who would have predicted that the Diss Group -- well, four-fifths of it, at least -- would have a reunion in the restaurant at the Baraga casino? Karla wasn't there, but Peggi was up from Texas, and Baraga is about mid-point between Houghton and Skanee, where Mary B. occasionally stays when she is in from the Sault. (And there are not exactly many places to eat in Baraga.) Peggi and Denise picked me up at school this afternoon, and we drove down and found Mary, who had gotten there a few moments before us and was wandering on the casino floor, dazed by the sounds of nickels dropping through for winners, but only the sounds of: there are no nickels anymore, but there is a recorded happy clanging to let you know you've won.
The casino is a small one, and it was surprisingly full for a mid-month Thursday night -- but we had the restaurant in the back pretty much to ourselves. If you had been wondering whether the restaurant is worth the drive, the answer is, um, well, no. The menu said that my whitefish came with a choice of potato or pasta. I asked what kind of pasta was available. The waitress said, "Um. I don't think he's made any, and you probably wouldn't want it anyway."
But we hadn't come for the food.
I wish Karla had been there. We filled each other in on stories between then and now and laughed and laughed. Denise can crack me up every time with her giggle and her stories about (for example) Yang's shoes. Mary shines as always, and since September is just at the other end of the UP, at Lake Superior State, where she is discovering what administrations try to pull off to keep unions at bay. And Peggi had a story that had us weeping, about a young woman in a class, on a cellphone, telling a girlfriend all about her disappointing sexual adventures from the night before and not realizing that everyone else could hear -- and that the class had, in fact, stopped to listen. Peggi followed up with a discussion of the sense of space developing around new communication technologies.
Why do such friends move to other towns?
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