Yachats Oregon Writer Rick Schultze

That’s one of my favorite sentences and I use it often. It’s time for baseball, football, swimming, cooking, camping, skiing and other activities etc. In fact I probably write at least five or six columns a year with that theme and here comes another one!

It’s that time of year to connect with family, friends and other acquaintances and find out what’s been going on with them. In Yachats and Waldport the opportunities to run into friends and acquaintances is easy this time of year since several of the restaurants have holiday parties for their patrons and the Lions and other service clubs have holiday get-togethers. Since the populations of these places are fairly small it’s not hard to see everyone you know!

However if your family and other friends and acquaintances aren’t within visiting distance you’ve got to use other means of catching up with them. In the past it was mostly via mail, the snail mail variety. Nowadays it’s more likely to be by phone or email. Christmas cards still are mailed and arriving bearing news and greetings, but a phone conversation or email can cover a lot more territory.

Nevertheless, it is the time of year to connect and I did just that with an old friend and co-worker from the past. He lives in California and he and I spent many years together in rock and roll bands. Several times of year we speak and have visited each other many times both here in Oregon and in California but at this time of year, the Christmas holiday season, we always have a long conversation talking about all the different guys and gals we played in bands with. Amazingly out of about forty people we played with in various bands and several agents and managers who handled us about eighty percent of them are still connected in one way or another. The musicians all have their network of close friends and they are amongst ours also so between the two of us we can place all the people and provide a little info about them. That’s also true with the business folks, most of them still work with each other in some way, so that’s an easy group to keep up with.

It’s always a great conversation because it will start with “remember Vern from Grand Junction?’ That will lead to “yeah he was friends with Billy the drummer in that band who I just spoke with yesterday. He got a hold of me thru my web page and was trying to get Georges number. I called him and we talked for a half hour and he filled me in on Mantor and the rest of those guys.”

It goes on like that every time and by the end of the conversation I feel like I’m back hanging out with all those people who are friends in our lives.

It’s a nice feeling to know that each of you probably have a similar network of acquaintances that with a little bit of effort you can get in touch with. Today it is a lot easier to keep in touch because of technology and I appreciate it a lot and I hope you do as well as I’m sure people would love to hear from you and shot the breeze a bit!

Have fun connecting and stay warm!

To reach Rick Schultze email yarick@pioneer.net