Time to Take-a-Break

by Alden Cole on June 11, 2014 · 0 comments

This will be the final posting until late June. I’m hitting the road Thursday, without a laptop or other device for staying in touch online. When I take a vacation, I take as total a vacation from my normal routines as possible. I’ll be driving to Chicago with a friend, spending 4 nights there before heading further west (and taking a mutual friend from Chicago along with us) to spend 5 nights at the home of a cousin on Eagle Ridge in Ferryville, Wisconsin, where I’ll be celebrating my 70th birthday…

StyleB-dayCardWPNo, this is not another image of yours truly caught in a candid moment with my hair down (or ‘up’ as the case may be), it’s the cover image on the earliest birthday greeting to arrive at my door today from a dear friend; accompanied by a miniature music box that plays those familiar Happy Birthday strains, no less. Thank you so much Barbara. Hard to believe that my 70th anniversary is next Wednesday. Whodathot? I’ll be celebrating the occasion in style with a mix of family and friends I’ve known for many a year: my older cousin Marge Cole Thompson (who has known me since I was born June 18,1944) and her husband Dewey (whom I first met around 1964), plus two old RISD pals, Charlie Zimmermann and Joyce Dunn (pictured below with yours truly at age 21), whom I’ve known since we were all together in Providence in 1965 where this picture was taken. Seems like it’s about time for a reprise photo revealing our up-to-date selves, using the same composition — Before and After — showing the changes that almost 50 years are responsible for. Tune in again around June 28 for an update.

ChasJoyceAC1965WPSo how’s this for a great tale of synchronicity? My cousin Marge has a condo in Chicago that is ONE block away from my friend Joyce Dunn’s condo? What are the odds that two people from such disparate periods and places in my life should now have homes so close together? Such a coincidence laid the foundation for the first visit to Chicago and Wisconsin with the same individuals a year ago. We all had such a good time together that Marge & Dewey invited Joyce, Charlie and myself back for an encore. After the Ferryville festivities, we three RISD pals will return to Chicago where we’ll be treated to member previews at the Art Institute of the new show opening there June 23 — Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary. After 5 nights in the Windy City, Charlie & I will return to the East Coast on June 26 with tales to tell.

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