Last Saturday, we slept in, and then got ready. Sadly, Vicki, one of Mer’s good high school friends, had lost her father a couple of weeks ago when he had a heart attack while living in Florida. There was a local, Akron-area memorial service at 11:00, and we had the flexibility to go.

I had never met Vicki’s father, but he sounded like a warm and generous man. Mer says I would have really liked him. The service was quite moving, and there was a dinner held afterward, for which we stayed. We got to sit and visit with another of Mer’s old classmates, who was really funny and personable. We also got to chat with Vicki and then her older sister for a few minutes. It was a sad reason to get together, but it was good to see these old friends of Meredith’s.

In the evening, we had yet another play to see. Since it was a play about golf, I had invited my co-worker Phil and his wife to come see it with us. Phil loves golf, and I thought it would be much fun to get together outside of work. Happily for Phil and Laurie, their first grandchild was being born this weekend in Chicago, so they took off Saturday morning, which was quite understandable. Mer and I thought about whom we could bring instead, and it worked out we could get together with another English teacher, Lesa, and her husband Jay.

Lesa and Jay met us at our house, and Jay drove. We headed up to Chagrin Falls, to the Chagrin Valley Little Theater. I was very excited for the evening. The Fox and the Fairway was written by a playwright who had written a fantastically funny play called Lend Me a Tenor. Tenor is one of the funniest plays I have ever seen, and I thought that golf would lend itself to good-natured mocking.

It turned out to be simply entertaining with a few laughs along the way. The acting was fine, and the staging was fine; the play was just not in the same league as Tenor. It was still a fun reason to get together, and it was a solid enough play, but it still left me slightly disappointed, since I’d had such high hopes of it being hysterically funny. My best take on the play, after my thinking about it, was that it did not have enough high-energy moments (the classic “door slamming” elements of farce).

We did have a great chance on the drive back to hear about Jay and Lesa’s mission trip to India back in November. They were helping to train teachers who teach the members of India’s lowest caste, and it sounds as if the conference and teaching went really well for everyone.