Reconnecting…A Blast from the Past

Recently, Laurie and I headed down to north Georgia for a chance to reconnect with one of my family friends from many, many years ago.  We’d gone back and forth via the Internet and Facebook over these past several years…but the time had come to get together in person!

This photo is of my mom, Elizabeth (Beth) with her very best friend Dorthea (in the middle) and my grandmother Estelle at the right.  I believe that it was taken in the backyard of our home on Roosevelt Road in Jackson Michigan.  The photo isn’t dated but it has to be about 50 years old.

Dorthea and her husband Al and their 3 kids, were neighbors who lived just up the street from our family in Jackson.  My family, my mother, her husband Hugh and my brother Bobby, spent a lot of time with Dorthea and Al’s family.  They had 2 boys, Tim and Bill and their younger sister, Bonnie. 

Tim actually attended DeVeaux School in Niagara Falls New York with me…but both Tim and his brother Bill have since passed on.  However Bonnie and I share fond memories of those days in Jackson and also when the families vacationed together…and it was time to get together and catch up on our lives.  After all, more than 50 years had passed since we last saw each other!

Bonnie and her husband Russ have been married for over 50 years and it turns out that they only live a little more than two and a half hours south of us in a community named “Big Canoe” near Jasper Georgia.  Laurie and I first stopped at Bonnie's home, but after a nice bit of reminiscing, we headed for the clubhouse to meet Russ and have a bit of lunch.

The first photo above is a view of one of Big Canoe’s 3 lakes, showing parts of the development’s three 9-hole golf courses.  The second picture is of Big Canoe’s clubhouse with its bar and restaurant...with a distant Laurie and Bonnie posing out front.  

FYI, Big Canoe is located just an hour north of Atlanta.  This gated residential community in the mountains of north Georgia covers over 7,000 acres and offers resort-like amenities.  It has been built in the midst of 7 pristine mountains.  Roughly 3,000 people live in Big Canoe, either full (60%) or part-time (40%).  To learn more, you can just go Home - Big Canoe (bigcanoepoa.org).

It is quite a contrast when I compare Bonnie and Russ’s home and the Clubhouse at Big Canoe with her family’s old cottage on the Croton reservoir along the Muskegon River near Croton Michigan.  The photo above shows my mom and Bonnie’s mom in the cozy cottage where both families spent many happy days.  (The picture was taken in 1954) The fishing was really good too!  The good news is that after all of the years that have passed, the cottage still remains in Bonnie’s family.

As I mentioned before, it had been 50 years since I last saw Bonnie and Russ…and I had to admit that I didn’t remember that event.  Old age or perhaps I’ve just never had a great memory?  In any case, they both look great!  Despite the trials and tribulations that we all face as we move through life, some folks just age better than others…and I’m one of the ‘others’.  This photo of  Russ and Bonnie was taken at Big Canoe’s clubhouse in the Black Bear Pub… 

If you follow my blog, you know that food photos are part of my standard operating procedure.  In this case, the food wasn’t the ‘featured event’ of our visit…because just reconnecting with friends was the key.

Nevertheless, as we continued to trade family stories we did enjoy the luncheon offerings as shown above: Caesar Salad; Potato Soup; Black Bear Pub Burger with bacon, and; the Caribbean Bowl with salmon.  To check out the lunch menu, just go to 2022 Clubhouse Lunch Limited.pdf - Google Drive.

After lunch we returned to Russ and Bonnie’s home to continue exchanging stories about family and to look at some photos from the past that I’d found among my mother’s vast accumulation of memorabilia.  While not all the stories were upbeat, both Bonnie and Russ as well as Laurie and myself have come through life with plenty of positive memories.

Just before Laurie and I left Big Canoe for our drive back to East Tennessee, Laurie took this photo of Bonnie and yours truly… Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any photos of Bonnie as a child or teenager, but it would be a hoot to be able to put my photo as a teen or in my early 20s opposite a photo of Bonnie from the same era.  Maybe as we dig through our family memorabilia, we’ll get lucky and score a great photo from the old days!  Laurie and I have invited Bonnie and Russ to come up and visit with us…and we’ll get together again in the not too distant future.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave