It has become one of the happiest traditions in our lives- the annual get together of four couples (all with Carthage ties) for a night of dinner and laughter. For seven years now we have been gathering on a weekend night either in late August or early September. The first time it actually happened up in Cedarburg when Vicki Repshodt wanted to surprise her husband Ted for his 40th birthday. She arranged for Kathy and me, Leslie and Bob Gluck, and Jon and Cathy Marschall to rendezvous at a nice restaurant in Cedarburg and be already seated there when Vicki walked in with the completely unsuspecting Ted. It was a glorious surprise and a wonderful night, and we decided then and there that this was way too much fun to do only once. And so it has happened again and again and again. One year we experimented with a different restaurant, but otherwise we have always gone to Buca di Beppo’s, a wonderful Italian restaurant in downtown Milwaukee that is absolutely perfect for such a gathering. And just about every time, we have ended up at the very same table – so there is this rather strange yet delightful sense of deja vu as we come together approximately one year later to catch up on each other’s lives and to celebrate our friendship, while digging into an absolutely stupendous meal.
We always sit boy girl boy girl and never next to our spouses – – – and we manage every time to order more food than we can possibly eat. (It’s one of those places where you’re actually ordering family-sized portions which you pass around the table.) Mostly, we talk and laugh and are reminded all over again of how good it is to be friends with each other. We’re an interesting mix of people as well – a couple of music teachers, a couple of people who work in the corporate world, a psychologist, a tree doctor, a banker. . . . and we’re all nice and we’re all fun. (One person in each couple is a Carthage grad, so that’s one of the common bonds we share.) And what’s especially neat is that we all play a part in the proceedings, as thought we were musicians playing the Schubert Octet for Strings and Winds. And what a void there would be if some year one of us got the flu and had to stay home. PERISH the thought!
Tonight was a light-hearted night- but it reminded me that sometimes these get-togethers have been marked by sadness of one kind or another. One year, someone shared with the rest of us the stunning news that her parents were going to be getting a divorce (news which was barely a week old at the time). Another year, one of us was dealing with the heartbreak of a parent struggling with Alzheimer’s. Last year our get-together came not too long after Kathy’s mom had passed away. Sometimes there will be bad news involving work. I especially remember the year when I was about to begin my first school year without having the chamber singers to direct – and my sadness about that really welling up as school was about to begin. What could be more comforting in those times than to be gathered around a table of fellowship who ask you how you’re doing because they really want to know and who are there to help however they can.
There’s kid talk as well, although this circle is tremendously blessed to have the sort of kids where the worst thing they ever seem to do is stay up too late doing homework. Kathy and I feel like we’re in the presence of six members of the Parents Hall of Fame; how else to explain how wonderfully all these kids have turned out?
Mostly on a night like tonight, I look around at this table of vibrant, caring, interesting, hilarious people and count myself one of the richest people alive to have such friends. And I feel like all of us around that table are rich people because we have so much of what counts most in life. Not one of us drives a really fancy car – or wears the latest in fancy clothes – or cares very much about country club memberships. Instead, each of these friends lives a life rich with deep, meaningful relationships with friends and family – a life tapped into the profound blessings to be found in music, theater, and other facets of art and culture – and rich in the wealth of good will that comes when one is more intent on giving than on receiving both in the home and out in the world.
And what’s even more amazing to me is that there are still more friends in my life and in Kathy’s which make us feel even more blessed – even more rich. One of them, my best friend Marshall, visited yesterday afternoon and evening- and we also spent some of that time with recent Carthage grads, Nick Sluss-Rodionov and Sarah Gorke, whom we now count among our friends. It is so fun to be sitting at dinner with two very new friends while sitting across the table from someone who has known me since kindergarten, over forty years ago. I wish for everyone that stimulating mix of Old Friends and New Friends – and that your closest friends would also be really really good people, whom you feel so fortunate to know. That’s the key to feeling rich; it has nothing to do with Wall Street or one’s portfolio – or how one spends one’s money . . . but rather by how well one lives one’s life and by one’s gratitude for all that God gives us in this life. And if that doesn’t make sense to you, just ask one of the rich people with whom my wife and I dined tonight!
pictured: front row: Jon Marschall, Vicki Repsholdt, Bob Gluck, Kathy Berg back row: Leslie Gluck, Ted Repsholdt, Cathy Marschall, and me.