More Buhl Day

Yesterday's Buhl Day was drizzly, as some others have been. My haluska was perfection. I savored peachy Paterno ice cream and shared fresh elephant ear with Katie. I love how the days are the same and different. This year I saw my high school girlfriend who lives in Kent, OH, now. I glimpsed and thought,"Now, that looks like Gloria, but it's not." Then I realized it was Gloria's sister, Judy. She comes from a family like mine, you can't mistake to whom we belong. She was one of four who also had sisters in the class of 1966. We talked so long, I missed most of the art show.
One year, I determined to be there as they honored the honorees. One of them had just died of cancer. He was on my floor as I was exiting hospital nursing for home health. I worked double those two weeks. Five hours orientation for home health and then my regular afternoon shift for the hospital. I gave two weeks, but the requirement was four weeks resignation. The secretary for the director of nursing liked me, advising me to work out my full notice. The other evening nurse and I bonded with Jim and his family. Such a kind, Christian family man, the factor in the success of the brothers business. His wife and children, who were late teens and early twenties, along with his brothers, shared stories and feelings. We cried as he sunk into unconsciousness and finally death. Yet, when a person knows the Lord, it is a homecoming. I grieve more for the widow and the children as we saw in months and years that after the anchor of their life was severed, their lives unraveled and the brothers couldn't keep the business together. But we didn't know that on Buhl Day as accolades pronounced on a sunny day lifted my spirit because I knew the man.
Ten years at least since fireworks, I bet it's been longer. Each year, we neighbors gathered our chairs in the intersection on my corner and watched the show of crackles and light. I usually had the girls bathed and in pajamas, as the next day was school. Summer was and is over. They start the school year two weeks earlier now and Buhl Day we just "run down to". Listening to the bands from home is like the radio being on in the other room, but I will miss it now that fall is here, if not officially on the calender.
Fall activities soon fill our schedule. Football games on Fri. nights. The Mercer County band show next week. Homecoming in less than a month now. We'll get our warm days, but they will be short and nights will cool off. Leaves will fall. Buhl Day is over for yet another year.