Tom and I are blessed that we still have lots of good friends and people that we love in Ohio. When we are in Ohio, we are always busy with people to see and things to do with them. I am especially thankful for people who are willing to meet us halfway between Delaware and wherever they live. We are thankful for all the December visits with friends and family.
At the beginning of December we had lunch with Aunt Anne and Uncle Paul at my parents house. I’ve written about Anne and Paul previously and we are always glad to see them. Because of their interest in antiques and history, we have plenty of shared interests. After lunch we played Dominoes. Uncle Paul pretended not to know the rules, but he was ruthless in keeping other people from playing. I think we will be teasing him about that for a while.
The day after seeing Anne and Paul, we went to Mohican State Park and met friends Chris Ferlinc and Bill Cashel. We love to spend time with Chris and Bill because they are as active as we are. We went for a lovely hike while it was snowing, which didn’t slow us down one bit. Then we had a wonderful lunch at Mohican Lodge. Chris has been a friend since college. We were in a musical together in college – I could sing and she could dance so we helped each other learn our parts.
As I already mentioned, one of our December visits was up in Sandusky to see Karen Graham. Karen is an amazing lady who has served churches faithfully all over Ohio. She is an excellent pastor and one of the people I could listen to every Sunday. We ate at Berardis, as I already mentioned, and talked and talked.
The day after lunch with Karen, we met Pete and Cathy Hahn at Cap City Fine Diner in Dublin. I will be reviewing that restaurant tomorrow. Pete is the Divisional Dean of the Department of Arts and Humanities at Ohio State University. We had a really interesting and thought-provoking discussion about the response of academia to the current “fake news” phenomena.
December continued with a visit from Wendy Bower. She came all the way to Delaware from Strongsville to see us! Wendy and I like to laugh together and we can get a little raucous, so we met at Panera’s instead of someplace quieter. Tom joined us after running some errands and we had a wonderful time together.
I’ve already written about meeting Ranger Jeanette at Clifton Gorge. Next time we will choose someplace drier! The week before Christmas I met Marta Mathatas for lunch at Der Dutchman in Bellville. Marta retired from ministry last year, so we didn’t talk about churches and church stuff. Instead, we had a wonderful time talking about books we read and recommending books to each other.
Our final December visit, snuck in the day before we left Ohio, was with friend Deborah Wilcox. Deborah retired last year so we talked about making our way through retirement. Deborah lives in North Canton and met us at Perkins in Ashland for lunch. Deborah and I have been friends since our first day in college, and Tom has known her even longer.
We also spent as much time as possible with John and Jackie and my parents during December. We had visits that were way too short with my brother and sister and their families. I enjoyed seeing the Wedgewood folks at Krissa and Kyle’s wedding. Whenever I think our social schedule in Ohio is too full, I remember how blessed we are in all these long-time friends and people who love us.