Happy 80th Birthday to Us!

Once upon a time, four young Cleveland women entered Ohio University to prepare for careers while having fun and making new friends.  Actually, Rita Vaitkus and I already were friends since we both graduated from Collinwood High School.  The other two are Pat Synan Strom from the west-side and Pat Golene Keehn from a southeastern suburb.  Three of us studied journalism while one majored in home economics.

Following graduation, we concentrated on our careers.  Pat S. was a home ec teacher and guidance counselor in the Cleveland school system.  Pat K. was a pharmaceutical rep.  I did public relations for Euclid General Hospital and the City of Cleveland.  Rita was in communications for Addressograph Multigraph Corp. and Blue Cross of Northeast Ohio.

Our friendships continued to flourish in Cleveland.  I was in Pat K.'s wedding.  Pat S. and I played tennis and golf together.  Rita and I frequently double-dated.  Our group even attended our 25th class reunion together at Ohio University in 1982.

A long time ago, we discovered that our birthdays are within 30 days of each other, from October 16th through November 16th.  We decided to celebrate together with dinner.  None of us can remember exactly when this custom began, but a good guess would be 50 years ago.  We dined at fine restaurants all over town and observed our 65th birthdays with a dinner cruise on the Good Time.

Since I moved to Florida in 1997, we now celebrate our birthdays in the summer when I return to Cleveland to visit friends and relatives. This year we met at the Americano Restaurant in Bratenahl Place to observe our milestone 80th birthdays.  We never imagined that we would still be having birthday dinner together at the ripe old age of 80 after 50 years!

Fairy tales always end with "and they lived happily ever after". We are happy, happy that we are still alive -- and lively -- and looking forward to celebrating more birthdays together in the furture.