St. Mary’s Craft Beverage Trail event going down this weekend looks like something worth checking out even if no South County stops are on the official schedule. (Unofficially though, you know that any beverage-related drinking trail has to end up at Buzzy’s Country Store! So stop in after you are crafted out.)
But I have to confess that all this “craft” talk took me down a memory trail that I was not expecting to traverse this early in the morning. Reason why is because the first thing that came to my mind when I heard mention of St. Mary’s Craft Beverage was “Wonder whatever became of all those Kraft boys?”
Many of you may be wondering right now “Huh? Who or what is he talking about?” Those of you of a certain age who grew up here in the County as I did, will know exactly who I am referring to. Check this out from Massey’s “You Know You’re From St. Mary’s If…” FB page:
As Ronnie mentions, the Krafts were Half Pone Point/Hollywood fellas and since I was a Ridge boy, our paths never crossed. Thus, I really didn’t know any of them at all.
However, I did know their father Lester Kraft and he played a key role in my asking out my ex-wife on our first date. She worked for him in his real estate office as his secretary/receptionist. When I finally got up the nerve to ask her out, I bopped into their Kraft Real Estate office during my lunch break from working on Base. My going in plan was to invite her to go see Dr. Zhivago playing at the Plaza Theater in downtown Lexington Park.
However, after I arrived, she introduced me to Mr. Kraft and to Richard Knott who worked there as a real estate agent for Mr. Kraft. Mr. Knott immediately did the County thing by asking me “What Ridgell are you?” After I told him who my folks were, it turns out that he knew my Mom from when she worked at Sotterly as a personal assistant for Mrs. Ingalls. (Richard lived adjacent to Sotterly and looked after things for Mrs. Ingalls. I recall Mom talking about how nice and helpful he was to her as she tried to assist Mrs. Ingalls in the overall operation of Sotterly.) He and I (mostly he) then spent the next 15-20 minutes talking Sotterly stuff.
Thus, thanks to Mr. Knott, and my only having a half hour lunch break, I never did get the opportunity to ask her out during my visit to the Kraft Real Estate Office.
However, once I got back to work, I called her only to have Mr. Kraft answer the phone. After he told me that she had gone to lunch he laughed and said “Richard stole your thunder didn’t he?” I answered “Well, I’m not sure.” He laughed and said “Well, hang in there and call her back in a few minutes.”
I waited 15 minutes and then called her to say “Uh, I forgot to ask you, but would you like to go to the movies Friday night?” She laughed and said something about Mr. Knott sidetracking me, but agreed to go out with me. Note that both Mr. Kraft and Mr. Knott attended our wedding several months later. Funny the twists and turns along the road of life isn’t it?
Heard this tune on the radio the other day and liked it enough to pass it along here. For me, every day is a nice day – Disneyland or no Disneyland.