The Lunch Bunch

Was home sick Monday (chest cold) so I missed the lunch bunch—10 colleagues who have met weekly for nearly 10 years.

We’re a dissimilar group. There’s the Shakespearian (with a timely quote for any occasion), the rancher/Karaoke singer, the comedian (who does convincing impersonations of about every administrator AC has had), the grammarian/sorority girl, the actress/life-of-the-party, the journalist/video-maker, the speech teacher who’s always up for a road trip with the prankster, the economist/philosopher whose understated humor is second only to the comedian, the prankster (if someone released hamsters during the graduation processional, she would be suspect #1) and the blogger (that’d be me. Oops, that would be I—revised with a nod to the grammarian/sorority girl).

The lunch bunch has changed over the years. Half have become department chairs (makes it harder to complain about admin), all have moved into that empty nest/new grandchildren stage of life (which means we have plenty of both joy and sorrow to go around) and four of us have retired. Not a worry. There is no “Til unemployment do us part” clause in the lunch bunch bylaws.

We’ve dined all over Amarillo and Canyon: catfish at Fat Cat’s and Feldman’s, barbeque at Dyer’s and Delvin’s, Italian at Napoli’s and Pescaraz, burgers at Green Chile Willy’s and English Field, comfort food at Calico County and Hoffbrau and Tex-Mex at Leal’s and Tacos Garcia.

But mostly we talk. And laugh. And, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis, the laughter of friends has got to be the best sound in the world.