Paula Widstrom Hanson sees Dad in Alex often
Married to Gary more than 33 years
I am enjoying reading all the info on the website. We have the August 6, 2005 date marked on the calendar and plan to be there!
My Dad, 84, still lives in Alex (he's a greeter at WalMart) and so we are back in Alex often. I always think that I should recognize people but never do. After looking at the pictures on the web site I realize I am looking for people in their 20's and 30's and I should be looking at the 50+ people.
My husband, Gary, and I have been married for 33+ years. We have three kids - Nicole (married), Ryan (married) and Brock (single). Brock our youngest is 29 so we are empty nesters and enjoying ourselves. We have four grandchildren - Jordan, six; Jack, four; Ty, five; and Sydney, 3. Nicole lives in Michigan. Ryan and Brock live in Coon Rapids, MN.
Men can be a challenge at times
I work for a contractor as an office manager / bookkeeper / whatever needs to be done. I have been here for 14 years and work with all men, which can be a challenge at times.
My husband is a salesman and works for a specialty food broker that sells to grocery stores.
We do not have any plans for early retirement but have to admit that the idea sounds good. Since the kids are all on their own now, we have been doing a little traveling. Over the last 10 years or so we have been to Jamaica, the Bahamas, Cancun, St. Augustine, Fla., Ft. Myers, Fla., San Diego, Arizona, Georgia, and Las Vegas. We usually try and escape during the winter as I find the cold and snow harder to take as we get older. Although we have liked every place we vacationed, we have not come up with a place to retire to yet. Gary and I golf weekly in the summer, ride bikes occasionally and have recently joined a health club to try and stave off the aging process. As both Gary and I come from large families, we spend a lot of time with siblings. I have 3 sisters and a brother that live in the Minneaplis area and we get together often.
I do keep in touch with a few of the people from our class, Teresa (Wadsworth) Widstrom (she's married to my brother, Ken, class of '64), Ellen VanKempen, Claudia (Johnson) Brown, Sandi (Pennar) Bonesteel, and Lynn Nordstrom (Joni Hopfner). We have taken a couple trips to Arizona to visit Claudia and Sandi. We were there about four years ago and again in April 2004. We always have a good time when we get together and it feels like we are 16 again. Both Claudia and Sandi are going to try and come up for the reunion.I do have a picture of us from April but as I am technology challlenged (we don't have a digital camera and we don't even have a computer at home as I am able to use my computer at work) and I have no way of emailing the picture.
No girls allowed in the pool hall
I have heard from many people that have attended reunions in the last couple years that name tags (with 1965 pictures) are a must if you want to recognize anyone. It took me quite awhile to figure out who was who in the golf picture on the blog.
As far as the trivia questions, most of them I do not know. The last price I remember for a hot lunch was 25 cents. I think the pool hall was called Seeger's, or something like that - but you do remember that girls were not allowed there?. Les Loch was the chief of police. I remember the Fountain and the fried rolls (7 cents?). That's about it for me.
