Today we spent the day in Maryland. Our first stop was a little town called Cecilton. This town is very small although we saw homes that we know weren't there the last time we were here. Oh Cecilton, please don't become another Middletown!
We came here for a memorial dedication. Friends of our lost their son in Afghanistan in 2007 and today the town unveiled a memorial for their fallen soldier, Brandon Michael Craig It was a beautiful and touching service.
Brandon's dad had the honor of raising the flag.
A large number of family and friends gathered for this long awaited ceremony.
At last, the memorial plaque for CPL BRANDON MICHAEL CRAIG was unveiled. What an honor it was to be able to attend this ceremony. Thankful we got home in time.
While we were waiting for the ceremony to begin I happened to glance over and saw this woman that I recognized instantly. This is someone who I had lost touch with many years ago and I had been looking for her on Facebook but couldn't finder her. I knew she had married and her last name was Fisher, or so I thought. Well, I walked the few steps over to her and asked her her first name. When she answered, "Sharon", I knew I had found her. I said her maiden name and she nodded, looking at me all the while. I took my sunglasses off and she slowly nodded her head no. When I told her my name she then recognized me. We sat together at the get together at the fire house after the ceremony and we caught up on the last 44 years. Oh, by the way, the last name was Farmer, not Fisher. At least I had the F right. We are now FB friends and won't lose touch again, I hope.
From there we went to Crystal Beach Manor. This is where I spent my summers as a kid and where Walt and I met back in '71. First stop was the cottage I own with my brother. He and my sister in law were there for the weekend so we stopped to see them.
From there we went to see some other friends that we knew were at their cottages for the weekend.
At two we went to the pavilion on the beach grounds and met up with about 30 of our many, many friends from back in the day. We hadn't seen some of these people in 45 - 50 years!
Some we just looked at them and new immediately who they were, others we had to ask. Of course once they told us their names then we could "see" that 16 year old again!
What a great afternoon that was!. We played "remember when" with so many and we laughed so much! Several had brought pictures from when we used to hang around together. They were lots of fun to see.
The sad part was that we've lost so many of that old crowd. On the table with pictures was a list of those who passed and the list seemed to grow and grow as people arrived and names were added with the ones they knew of. Several we knew about and others we were shocked. It seem the "Big C" has hit our crowd hard!
Walt with our friend Doug.
Here's Walt with Susan. She and I met when we were 5 and 6 years old and we've been the best of friends ever since.
Just a small portion of the friends we have in Crystal Beach.
What a great day this was!
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