I should start with an apology to regular readers for being such a lazy sod this summer. Once I shut down for vacation I became like a turtle on a warm rock – not moving much, just soaking up the sun. Truth told, I don’t feel excessively guilty about it either, although I’ll try harder to return to posting more regularly.

My excuse last week was my Harding High School Class of 1967 reunion. Officially it was a three-day event but I managed to stretch it out to five days. We had a cocktail party Friday and a dinner Saturday night – both at Enzo’s — plus golf on Saturday afternoon at Old Avalon, and then we hit the Horseshoe late Saturday night. When our party of 15 or so arrived around midnight we immediately bumped the average age at the ‘shoe by 9.7 years.

Many people also met informally at the Mocha House Sunday morning for brunch followed by a gregg’s garden info session and a trip to see the first garden at Elm and Atlantic.

Probably 70% of the 200 people who attended the reunion live out of town someplace, but clearly enjoy coming back to visit the old sod, but it’s clearly more than nostalgia for days gone by that brings them home because more than 40 of them contributed over $3500 to our class gregg’s garden; another 20 from the Class of ‘68 contributed over $1000  and a similar amount came from 20+ members of the class of ’69. Most of the money came from people who grew up, but no longer live here.

The same story is true of several other gardens, and many of the donations came with a note or an email that expressed their love for the community, or shared a touching anecdote relating to the block their grandmother lived on, or remembering the milkshakes at Sanitary Dairy, or some other (mostly) long-forgotten aspect of life in our town.

If you are a Facebook user perhaps you’ve visited the “You know you’re from Warren, Ohio” page; it has 6230 members, which is a healthy audience. They have an ongoing conversations about both the past and contemporary life in Warren down to a level of detail one can only call minutia – but the love is clear.

It’s nice being from a place where people feel this way.