Food, Fun, Film, & Flies

On a warm Saturday afternoon in July, several TEXMOG members converged on Linda Noland's house in Whitesboro (between Gainesville & Sherman, TX).  Despite a carefully planned route by Bill Boyles, folks traversed to Linda's separately via routes of their own.  Perhaps it was because the troop leader of the Travelin' Texans was not able to make this trip, or maybe that the interested parties did not communicate with each other enough ahead of time to arrange a meeting time.  Whatever the case may be, Chuck Harris/Barbara Simmons, Jeff & Yvonne Smith, and Linda's friend Steve & his wife (Steve is the "scooter guy"- remember our scooters in the park several years back?) were the first to arrive at Linda's.  Apparently, the scooters had already been ridden, for as Roy & I arrived, a car was leaving for the hospital.  Linda's neighbor, Chuck, was the victim of a scooter accident.  (We later found out that he had a double compound fracture and would have surgery the following day to insert a pin in his ankle.)  Shortly after that, Carl Dreher & Charlotte Bristow arrived.  Lastly, Dick Hawkins arrived.   

 

Carl, Chuck, Dick, Linda, Jeff, & Steve took turns riding the three Honda scooters.  Each had their choice of requisite headgear; some choices goofier than others!  When not riding scooters, everyone enjoyed sitting around in lawn chairs, drinking cold beverages, wandering through Linda's garden, and munching on snacks.  Speaking of "munching," the mosquitoes were having a feast munching on folks.  They seemed to prefer us females, as Yvonne, Barbara, & I were "the chosen ones!"  I guess the mosquitoes didn't like the taste of the other guests!  No matter what form or forms of repellant we tried, nothing seemed to deter the hungry beasts!!  I think we tried everything.  Covering all exposed skin seemed to slow down the varmints the most, but some who wore shorts and short sleeved shirts were outta luck on that aspect.  Most scooter riders were content to ride in the conventional manner.  However, Jeff seemed to like to imitate the posture of those "crotch-rocket" riders: chest down between the handlebars, knees bent, and feet up on the seat behind his behind!  I don't know if he was showing off his flexibility or if he thought it made the scooter go faster.  Either way, it was quite a sight!

 

We finally decided that it was time to fire up the trusty TEXMOG grill.  While waiting for the fire to get hot enough, Linda brought out a mystery part for a round of "guess what part this is."  (We sure missed Bernard for this one.)  I think the consensus was that it was an air filter for an MG of some sort.  Once the fire was ready, Linda brought out food options for the carnivores and vegetarians, alike.  Somehow, I ended up as the grill master/cook again.  Oh well, it DID help to keep the mosquitoes away.  But, with the appearance of all the food, came the swarm of flies!  There was a time that I thought the flies were going to carry away one of the plates of food, as there were so many flies on it at once!  We all had plenty of hamburgers, veggie-dogs, mushroom burgers, chips, beans, cookies, etc.  After eating, we put the remaining food away, and miraculously, the flies disappeared.  Not so as for the mosquitoes.  Jeff & Yvonne decided they had fed the pests long enough so they left before the movie. 

 

Linda set up a movie screen (I remember watching home movies as a child on an identical screen).  Carl hooked up his laptop, the projector, and his "boom box."  Though we were to watch "Silent Movie," there was musical accompaniment that we had to hear.  We had planned to have an intermission to make S'Mores and pop some Jiffy Pop popcorn, but we never got to that.  We enjoyed our faux drive-in experience in Linda's "back forty."  When the movie ended, we all sat around waiting for the "house lights" to come up.  Since we were outdoors, they didn't!  Linda had to go get a spotlight so we could disassemble our "theater" and pack up our cars. 

 

All in all, except for the bugs, it was a wonderful event and Linda was a gracious hostess, as always.  Those who were unable to attend missed a great afternoon & evening event!