Affinity

Affinity

While recently reading a magazine I ran across an article about migrating some of your banking business, or perhaps all of it, to a credit union, and how wise that movement might be. The article explained how you'd probably get a better return on your money and how the rates for loans through a credit union were lower than you might get at a bank. It went on to say how easy it was to join a credit union these days as the affinity clause that was necessary for a credit union to exist was generally stated so broadly that it could easily include a lot of people. And how each credit union had different affinity requirements. Some required you to be an employee of a certain company – or in the family of an employee of that company – or a former employee. For others you had to have been a sailor or family of a former sailor. Or an airman. Or a marine. Or... Many different requirements for membership but all fairly broad and fairly inclusive. The article went on to stress the point that there were many credit unions out there, pretty much one for anyone interested in them and that they would fit almost anyone's lifestyle.

That concept of affinity was demonstrated this weekend, at least to me, by two reunions which I attended.

On Saturday evening I attended my 45^th high school class reunion. Going to your high school class reunion is, for a lot of people, a very stressful occurrence. People worry about all kind of things prior to attending and fret over what their former classmates might think of them. They worry about their weight. They agonize over how prestigious (or not) their jobs are or had been. They fuss over how many divorces and remarriages they've been through and how many ex's are still out there. Some men are abashed by their loss of hair. It's amazing the amount of things people worry about. And, to be quite honest, I used to fret a bit about some of them in years past too. But I don't do it any more. Or at least not much. I've reached an age where those concerns just don't mean much any more. My hair isn't going to go back to it's dark brown state by itself nor is the balding spot at the top of my head going to fill in magically. I'm not going to lose a bunch of weight just in anticipation of seeing old classmates. My work history is pretty much a done deal at this time – a number of my classmates are already retired.

I'm just not worrying much about it anymore. So I decided to just go and enjoy myself. Just as I am.

And what do you know?

Almost all the rest of my class did the same! The rich classmates and the poor classmates and all of us that occupied the ground in between looked... well... we all looked pretty normal. I don't believe I saw any expensive suits that evening. And the women didn't seem, at least to my eyes, to be wearing any high-fashion ensembles. And let's face it. We're all at that “certain age” now and most of us in that bracket aren't trying to impress anyone anyhow. There's a whole lot of “been there – done that – got the tee shirt” mentality. What I did notice there were people who wore nice but comfortable clothes and were more interested in renewing old friendships and catching up on what everyone was doing.

And I realized that, no matter what road each of us had traveled, how diverse each of us were in our lives, we were all a member of the affinity group called “Class of '65”. And yes, to be honest, some of my class had taken very different paths in their lives than others. Some had become important people, politically, financially, even on the world stage, doing work that you might have possibly heard about in the news. Others heard a calling and chose the clergy and had a flock to care for. Still others did quite well in businesses large and small and had become the local aristocracy. Or at least what passes for it in these parts. Probably a larger majority had remained close to home and had manned the clerical, technical and manufacturing businesses and had made comfortable livings. Lots of us had raised kids, served on boards and committees, volunteered in a myriad ways and performed various civic tasks, large and small, acknowledged and not.

Some of us had gotten into trouble. Most not.

And an alarming number of us had passed on.

But no matter how far we had gone or how grand we had become, we were all, for all time, the “Class of '65”. We all held that link. That bond. That anchor to the past.

And most of us held that affinity in fond regard.

The theme of affinity continued that weekend as my wife and I attended her family reunion on Sunday afternoon. My wife's mother was ninth out of 14 children, so their reunions are generally very well attended. The original 14 are about half gone now and the ones remaining are getting up in their years, so it's not surprising that a lot of them don't make it to the reunion. But their children and the next generation are quite plentiful and a lot of them do show up. Along with their spouses, their boyfriends/girlfriends, and so on. There were probably 70-80 people who attended this year's edition.

I always like to attend her family's reunions. It seems that all the women who bring dishes to the gathering really know how to cook, and that know-how shows in the scrumptious offerings that end up on the serving tables.

Good eats and lots of familiar faces. I'm such a sucker for good food!

Family. Probably the seminal iteration of all affinities. Whether it's the nuclear family – mom, dad and the kids, the extended family including the uncles and aunts, nieces, nephews and cousins, or the super-extended modern family which also includes the 2^nd, 3^rd or more marriage spouses, intendeds, companions, friends and all the other variations of relationships. It's all the affinity called family.

I looked around the room at all my wife's relatives and marveled to myself on the diversity of their lives. How very different we all were from each other. Even a lot of our last names were different by reason of marriage. But through us all ran the common thread of what we all liked to refer to as “the original 14”. That nuclear family, raised on a farm and tempered through the crucible of the great depression was the cornerstone and lynchpin through which all of us in the room were connected.

Our affinity through family.

It was a weekend for reflections on connections. A weekend for laughing, for touching, for hugging and for possibly shedding a tear or two.

It was a weekend for appreciating our friends and our family, our histories, our yesterdays and our tomorrows.

For enjoying the affinities that touch our lives.

