on his birthday which is today – July 23rd.  Each year there are fewer of us and we have begun asking folks who knew Gordon, but later on — not as picnickers.  Some were Book Club members.  Some were regular Friday Nighters at our house, as was Gordon.  But even they are disappearing from our ranks.

Gordon’s Picnic

Gordon would have been 93 today.  I wouldn’t have any memory of that except that he was ten years older than I.   He always made a big deal about that.  “Honey,” he’d say to me, “You are younger than springtime!”

In my heart and memory, so are you, Gordon!