Monthly Archives: August 2009
High School Friends and Memories…
Today we spent the day with Jan’s high school friend, Joan, checking out old memories.
We started off with breakfast at the Blue Sky Diner, not an old memory, but still good.
After breakfast we headed over to what used to be base housing at Westover AFB when Jan lived here, which was 1962-66.
When Westover downsized a while back, the old base housing was sold off to a private investor and turned into condo’s. And they looked good.
Here is the front of the unit that Jan and her family lived in.
Jan's Base Housing
The front door is to the left inside the alcove to the left of the garage.
Here’s the back side.
Base Housing 2
After driving past where Joan’s parents used to live, we headed over to Chicopee Comprehensive High School, where Jan and Joan went to high school.
Chicopee Comp 1
But this is not the school building that Jan and Joan went to. That one was torn down in 2007 and replaced with this one.
Chicopee Comp 2
The old building was located where the new football field is located.
Chicopee Comp 3
I think Jan was kind of shocked to find her old school replaced, since it was brand new when she went there. In fact, her class was the first one to attend all four years there.
Next we drove over to nearby Springfield where Jan attended church.
Church
Then, after dropping off a prescription at Walmart, we drove over to the Yankee Candle Storein Deerfield.
This store is really something, and they sell a lot more than just candles. And it’s the size of a small shopping mall all by itself. Jan had a field day stocking up on decorations and knick-knacks for Halloween. And she bought a couple of candles too.
By this time we were getting hungry, so Joan suggested Spaghetti Freddy’s, a restaurant that’s part of the Union Station complex in Northampton, MA.
And a great suggestion it was. We had a wonderful Italian meal and dessert.
After dropping Joan off at her house,
Joan's House
we headed back to the coach where we’re parked at Windy Acres KOA park.
Windy Acres RV Park
More reminiscing tomorrow…
Good friends and old times…
We got up early after a night of Wally-docking (That’s staying in a Walmart parking lot).
We decided to have breakfast before we left so we drove over to a place called Yolks, that just serves breakfast and lunch. Very good.
After coming back from breakfast we walked over to Walmart (a short trip across the parking lot) to do some shopping and pick up our prescriptions. Having them at Walmart really makes things easy as we move about the country.
After puttering around the coach, we headed out around noon for Northhampton, MA to visit a high school friend of Jan’s.
We expected the 100 mile trip to take us about 2 and 1/2 hours. Instead, due to heavy traffic and congestion, it took almost 4 hours. It took us a hour and 10 minutes to got 13 miles at one point.
After getting setting up here at Windy Acres RV park, we headed over to Joan’s house in South Hadley, about 13 miles away, to have pizza.
And both the pizza and the company were great.
I hadn’t seen Joan since 1972 and Jan hadn’t seen her since 1976, when she came up for her 10th reunion. But it was good to talk over old times.
Tomorrow we are getting together to drive around the area.