Almost Summer, 2010

Almost Summer, 2010

I like to play a little game with myself and wait until the last possible moment to install the two window air conditioners in our old house. Wait until the warm weather forces me to stick 'em in the windows. See how long I can go before I gotta do it. It's a bit of a bother to install them, too, one down in the living room and the other in our bedroom, as they're heavy and I need some help from my son with the big one downstairs. I'd have put central air in this century house, but the way it's built made that option unrealistic and way, way too expensive. So we put in window units in the summer and take 'em out in the fall.

The last possible moment arrived last weekend, my little game ended and I finally had to acquiesce and install my window air conditioners. I was feeling smug that I'd gone this far into Ohio's hot weather before I had to do it, using the window and ceiling fans to keep us cool, but it was getting to the point where some extra cooling was becoming necessary. Necessary for two reasons, actually. First, it was getting warm, even for me, and staying that way into the late evenings when we were going to bed, making sleep more difficult. Second, the wife was giving me “the eye”, telling me non-verbally to cut out the procrastination and my little game and put the doggone a/c's in the windows for goodness sakes.

So they're in now and our bedroom is much cooler. In fact, almost too cool. The wife likes it best to sleep at night when the air temperature has descended through cool and nippy and is beginning to approach frigid. At least it feels that way to this hot-blooded participant. As my partner Patrick and I say at work when the office temperature is too low: “cold enough to hang meat.” Yep, that just about describes it. So I just snuggle a little deeper under the blanket and make sure my ears and nose are covered up to prevent possible frostbite.

Well, at least it feels that way to me!

***

Got a chuckle while I was working out at the gym the other day.

My wife purchases our gym membership through payroll deductions where she works. Our membership at a gym here in our hometown was coming up for renewal and she had the choice of three gyms for the upcoming year. One was the gym we had belonged to for the past couple of years. One was a health facility attached to the local hospital and was way out of our price range. The third was a place we had belonged to before our present gym and it was a few dollars cheaper per month. For that reason and a few others we decided to switch. The “new” gym has new ownership and has done some revamping of the equipment in the gym. It looks nice and has a good assortment of machines for most exercise regimens.

So, since I work evenings, I've been going to this gym for the past couple of weeks during the day. It's quiet then as there are few members working out at that time of day. There is a television on one wall of the exercise room and it seemed to be eternally tuned to a country/western music channel. Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to be critical of a particular genre of music, but I've never really been a big fan of c/w music. Not even close. I'm fond of bluegrass – lots of banjos and guitars, but most “cowboy” music (as I call it) leaves me cold.

However...

I was pounding away on the treadmill the other day and noticed that the c/w station was again on. I wasn't paying too much attention to it. I had my mp3 player plugged into my ears and was rocking along with some classic rock and roll when I happened to glance up at the tv. Shania Twain was gyrating and dancing on the screen to one of her songs along with a half-dozen other great looking ladies. It was very pleasing to the eyes. At the same moment, Dire Straits was rocking along on the mp3 player with “Money for Nothing”.

I watched the video.

I listened to the rock.

I was at once amazed at how well the video was matching the rock in my earphones! There were those country chicks dancing away to the sounds of Dire Straits! I started grinning and the steps and minutes and miles on the treadmill just melted away while I enjoyed the rock music and eyed the videos on the TV. I'd discovered the secret to watching c/w videos. Just plug some great old rock 'n roll into your ears and groove away!

***

My wife and I are into the final countdown before our first cruising vacation. If my numbers are correct, we have 23 days before our big ship pulls away from the Tampa docks and lumbers off south toward Cozumel, Mexico. To say we can't wait would undoubtedly be an understatement. I've been talking to the few folks where I work who've “been there, done that” and have been wringing their memories for their experiences on their cruises. All things look good. I've printed out our packing list and we're finishing purchasing the final “this and that” that we may need “on the boat”. Of course we'll forget something. But that's the fun of it, isn't it?

Won't be long now and it'll be time to pull out the luggage and start filling them up.

***

Patrick, my partner at work, and I were talking a couple months ago about our favorite comedians. We found out that we were both big fans of a man named John Pinnette. We'd heard routines of his in the past and considered them very funny. We decided to check on-line to see if he might be appearing somewhere nearby and found out that he was headlining at Pickwick and Frolic in Cleveland. So we purchased tickets to go see him. After asking around, there ended up being six of us going up to see him: Patrick and his wife Rhonda, my old friend Chuck and his wife Pam and my wife Judy and I who went.

We met at Fat Fish Blue restaurant in downtown Cleveland last Friday and had dinner before going over to the comedy club. This restaurant specializes in Cajun/Creole cuisine and was a favorite of my wife and I as we'd eaten there in the past when going up to the big city and watching the Cleveland Indians play. The six of us enjoyed our dinners and drinks, then wandered over to the comedy club about two blocks away.

John Pinnette was, as we had expected, very good. We all got our share of chuckles, guffaws and belly laughs as he recounted this and that from his apparently hilarious life. He is an extremely gifted funnyman and I'd recommend him to almost anyone. I was surprised at how clean he works compared to some of his fellow stand-up comedians.

It was definitely a night to remember.

***

So, in case you hadn't noticed, summer officially begins in six days.

Let the fun begin!