family & friends

photo by tessa meyer santiago

loads of goings on this past week with family and friends visiting. paul's sister laura and her husband dan as well as his sister tessa, her husband kevin and their son seth flew in for a concert here in boulder. south african musician johnny clegg ended his north american final tour performing in town at the boulder theater and paul and his sisters wouldn't have missed it for the world. all the meyers grew up watching johnny clegg perform, even i remember him during my couple of years in south africa, and appreciate his commitment and brave efforts for human rights. johnny clegg and juluka, his bi-racial band, performed together on stage in the 1980's which was a first in south africa and without intending to became politically active breaking boundaries through their racial integration and explicitly political songs in a racially segregated country. 

i never would have guessed how many south africans lived here in the area but standing in line at the concert hundreds of jovial, homesick south africans, with one of the most attractive accents out there, gathered and bonded and supported each other and this home town hero. johnny's son jesse performed the opener for his father, so all around it was a beautiful night.

next morning, as they flew out lois, a dear high school friend of mine, flew in from washington d.c. i picked her up and we enjoyed a heartwarming reunion weekend together. on friday, we met up with our three other friends that live in the denver area from our potomac, maryland winston churchill high school class of '79 and spent hours reminiscing through our high school years, catching up with each other's lives and savoring these lifetime friendships.

paul and i wanted to share more of beautiful colorado with lois so we drove up to rocky mountain national park and came upon a large herd of elk, followed trout along a stream, spotted bear, deer, cougar and coyote scat and entered into a full on windy snow storm. lois loved it all! thank you for the visit lois, you have always been and always will be beautiful, sweet and comfortable to be around, dear friend. i appreciate your efforts to reconnect and hope to be together again soon - let's not wait for another 38 years to pass!