Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 15 May 2012 14:39

The HHS All-School Reunion is just around the corner, slated for 6:30 p.m. Satur­day, May 26, at the Hillsboro Mennonite Breth­ren Church. Advance reservations for the banquet are due by this Friday, May 18.

We will be recognizing several of the classes whose year’s end in “2” during the evening.

The meal will be served by Panhandler’s Catering. I don’t know what we are having other than I think the dessert will be some kind of chocolate. The guys on the committee don’t get to pick the main course but we do have a say in the dessert.

Be sure to check out the senior pictures that will be displayed in some of the businesses around town. And this year, with the help of the Chamber of Commerce, we are asking businesses to feature their own HHS grads who either own or work (or both) in the establishment.

•

Sometime good can come from bad. I almost missed a 7 a.m. appointment last Wednesday, which would have been bad. My smart phone, however, saved me. The battery was dead for my iPod, which I usually take with me on my walk. If the battery is dead, then I take my phone and listen to Pandora.

When I picked up my phone it notified me that I had a meeting in 10 minutes. That was the fastest shower I’ve ever had but I made it to my meeting at 7:01.

•

I mentioned in previous columns that I have been traveling every weekend lately. The pens I usually have were missing all of last week. Then I put on shoes I don’t normally wear during the week on Sunday morning and something didn’t feel right. I apparently put the pens in them when I packed my bag to come home on the last trip.

•

We had a scanning session for the veterans book at the Com­mun­ity Building in Lincolnville this past Saturday morning. It’s a terrific facility. Thanks to Judy Houdyshell for her assistance in setting this up. The turnout was very good and it was appreciated.

This week we will be in Tampa, Florence and then ending in Hillsboro. See the ad on next page for details.

•

Dan has been home for the past week and a half helping me spruce up the front of the Free Press building. Actually I have been helping him.

He designed the new awning and it fits the look we were after. For a minute we thought about just painting and reusing the old awning, but he quipped that “it would be like going in for a touchdown and then falling down on the five-yard line.”

We repurposed some of the old awning parts for support underneath, which is in vogue around the country these days.

•

This past Saturday afternoon, we put up the rafters and purlins for the awning. They were pre-built and stained ahead of time in our garage.

It was a day we would like to forget. Nothing went right. Tools were always in the wrong place, the nuts for the sinkers for the brackets that went on the building kept dropping on the ground and rolling out of sight. In spite of that, it looks perfect to me now.

•

We got in on some great food prepared by Dan for his mom and grandmother on Mother’s Day. It was grilled salmon and Asian cole slaw like I have never tasted before. He said he was trained by his fiance Katie.

If you wish to share your comments or ideas, my e-mail address is joel@hillsborofreepress.com.