July 14-22, 2007: Summer Trip to Colorado
	July 4, 2007: Ron Mathis's Fourth of July Party
	Return to Index for 2007

Just after the Fourth of July, Ron Drew and Jay Silbert, our good friends from Fort Lauderdale, made a visit to Dallas. Actually, they arrived on the evening of July 3rd, but they spent the holiday with Ron's mother who had come down from Lawton, Oklahoma, so I did not see them for the first time until the 6th, when they arrived to spend three days staying with me.

Lunch with Ron and Jay (July 6th)

Ron Drew and Jay Silbert are our good friends from Fort Lauderdale. Ron and Lowery Evans were partners when they lived here in Dallas. I had met Lowery in 1988, and he and Ron had met each other in 1990. They lived in Garland for a while, then moved to Grand Prairie (where Fred and I spent many an evening at their house) and finally moved to Hackberry Creek in Irving in 1996. There, again, Fred and I visited them frequently, and they, along with Ron Mathis and Chris Young, were our closest friends in Dallas. In 1999, Ron had to take a job with GTE in Tampa, Florida, in order to keep his retirement and his seniority with the company, and Lowery, by then on disability, moved with him. After that, Fred and I only saw them infrequently. Even when we started coming down to Florida once or twice a year, we didn't always get across to the other side of the state to visit.

Lowery died in 2000, and Ron stayed in Tampa, eventually moving to Fort Lauderdale when he retired from GTE. In Fort Lauderdale, he took a job with the Business Council, specializing in attracting new businesses to Broward County. He got together with a friend he'd met in Fort Lauderdale and got a house in the northwest corner of the city. About a year ago, he and Jay Silbert became pretty constant partners, and I see them frequently when I go down to Fort Lauderdale. Fred, however, and all Ron's other friends in Dallas don't see them nearly so often, so it was a homecoming of sorts when they came to visit.

We missed them on the Fourth of July, but I got together with them for lunch on Friday, July 6th, at the Blackeyed Pea restaurant down on Cedar Springs. Ron's mother and her friend Buss had come down from Lawton to stay through Saturday afternoon, and they were two of the attendees at lunch. The other two lunch people were Lynne and Ricky Drew, Ricky being Ron's brother (who still lives in the Dallas area). Lynne you've met before in this album; she is Ron's ex-wife from many years ago, the same girl that goes to the Symphony with Fred and I fairly frequently.

At lunch, I took a movie of all the attendees, and you can watch that movie using the player at right. Lynne was kind enough to be the photographer for a picture of Ron, Jay and myself. We had a really nice lunch; afterwards, just before I left them to head up to Fred's house for the weekend, I got a nice picture of the group near the restaurant on Cedar Springs.

Ron Mathis's Party for Ron and Jay (July 7th)

I'd gone up to Fred's house for the weekend, since it was his weekend to work, but he and I went to Ron Mathis's house on Saturday afternoon after he closed up for a party that Ron Mathis hosted in honor of Ron and Jay's visit. Our friends' names get kind of confusing, as there is a Ron/Jay pair in Plano (our good friends Ron Mathis and Jay Enriquez) and a Ron/Jay pair in Fort Lauderdale (Ron Drew and Jay Silbert). (There's also me, of course, and Prudence's husband Ron Ruckman, so with four "Rons" and two "Jays" and two "Ron-Jay" pairs, there is quite enough confusion to go around.) I hope it'll be clear in the short narrative here which Ron and which Jay I am talking about.

Since we had just been at Ron and Jay's three days earlier for the Fourth of July, all the decorations for that holiday were still in place (and a fair amount of what Jay served that evening was still around to be the basis for all the stuff that he served this evening).

As usual, Jay and Ron put on a very, very nice casual dinner. Actually, I don't think Fred and I have ever been there when we didn't think that Ron and Jay had outdone themselves, and this evening was no exception. Also, they are always gracious to open their house for birthday parties and holiday gatherings, and everyone always has an enjoyable time.

The pictures that Fred and I took during the afternoon and early evening don't form any kind of continuous narrative, or anything like that; they are just casual pictures of the attendees. For example, you can see a picture of Lou Acevedo, Jay Silbert and Ron Drew conversing in the kitchen if you click here. Or, you can see a picture of Ron Mathis, Chris and myself chatting in the gameroom if you click here.

In some other candid shots, here's a picture of Lou and Jay, a picture of Brad and Ron and a picture of Fred and Greg.

While everyone was standing around chatting before dinner, I took the opportunity to film a short movie of all the attendees, and since you've already seen each of them in at least one picture, you'll be able to pick everybody out. You can watch that movie by using the player at left.

Fred took quite a few other candid shots of various groups of us before, during and after dinner (when a cooperative cake was served); here are four of the best of these pictures:

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	July 14-22, 2007: Summer Trip to Colorado
	July 4, 2007: Ron Mathis's Fourth of July Party
	Return to Index for 2007