2007 Reunion of Friends  
These pictures were taken September 4th through the 8th. they are not presented in any special order or timeline, I only put them in an order that seemed to make sense to me. As you travel through the slides I will try to write a small blurb about the following picture if an explanation seems due. I may skip writing something if the picture is self explanatory.

This first picture is of 4 girls that greatly influenced my life. I first want to explain as most of you who view this page only know only one of these 4 girls is not an alien.   I do not mean that the other three are invaders from space but that three of these girls are not American. Can you guess which one is not a foreigner? To save time I will tell you they are native born British all the way. They met while working the telephone switchboards at London's Heathrow airport. I met them when I was in the Air Force and needed to contact, via the land line telephone circuits, the British air traffic controllers at their control center called London Airways. The 3 girls traveled together to Canada in 1964. I called it migrated. From there their great adventure began.  This reunion, was the first time I had seen Mary for nearly 36 years while I had seen Ann about 15 years ago and Chris about 2 years ago. I will explain more as to their travels later.
Bob Copeland, Chris's husband, has forwarded the pictures he took of the reunion. I have added them to the end of my pictures. Many of the pictures Bob took look  to be almost duplicates of mine, but who cares,  the more pictures I have to remind me of these friends the better. I only removed 1 picture that Bob took. It was the one that made me look like a walrus. Its nice being the web page guy. I have the final say of what pictures are shown or what music is heard.  I never want to forget these people. And that includes Bob, who I feel as close to as I would a brother.
 

From the left to the right the smiling faces are
Mary Chaplin--Ann Barker--Diane Lamoreaux--and Chris Copeland

Ann Barker passed away today December 17,  2007 in a Hospice in Vancouver. Ann had incurable stomach cancer for at least the past 10 years. These pictures were taken during a small reunion we had at Chris and Bob's new home in Brighton Ontario this past summer. Even though she never complained you could see the pain in her eyes or maybe it was in her heart.   

These first pictures were taken on an site seeing trip we took to the north coast of lake Ontario. The water was clean and the sun was bright.

The next picture introduces the only true native born Canadian of the group. Bob Copeland who met and married
Chris while the girls were living in Toronto. Several years ago Chris took the big leap and became an Canadian citizen. Several years after arriving in  Toronto, Ann and Mary picked up stakes and moved west to Vancouver.

Ann and Mary stayed in Vancouver for several more years, still working for the Toronto Dominion Bank. But then the urge to move on again hit them. They then moved to Australia I am sure I am going to get the times and locations wrong, but after staying in Australia for a period of time Ann moved back to Vancouver where she remains while Mary continued her journey around the world and returned to Lowestoff, England which was her home town many years ago.    

I told these kids to dive in as I wanted a picture of them. The older of the 2 looked at me kind of strange and said "but it's only 3 feet deep" So I allowed them to jump in feet first. Nice of me wasn't it.
The boys were jumping of of a large pier that we drove out on. This side of the pier, the water was noticeably shallower, while the other side that you will see in the next picture had a marina and large number of boats. That is Ann watching  from the side.

It appears in the picture above that Ann was telling Diane about those wonderful vacations she has taken. It only appears that Diane is sleeping. Below we see one of the humming birds that kept our interest while we sat on the back porch and drank. I think he was refueling for his long trip to were ever he goes to spend the winter

This is Sheba the dog that Chris stole from her neighbor when they lived in Toronto. The real story was the owners of Sheba did not really want the dog. Slowly  over the period of a month or so the dog began spending more time at the Copeland's than at it's own home. Chris began having Bob take the dog for walks as she could see he was in need of the exercise. I mean the dog needed exercise, but I am sure it was one of those tricks that those loving wives do that got Bob out there walking the dog nearly 4 times a day I am sure the walks helped both of them. 

The picture below is of Sheba Chris's dog taking Bob for one of his 4 walks a day. Walking at a pretty quick pace was Ann who I had trouble keeping up with.

Chris you promised to have that dark spot on your arm looked at. Dr. Diane is concerned and she is usually right. Please let us know what your
doctor says. Also from a cured smoker talk to your doctor to see if he approves of your fag smoking. Don't hate us for loving you. If we did not love you we would not say anything.

We only stayed for 5 days but I think Ann had a different scarf for each day. One evening she even had one that went with the dish ware. The dishes had black and white squares and so did her scarf. 

These next 2 pictures are taken from our motel door. There was a apple orchard directly across and a gazebo up on the hillside. The farmer had a roadside stand where he sold apples to the public. I walked over with the intent to buy some apples, but what he had displayed even the worms did not want.

 I can only say one thing about our visit with you in Brighton.  I am so grateful that you allowed Diane and I to visit with you during this special time. It has been far too long since we last saw each other. Lets not let it be that long again. After Mary retires we will have to have another get together. Maybe Ann could show us her special place where she has traveled to and loved the most, or maybe we could all meet at a pub in the country near Lowestoff and try to swipe a ash tray. But then if we ever went back to that pub I am sure the bar keeper would call for the bobbies before we could sit down. But then if he were smart like the old one he would wait until we had all placed our orders.    

This is the end of my pictures but the beginning of Bob's. Many of the pictures look alike but the views are all a little different. Continue scrolling down

It was hard to imagine that time had gone by so quickly. This summer when I first saw Chris, Ann and Mary getting out
of Bob's car on their arrival in Brighton, It was like time had stood still. We were like 4 old buddies
getting back together again. Mary had not changed, she was as pretty as ever. Then there was Ann, with her
special memories that made us all laugh. What can I say about Chris and Bob, Diane and I have a special spot in our
heart for them. They have been to both of my children's weddings and we feel as though they are part of our family.     

The following pictures are 3 pictures that Ann sent us several years ago. Ann used her retirement to do all the things we just dream about. Her and some of her friends  traveled the world seeing many strange and weird things. She rode a camel in Egypt and by the looks of the pictures made some pretty close friends with some weird looking birds in Antarctica. The pictures below she described as what the members of Parliament look like when they all go outside for a fag break. Actually they are some breed of penguin located on the Salisbury Plain on South Georgia Island. The last picture she describes as Fur Seals probably located on the other side of the Island as I am not too sure if those slick dressed Penguins socialized with those big fat Fur Seals. Ann was looking forward to a return trip to Antarctica and the mid East in the near future.

It is a shame God had to take such a honest and wonderful person so soon in her lifetime, but then we are all getting older and our time on this earth  gets shorter every day.
We will all miss you Ann.