Charlie's Memoir #2

When Garland Riegel died, they had a memorial service, not a funeral. Garland was the father of Anne Riegel, a girl who played Anne Frank in the play that Grandpa Jim directed when he was "Mr. Van Delinder," one of my high school's English teachers. He also got to teach the speech classes and directed the school plays. Dr. Riegel—he was a waspologist, or whatever you call a person who studies wasps—grew into the position of chairman of the Zoology Department at Eastern Illinois University during his many years of teaching there. He came from a large family and they got together on a regular basis. Grandpa Jim was mentioning the family dinners; the Riegels had family dinners. The children sat at the card tables while the adults sat at the regular sized family dining tables. After Dr. Riegel's memorial service, the family members moved to a private dining area in a restaurant across the street from the church. I went to the service because I graduated with Anne in Mr. Van Delinder's third and final year at our high school, 1961. I asked Anne if I could "crash" the family dinnertime too. She said, "Of course."Since I come from a large family (I was number 10!) and have attended lots of family dinners where the kids sat at card tables, I found it wonderfully refreshing when one of the nephews of Dr. Riegel entered the restaurant's private area, looked around at the full tables, and then in a loud voice, asked: "Where are the card tables?" He got a good laugh. I got a good memory!