Company Picnic and Retirement Party

Day 105 – August 23

We went from Dockton to Glen Cove (across the bay from Cutts Island) where the owners of Glen’s office have a summer house and cabin. Where we attended a summer picnic and retirement party for Ollie Keller, one of their sales reps.

Of course several old stories were told. Evidently some years ago while walking to lunch he and another worker passed by a street person pushing a shopping cart collecting bottles and cans. Ollie commented ‘there goes another former chemical salesman’, and they both chuckled. Well to prepare Ollie for his retirement years they presented him with the following: An old pair of red suspenders, an old heavy work coat, a floppy hat, and his very own personalized shopping cart, complete with plague which read. Ollie Keller - Chemical Peddler - 1954-2008. As he demonstrated and practiced his pushing technique several aluminum cans and a bottle were tossed in to get him started. Another one of his gifts was a 1950’s laptop typewriter; Ollie never liked and tried never to use a computer. As gifts were opened they and their wrapping was deposited into the cart. Ollie will be missed at the company and the picnic was a fun and fitting tribute to him.

Ollie Keller starting retirement in style!

Glen has worked with Ollie for quite a few years but indeed it is a small world. While I was growing up Ollie, Judy and the kids lived two doors away from me. I remember babysitting for them, and walking their girls to elementary school years ago. It was fun to see them again.

We spent the day visiting with Glen’s coworkers and their families; about 45 adults plus a bunch of children were there. There were people from the Seattle office, as well as Sherwood Oregon, and California. Glen gave many tours of Magic, and took lots of kids on dinghy rides. Several kids told me that their favorite things about the boat were the 1) “big screen TV”, 2) “upper room” (flybridge), and 3) “the room with two beds”. One little guy told me that he liked driving the little boat best, because it went fast. Go figure.

Gordon liked the boat but I think he liked the
Ice Cream and Bud better!

Someone said that on Monday they were going to say ‘well you’ve seen what Glen has, so start working harder’.

In all it was a fun day, but also another reminder that our adventure is getting close to the end.

After leaving there we headed over to Cutts Island were we could see Gary and Shirley awaiting our arrival. They had been playing on the beach all day while we were at the picnic. We anchored close to them (they were on a mooring buoy), and visited for a while before calling it an early night. It had to be early as they were very tired from playing on the beach with Webster all day.

Webster