The Tuesday activities included lunch on the Branson Belle Showboat, the popular humorist Yakov, and Shoji, the Japanese violin player, and a coach to transport everyone.

Wednesday was going great. The speaker from the North Little Rock Sub Vets, Ray Wewers arrived about 3:30 PM. The photographer showed up on time to made individual/couple pictures and at about 5:20, just when I was beginning to wonder why the cash bar people weren't there yet, he took us all outside to take group pictures. About 5:40 I walked away from the group to check on the bar situation and decided to call Michelle (our representative from Branson Hospitality). I left her a message saying it was 5:45 and the bar had not showed up, the ROTC for the colors wasn't in sight and should I be worried that I had not seen the caterer? As the photographer left he gave me a couple of other phone numbers to try. I called the office and got an emergency service. They had Carla call me back. As I told her that each one had not shown up, she got more and more excited! I soon had a call from Michelle saying they had no idea what had happened but that they were already arranging for food and that she was going to the local winery and would soon be there with wine. In the meantime, Roy started the program from the back end. Ray Wewers gave a great account about how Little Rock got the Razorback sub back from Turkey. When Michelle got there she apologized and started to cry. It was the first time she had ever had such a terrible thing happen. But the guys and their wives rallied around her and in the end everything worked out OK. I suspect the food was better than it would have been from the caterer. She had called the Golden Corral (the largest one in the world) and they had lots of good, hot food there in about 45-60 minutes. There was wine courtesy of Branson Hospitality instead of a cash bar.
 

Note: Ray Wewers the guest speaker very generously gave his speaking stipend to the USS Razorback museum. The official name for the museum is the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum. Ray's excellent talk was very much appreciated by the Diablo crew and his generosity to his and our heritage was most thoughtful. Thank You Ray!

There still wasn't an ROTC, so Capt. Tom borrowed a flag from a bomber group meeting next door. Many noticed it was dirty and some remarked about it. The next day we found out that the flag had been brought out of Iraq when the Sgt. who was in uniform next door was air evac'ed back to the States. The dirt was from desert sandstorms in Iraq. It had never been wet-- not even rained on. One of his buddies was killed under that flag! He is due to return to Iraq in a few days.

As you can see, we had an exciting time. But it all worked out. Actually I would say it was a good reunion. Normally I am very easily excited and upset. Michelle told me that the one thing that helped her cope that night was that when she called me I was calm, cool and collected. I told her that was a special gift God gave me for the Reunion. I was able to deal with problems and changes all week without getting upset. I also told her that I've been told that we grow from situations like what happened that night and that I didn't know how or how much but that we were both growing. Later she told me that when she left that night she called her pastor to report her growth spurt. To help make up for the problem, we were provided a full hot breakfast, catered by Golden Corral, the next morning.