BY BOB SPIWAK
Last Saturday produced the annual clean-up convocation at the Mazama Community Building, in and out. Gale Bair, a regular cleaner-upper, was impressed with the number of volunteers who showed up for the task, estimating the group at two to three times more than those that usually partake.
Midge Cross offered the following in an email later that day:
“Please thank the wonderful folks who came to clean up the Mazama Community Club building and grounds May 4. The place has never looked so good and is now spiffed up for the pancake breakfast on May 25. Along with the breakfast there will be ‘Mazama Days,’ to celebrate our community and all the folks who live here and love it.”
No question Memorial Day is coming right up. The car park/campsite at Edelweiss has been accumulating more recreational vehicles weekly since the highway opened. I did not count the rigs this morning but a fair guess would be seven or eight now in residence and the number will probably double before the month is out. Were they not so upscale it could put a body in mind of a backwoods Arkansas settlement. (No offense, Razorbacks.) Still, let’s hope they don’t draw any tornadoes.
In the mail from Seattle came a new book inscribed by the author, our expatriate Bob Cram. Along with being a former TV weatherperson, he is a non-stop cartoonist and this latest bound collection is a compendium of ski cartoons. He has been published in virtually every magazine devoted to the sport over many years. He took a break from the boards a few years ago to put out a really funny poke at golf, his current obsession. Both books should soon be on the shelves at the Mazama Store and Trail’s End Bookstore.
A reminder that Red McComb’s memorial get-together will be at 1 p.m. on May 18, in the spruced-up community hall, and likely outdoors if the weather holds. It is not a potluck. Just a gathering of friends and acquaintances, all of whom are welcome to say a few words about the man, the myth, the legendary “bug man.” I’ve heard that the insect population will likely buzz in for the occasion to hum a tribute to a great guy.
From far off Boston came word from Mary Rea that first son Ian and his wife, Corrina, had a baby boy in late February. The current news is that Ian ran the Boston Marathon. He finished in the first wave several hours before the bombs went off and was already back in Cambridge, hoisting suds with his buddies.
Marc and Mary were planning to meet him but for an accident Marc had that resulted in a broken rib. Says Mary, “We had to cancel our reservations at the last minute … otherwise we would have been staying in an apartment a block away from where the bomber lived which would have put a real kink in our plans for sightseeing … We were to arrive two days later, when the whole area was shut down and nobody was going anywhere.”
She concludes with, “Marc says I should be thanking him for breaking a rib.”
Serendipity amid chaos. We’re happy for them, and sad for the victims.
