The year was 1881 and on July 2 the President of the United States, James Garfield, is shot by a disgruntled office-seeker. “Garfield is one of just four presidents killed in office, and the sites of the other three attacks are rightly treated as a having major historic importance: Ford’s Theatre in Washington, Dealey Plaza in Dallas, and William McKinley’s assassination site in Buffalo, New York.” Yesterday, I watched a Netflix documentary on the assassination of JFK. There was little more revealed about the possibility of more than one person involved even after the sealed files were finally released 50 years from the shooting. However, there was additional fodder pointing at a conspiracy between the Russians and Cubans. Let’s hope that history doesn’t repeat itself. 

We’re meeting some former business acquaintances today for lunch about an hour north of where we now live in Florida. Two of them I haven’t seen in twenty years, so it’s a long overdue reunion. We continue to make reconnection a retirement priority, and have several more meetings like this planned for after the first of the year. Included are an old boss from the radio business, a former brother-in-law, a college roommate, two cousins, and a half-sister. They all live part-time down here or planning vacations in this area. At least once a month since moving here we’ve gotten together with long lost friends and relatives that were too far away to see on the West Coast. 

We got together with neighbors the other night to watch the golf cart Christmas parade that seems to be a “Red Neck” holiday tradition. The addition is all lit up for the season and we have our Secret Santa Exchange planned for next week’s “Meet The Neighbors” event. Friends have dropped off sweet, baked treats and cards are arriving daily. All of us on the block attended last weekend’s performance of “Land of the Greedy Mouse,” a comedy about a Disneyworld heist. We’ll be at the scene of that crime on Christmas day when family arrives from Portland. Ho…ho…ho!