There were about forty people at the party, sitting in the shade of a large elm, or the shadow of the house.

Wife and I figured it out later. Near as we can tell, there were five, maybe six people who were younger than us. And two of those aren't that much younger, with a son in college.

The guest of honor was 80. And most of the guests were his contemporaries. This was a company town back then, so most of these people worked and lived together for 30 years or more.

So it was kinda weird being the "young people" in the crowd again. And yeah, we all kinda ended up at a smaller table off by ourselves. Some things never change.

The guest of honor grew up cowboying. He wasn't surprised that I knew his uncle's ranch where he grew up. But he was surprised that I knew James Averell and Ellen Watson first homesteaded the place.

His uncle bought it from one of the lynchers.

It was your typical western potluck. Hosts providing burgers and hotdogs, guests bringing everything else. Just about all the standard fare, and a few less typical.

Wife fixed up an Italian salad for something a little different. But there were the usual macaroni salads, bean salads, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, relish trays (one with the tiniest, tiniest carrots) and watermelon.

Oddly, there were no baked green beans, nor beans with bacon strips. No deviled eggs, either. Too many people watching their cholesterol, maybe. But yes, Sis, someone brought the green stuff. And something else that was orange, and tasted great mixed with the green.

I only saw four cameras besides my own. One was taking film!

At least three couples came down from cabins in the mountains for this celebration.

One guest, a son, came from Italy. Spent considerable time catching up with him, and his travels. His list included Frankfurt, London, Paris and Dublin. And those are just weekend trips during the past year. And after his many years in Europe, I suspect all of those were repeat visits.

I asked specifically about Croatia, and Slovenia.

Yes, he's been there, too. They have rebuilt their countries well in the past decade or so. Great coastal resorts. But their economies are not yet thriving, so exchange rates for American dollars are, well, great.

Not a bad life for a webpage designer.

A neighbor, one of those coming down from the mountains, mentioned a fellow biking the Continental Divide Trail that they had recently hosted for a night. When he left, he took photos of their cabin, and left a piece of paper.

With the cabin's GPS coordinates on it. He explained when he got done on the trail, he would post that picture on the internet, then his friends and other trail travelers would be able to zoom down from a satellite view to look at it.

She turns to me with true amazement in her voice, "Have you ever heard of anything like that?"

Took me a while to realize she was serious. I turned and looked at the other fellow in this conversation, maybe a year younger, and we were both kinda dumbfounded.

"Well, you do that!" the wife interjected over my shoulder.

Ummm. Yeah.

So we had to explain Google Earth, and the other satellite imagery systems that also allow you to post photos. She wanted, badly, to see a demo on our computer "sometime".

Why wait?

And so, we now know our wireless network reaches their house. Or, at least their backyard. But the signal quality is poor. Too poor for anything as huge as a satellite image file. And we now know they have two other wireless networks that reach their backyard.

We have no idea whose networks they are. The fellow from Europe pointed out that one of those two was not password protected.

"That's how I've been checking my email all week."

But no, the wife and I don't swipe bandwidth.

She got to see their cabin from space while standing in our front yard.

Somewhere between dinner and dessert, I noticed a ring on the 80-year old's daughter's finger. An old, tarnished ring with a large, pale yellow stone that didn't quite nestle comfortably in its setting.

Her childhood friend noticed it also a few minutes later, and asked. As it was passed around, you could see a bright orange streak running through one side of the gem. What a jeweler would call a defect, and we all saw as beauty. Character.

Someone asked where she got it. And her voice became sober.

"A friend gave it to me." Her face turning sad.

"She's dying soon."