The end of the first quarter of 2024 is at hand. The third meeting of “those sisters” has been completed and will be recorded in the following minutes. Forgive me, I slipped back into the past. This was not an official meeting, mainly because an official meeting is not comprised of only presidents of the company, which is what Sisters Day gathering would be. We all have equal status distinguished only by our age and who can talk the loudest.

We gathered at the home of Pam Hale. We are always greeted with such a joyful welcome by our hostess when we gather; the welcome today was no different except for one important fact that came to light shortly after we arrived.

It was “Pick on Darrell Day.” Being the kinds of Aunts we are, we joined wholeheartedly. Darrell lasted through breakfast, and he gave as good as he got except for the difference in experience. Some of we Aunts have quite a few years on Mr. Hale, but we love that guy and were glad to have him share part of our day.

We gathered around Pam’s big table but wait, it seems quite a bit smaller. Oh, she took some of the leaves out but the seven of us had plenty of room. Pam was busy serving coffee and tea then laying out the breakfast she had prepared: a smothered and covered hash brown casserole. It consisted of a layer of hashbrowns with sausage, onions, red and green peppers, hash browns and asparagus spears covered in cheese and infused with deliciousness and a large bowl of fruit salad and hot biscuits. We ate our fill while laughing and talking and teasing each other. 

We talked about learning to cook. A couple of the girls said they were cooking for the entire family when they were 6 or 7 years old. This meant 8 to 10 people who had been doing farm work all day. I fret when I have to cook for Sisters Day. One advantage of living in Jeff City is I only have to cook one meal. Usually for lunch, all I have to do is decide what restaurant to go to. However, I can cook when I have to.

When you get older, usually, falling is inevitable, at least for us. Falling means getting up or being picked up. Sometimes these falls seem more like a Three Stooges routine and laughing is required. Sometimes it’s the person who falls, and sometimes it the other person who starts the laughing, but eventually everybody laughs. Always it is after the damage has been assessed. Can you think of a time when laying there laughing is the first reflex to a trip or fall? Most of us could think of at least one example of this phenomenon. Like when Shirley dumped her sister-in-law out of her wheelchair on to the sidewalk or when Katie slipped down the road bank by her house and couldn’t get up and on and on.

Pam reminded us that this Sisters Day fell on sister Katie’s birthday. This brought memories of Katie into almost everything that was done or said. Katie had such a fun-loving personality she could bring fun to almost everything she was involved in. But boy howdy, don’t make her mad…

she would take your head off and stuff it up your...  Good thing this didn’t happen often.

The new Dollar Tree store in Vienna and 999 more are closing. Welcome to retail business in small town America. The first coat of wax isn’t even worn off the floor yet and it’s closing. We had a lively discussion about what we could/would use this abandoned space for. What would you like to see go into this space?

Have you ever heard of Quilt Bingo? Apparently, they have these games in St. Louis. You pay $15 and get a card with 24 games on it. Of these 24 games, five or six of them are played for a quilt. The rest are played for money or prizes. All for $15 not $15 each. That would almost be worth the trip to win a quilt.

Shirley got a box from Betty with two or three sets of embroidery block for her to complete. It will be a while before she can work on them because she is still working on her state bird quilt. She has completed about 15 of the 50 birds, state flowers and state shapes. I wouldn’t be able to do them that fast if I was using an embroidery machine.

We discussed the Gabriel House at Guardian Angel Parish in Brinktown. Now it is used as a retreat for priests. We discussed other ways it could be used. You probably know by now we have to get our two cents in no matter what the topic or even if it is none of our business. We were all raised to have an opinion and not be bashful about sharing them.

We talked about the little kids. How delightful they can be and how literal they take what you say. That brought up a time when brother Harold’s grandson was about 3 his mom said, “You have your shoes on the wrong feet.” He looked up at her with a puzzled look on his face and said, “But mom, these are the only feet I have”.

After the table was cleared from breakfast Pam pulled out the dice. We spent the rest of the morning playing Greed. If you haven’t caught on yet… we love that game. We played two games. Lucy won the first one and Susie the second. The games are so unpredictable one game you roll big numbers and the next game you can’t even get on the board. There are lots of opportunities to tease and fuss and laugh at each other. Pam has enough dice for all six of us to have our own set, every set is a different color so that give us something else to blame our luck on.

During the second game Pam started putting our lunch together. Cooking and running to the table to roll and back to cooking. Katie would have been so proud of Pam today. She served us two new recipes today. Katie always said if you want a new recipe to work you have to follow it exactly the way it is written, no substitutions and no dropping or including extra steps or ingredients. Lunch consisted of lettuce salad with the fixings with four kinds of dressing. A tamale pie with sour cream. OMG so good. I’m not going to mention the kitchen filling with smoke when the pie bubbled over. Good thing she has a good cross breeze in her house. Didn’t affect the taste one bit. That was the only thing Pam did that wasn’t in the recipe. Hee! Hee! For dessert we had a pock cake: yellow cake with strawberry Jello served with vanilla ice cream. Great job, Miss Pam.

Shirley had a story for us that I’d like to pass along to you. A Doberman, a German Shepherd and a cat all arrived at God’s throne. God said to the Doberman, “What will you do in heaven?” The Doberman said, “I will stay by your side and be a faithful companion to you.” “Ok, you may sit on my left.” God turned to the German Shepherd and said, “What will you do in heaven?” The German Shepherd said, “I will guard you and protect you at all times.” God said, “You may sit on my right.” The cat steps up in front of God and said, “I have a question for you.” God said, “What is it?” The cat said, “Why are you sitting in my chair?”

We had a few more discussions about diets, Easter traditions at church and twins. We have twin great nieces who are both emergency medical technicians. Pam is their proud grandma, and we of course are proud great aunts.

Well that about does it for this time. May you all have a happy and blessed Easter. Everyone get your umbrellas ready for next month. We’ll be back in April.

Thought: When on this ride called “life,” you have to take the good with the bad, smile when you’re sad, love what you’ve got and remember what you had, always forgive but never forget, learn from your mistakes but never regret. People change, things go wrong, just remember the ride goes on.

Fun Fact: Pill bugs aka roly polies or doodle bugs, aren’t bug at all. Though commonly referred to as such, pill bugs are actually land-dwelling crustaceans that are more closely related to shrimp or crayfish then any kind of insect.