As I write this, we are on the plane heading for Cleveland, with a connection coming to Rochester, New York. Everything went very smoothly this morning: wake up alarm went off at 4:00 am, we were in the car shortly after 5:00, and to the airport a little past 6:00. We just have the carry-on luggage, so there was no hassle at the airport. I still don’t know why more people don’t use the “expert traveler” line through security, there are never very many people there at all.
We arrived a little early in Cleveland, and made the connection to Rochester without difficulty. It was only about a 45 minute flight, and we were there by about noon. DG Marvin & Lion Diane, PID John & Lion Bernie, and VDG Greg & Darlene all met us at the airport. It was just a short drive to the “Beale Street” Café, where we had lunch. Debra had a bowl of French Onion Soup, and I had the chili with cornbread (their specialty). Everything was really good; the chili had just enough zip and was loaded with ground beef and beef hunks along with red beans, and the cornbread lived up to the advance raves we had gotten from Marvin & Diane.
We drove from the restaurant to the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (AVBI). We got a great tour from Tracy, who showed us their production area where they cut and package all the post-it notes used by the US and NY Governments. They also had a sewing line, a rehab center, a low vision clinic, a call center, and Goodwill store. They have all the Goodwill stores in the area, where they employ many blind and visually impaired people. They are looking to expand the call center, and may be pursuing an LCIF grant
From AVBI, we drove to Batavia where the conference was being held. We got to our room and had about an hour to settle in before DG Dennis & Lion Diane knocked on the door to take us down for dinner. Dinner was very nice, I had the Prime Rib & Debra had the Chicken Parmesan. Dessert was an assortment of bars, which of course we sampled all three. The lemon bars were the best!
As always seems to happen, we came across people we had met somewhere before. First was Lion Enrique, from Cuba. He’s a great lion about 83 years old, who was a classmate of Fidel Castro. He had been a lawyer in Cuba, and got out the day before they closed the airport when Castro took over. We never could place exactly where we had met him, but it must have been an LCI convention or a forum somewhere.
Then a gentleman came up to Debra, and remarked that they had met. Debra said he looked familiar, and then he mentioned Leader Dog. It turns out we had sat next to him and conversed on the trip to Leader Dog when both were District Governors. Debra remembered him, and our conversation, as soon as he mentioned his name was Jim Rice. His wife is Pat, and we know a Pat Rice in Faribault, so the connection was immediate. We had a great time chatting on and off with both of them all weekend.
After dinner, we went to the hospitality room, where we lasted until about 9:30 or so, solving the problems of Lionism over a glass of scotch, before heading up after a long day.