November 2, 2003                 St. John Church                        Dover Indiana

Edith recently joined the choir at St. Williams and sang at the 11 a.m mass today. It was the annual memorial service and a candle was lit for each parishioner who passed during the past 12 months; it was a very nice service. We headed for Dover a little after 12.
 

It was warm and sunny. Who would believe we would have a 80 degree day in Cincinnati on November 2? The hills held more trees without leaves than with. Some maples and the oaks still gave us the look of autumn. St. John is one of the closer Indiana chicken dinners. We left I-74 at the St. Leon exit and saw the church steeple within a few minutes. They placed cones down the center of the highway to slow things down and let people pull into the parking area.


There was no line to speak of and we paid $16 for our meal tickets. We picked our deserts first. I had sweet memories of the berry pie from the last dinner and that was my choice today (besides, it was bigger than the available cherry pie slices.) St. John has two dinners in a season. The fall dinner also features a craft sale (oh boy!)
 

This was cafeteria style and we passed through a line and were served potatoes and gravy, green beans and four pieces of chicken. The advantage is that the food is hot and you can bring some chicken home if you don’t eat it all (I will eat my piece this evening when I finish typing this.) We were seated at the last two chairs at our table. Everyone at the table was halfway through their meals.
 

They passed us the bowl of slaw that was kept on the table. I had to ask that it be passed a few more times -- it was so good. It was on the sweet side and the juice had a milky look. It was very crunchy and my favorite part of the meal. The food was hot and, like I said, is an advantage of cafeteria style dinners (but I still favor family style where bowls of food are kept on the table.)

Edith said “look, there’s Elisha Lipps.” Edith is the computer teacher at St. Dominic and sees Elisha when the fifth grade comes to class. Edith went to her table and found grandpa Charlie and grandma close by. A minute later Bill and Bobbie Keenan walked by. Their news was that Darren (our son John’s friend) had twins a few months ago. (I guess it was a little bit of Delhi on this day in Dover.)

We left the dining area and went to the small school building next door to look at the crafts (I was so excited that I could hardly control myself!) I must say that the crafts were very nice and the baked goods tempting. Edith has made and bought so many Christmas crafts over the years (and also received so many from her students) that I believe the acquisition phase, for the most part, is over.
 

I guess that I could say more but the leftover chicken is calling my name out in the kitchen.