Long distance travel is behind us for awhile, so it’s back to getting together with new neighbors and old friends. It starts at noon today when we lunch with former LIN-TV business associates at the nearby Bonefish Grill. We’ll be able to share stories of our old cronies and what they are up to in retirement. I follow that up with a Zoom Leadership Meeting with my West Coast buddies later this afternoon, most all of whom I saw in the past week. We have another Zoom tomorrow evening in honor of a birthday celebration of friends in Austin, as well. In the famous but badly butchered words of CSN – If you can’t be with the one you love – love  the Zoom you’re with.

In the next two weeks, we have lunch scheduled with some folks we both worked with at WISH-TV in Indianapolis. We last saw them while we were  deciding on where to live here in Florida about a year ago. They are now about an hour-and-a-half away. We’re then head to Jacksonville to meet our nephew, his wife, and their new twins. They are about 8 months old and live three hours from us. While we’re in that area, we plan to visit a 90-year old friend of my wife’s mother. A few weeks later it’s Singer Island and a reunion with one of my wife’s best friends as well as a long lost sorority sister. Overnight guests yet this year include my wife’s sister & brother, niece, and daughter. In addition, friends from Indy and Portland are also using our guest room. Florida is quickly becoming a place to mold new friendships and foster distant or  forgotten ones. 

It’s certainly been a busy month of interaction from coast-to-coast. We’ve been with friends from our time in Decatur, Illinois on two occasions and today’s lunch will be the third. It was a city where we got to know a lot of people in a short time and have been able to maintain those friendships through travel. We’re also now near my son and his family, although I just missed my two granddaughter’s dance recital. I’ve driven my grandson to his golf lessons and attended several family functions. We’ve also hosted a meet the neighbors block party and scheduled a second in an attempt to expand our network of acquaintances. Overall, we’ve been extremely busy in an effort to interact!