Travels With Charley (with apologies to John Steinbeck)

While John Steinbeck catalogued his travels with his dog Charley in the early 1960's, I have decided to do the same thing with our travels with Granddaddy (Charles Meeks aka Charlie or Chuck). Although Granddaddy is 85 years old, he still enjoys traveling which is a good thing since his grandchildren and great-grandson all live two to three hours’ drive away from Ridgetown.

On Saturday (July 21) Arend, Granddaddy and I started our day with breakfast at Lynn’s Place, the restaurant at the Econo-Lodge situated just off of Highway 401 about five miles from our home. Sated by a complete breakfast, we proceeded to travel east on "the 401" to the Hamilton area for a surprise retirement party for Grace Smid held at Gary and Jackie Smid’s farm.

Grace has retired from teaching Learning Assistance at Timothy Christian School in Hamilton. She and her husband Peter (Arend’s younger brother) live on a chicken farm near Hamilton now where Peter works for Grace’s brother Tim. After many years of teaching high school students, it was a welcome change for Peter to work with chickens!

Never having been to said farm, we "Googled" its location, but also got directions from Gary. We arrived safely, just slightly before the guest of honour arrived. Also in attendance were Maynard and Susan Smid, John Dykstra, Tim and Elly Hutten and family, Grace’s mother (Mrs. Hutten), Teresa (nee Hutten) and Claude Boisvert and family and Linda (nee Hutten) and Bill Dokter and Alisha. Oh, and of course, John and Laura Smid with Bethany and "Gracie" who traveled from Erie, PA for the day, Gary and Jackie with James, Leah and Maria, Deanna, and Caleb and his girlfriend (whose name escapes me at the moment). Unfortunate, because of distance, Janet (nee Smid) and Jason Van Vliet and family weren’t able to attend.

What fun it was to see Grace’s face when she stepped out of the truck and saw all of us there! Of course, she knew something was up when they pulled into Gary and Jackie’s laneway and saw so many vehicles.

Jackie and Deanna did most of the work and the lunch was a delightful offering of sandwiches, veggies and dip, and other munchies plus punch. Later on we had cream puffs and cake with coffee.

Because a number of us had a second party to go to in various other places, the party started to break up around two o’clock. From there Arend, Granddaddy and I traveled the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), and Highways 403, 427, and 401 to Pickering, an eastern suburb of Toronto for another celebration.

This party was in honour of Grace Husband’s 65th birthday and was not a surprise. Grace is our daughter-in-law Nadia’s mother. There were so many people there that I couldn’t begin to name them all, so suffice it to say there was a BIG crowd! The weather was very cooperative so we could be outside on Louise and Andre’s deck and in their backyard all afternoon and evening. (Louise is also Grace’s daughter).

There were also lots of young children there, including our grandson Noah who is 17 months old now. Arend was in his element. He loves little children, so he spent a good chunk of time in the backyard playing with them. Of course, the children thought it was great, too.

Because Nadia’s family is a mix of Caribbean and Indian cultures, the foods were quite ethnic. Fortunately, Nadia warned me which ones were very spicy so Granddaddy and I could avoid them. We like spicy foods, but they don’t like us!

These two parties gave Granddaddy an opportunity to mingle with people that he didn’t really know all that well, but he seemed to enjoy it. Towards the end of the second party, though, we could tell he was ready to go home. He was concerned that we would be getting home around midnight which indeed was the case. I am happy to report that he suffered no problems from getting home so late, though.

And there you have the first installment of the 2007 version of "Travels With Charley"!