Ann and Jim

Once upon a time, OilMan was a manager at Chevron and Jim and several others worked for him. They and their wives and girlfriends welcomed us into their group where we were always accorded a certain latitude for the fact of our 15 years' seniority, but also a certain respect for the fact that we were able to hold our own when it came to backpacking, cross country skiing and partying!

We have all scattered; nobody works at Chevron anymore. There have been marriages, divorces, deaths and births within the group. We have lost track of a number, but when the ones we have kept up with manage a visit, there are many fine stories and recollections...windy ridges, mountains still (and probably forever) unclimbed, Twinkie wedding cakes (a tradition which was revived for our 25th wedding anniversary party), lightning filled nights huddled in tents, and tinned hams cooked over a wood stove in a Sierra Club Hut. 

When Jim and Anne left the Bay Area we all had an epic party which began in a park, moved to our house when the park closed and ended with the men trying to kidnapping Jim, climbing through a bathroom window and disappearing into the night, trying to postpone the inevitable just a little longer.

You would think it all ended very badly when policeman was waiting for them when they emerged from the bar at closing time, but you would be wrong.Mark who had driven them there convinced the cop that he wasn't drunk. It must have been an impressive performance...

Since those days we have met Ann and Jim in New Orleans, and Denver, in the Sierra and the Ruby mountains in Nevada, the Rockies and the San Juan mountains of Colorado and the Sawtooths in Idaho. We've been to their wedding; they've been to the weddings of our children. There have been long periods when we haven't been able to meet, but when we do, it is always treat. 

The next time we see them we will find out what it's like to live in Norman Oklahoma, where Ann is a professor of Western History at the university, and a mountain cabin in Frisco, Colorado, and they will find out more about living on a steep rocky lot in Sonoma County wine country growing a garden....