80th Birthday Party (memory form 2014 !!)

From March-2014:

Well folks, we had a great time last night ! 

 

My sister Lori and I threw a Surprise 80th Birthday Party for dad.  The low lighting made photos a bit of a challenge, but thanks to my photographers, Charles, Jordan and Angelina, we still managed to get some nice ones.  This restaurant is dedicated to Texas History, we were in a back room which looks like the inside of a log cabin.

 

 

Lori brought some old photos...

 

 

 Prep'ing and arranging...

 

 

 Guests beginning to arrive...

 

 

 

Instead of a guest book, we had folks sign a University of Texas banner.

 

 

 ...more trickling in...

 

Gathering and mingling.

 

 

We moved to "hide" down at one end of the room when Rafael (Lori's husband, who was driving Dad and Charlotte to the event) signaled us that he was a few minutes away.

 

 

Surprise was complete.  Lori lured dad to the restaurant based on a fake invitation to an FFA Banquet, supplied by Jordan's Ag teacher, on letterhead, all official looking...

 

 

 We had a mix of current folks from the office, some recent retirees, and some folks who had worked with us years ago, plus local immediate family, dad's cousins from Baytown and Charlotte's family.

 

 

 Dad and two of his cousins...

 

 Various tables of folks...

 

 ...four such tables...

 

 ...plus a longer one down the side of the room.

 

 Very nice setup, the room looks like it could squeeze in 50 or so...

 

 ...we had 41 in all I think.

 We asked Rafael (Captain, Houston Fire Dept.) if we could put 80 candles on the cake...

...he said "NO!"

 

 Several of the guests gave greetings and told brief stories for the crowd.  I read a few greetings for guests that were unable to attend.  Then dad addressed and thanked the crowd.

 

 Visiting and chatting...

 

 

 Can't see too much resemblance...

 

 

 Princesses on parade...

 

 

 Looked like everyone had a good time.

 

 

As I told the group, keep March 2024 open.  If you see the way dad get's around at 80, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if we did this again at 90.  (I didn't pick a date yet...also wouldn't surprise me if we again had to plan around his work schedule !)

 

I really want to thank all of those who attended.  Lori did the organizing, worked with the restaurant, etc., and my job was to get the people.  I had a lot of fun reaching out to folks we hadn't seen in a long time.  Only a few folks couldn't come, and most of those lived as far off as Canada, the East Coast or California.  All the rest just said "I'll be there !"

Y'all take care.

 

- Mark W. Laughlin

 

The Great Wall (...a memory from 2012)

I had an opportunity to visit China recently.  My business would be mid-week, so I arranged to return on a Sunday, so I could take Friday and Saturday off to do some sightseeing.  It would be a shame to travel so far without taking at least a day to look around.  Since I would be in the Beijing area, I decided that I could not miss “The Wall”…and indeed, it was “Great” !

There are many sections to the wall.  It's over 3000 miles (5000 km) long and it crosses rather varied terrain.  The Chinese have fixed up several sections, restoring them so they are safe to walk on, and building huge visitors centers so many thousands can access this important cultural treasure. 

The section I visited is known as The Badaling Great Wall.  The facilities are very nice and resemble what you would see in a well-developed National Park in the USA.  The section just above is not part of Badaling, but rather another section that you can see as you approach it.

No Mongols approaching today, just hoards of visitors.  As we drove in, we passed an entire parking lot that at that hour, was still empty.  With as many people on the wall as there were, I cannot imagine what it would be like to visit on a crowded day.

As you walk from the parking area, you leave the souvenir vendors and enter the complex, with several nice museums and visitors centers.  Walking on, you come to a nicely developed area with a hotel and restaurants, just before you enter the wall area.  You climb up stairs onto the top of what must have been a large barracks, and start climbing the wall itself.  When they say “climbing”…they mean it.

As you climb from one Watch Tower to the next,

the wall creeps up and down the ridges of the hills,

 sometimes surprisingly steeply.

Imagine soldiers running through these narrow openings in the towers, along the top of the wall, positioning themselves to defend it from attackers.  The terrain below the wall is quite rough, but troops up on top can move quickly, like on a highway, to wherever they are needed.  There are no roadways at the foot of the wall, the crews working on restorations use mules to haul their supplies to work sites.

This tower looks like it had a roof that served at the top floor of the tower,

 the large room was likely used as a barracks for soldiers.

As you climb, you can look back down and see the visitor’s center at the base.

One of the cooler aspects of the wall’s design is the way it snakes off down one ridge line and up another. 

I was wondering how one would get to this section of the wall,

 when I figured out that it is part of the Badaling section,

you just have to go way up, down and around to get to it.

Then I noticed a couple of intrepid young girls who must have arrived early and raced all the way over there, well ahead of the rest of the day’s visitors.

My young cousins only had one question:  “How tall is the wall ?” 

At Badaling, I would say from 30 to 40 feet.

A cool place to visit !!

The view from a 2-hour climb…fantastic !

So, keep a close eye out...

You never know when the Mongols will be back !

-          Mark W. Laughlin