I still fondly recall the gala outdoor luau held at the Valley Forge Sons of the Desert convention in 1986, complete with a pig roast, music, and the warm night air – so it was a little disappointing to find that the Augusta convention Friday night luau would be held indoors in a stuffy banquet room. Not that it wouldn’t have been miserable in the Georgia humidity, but still it was a bit of a letdown.
Bob had forced us to get a trio of Hilo Hattie Hawaiian shirts to wear for this event (I gave the third one to David when Carolyn dropped out of the mix), so we all went wearing identical shirts. It was cute, in a way – if you’re into that sort of thing. There wasn’t a great deal of entertainment and the food wasn’t Hawaiian, but nonetheless, we had a nice time.
During the proceedings, we all participated in the traditional Parade of Tents. Since our tent is Oasis 154, we didn’t go up until close to the end. When we finally did, I began by speaking in a Russian accent, paying tribute to so many of our fellow Sons who were speaking in accents from their respective countries. It got a big laugh, despite not being very funny. I told everyone that although we were from Dayton, we did have someone in our tent that had travelled from overseas: Karen-Marie the foreign exchange student from Denmark who had come with Gene and Ellen.
Ashleigh, too, was called up to the stage to accept her prize for our victory in the scanvenger hunt in Harlem. This prompted even more jibes from Lori, 
who had claimied that her team was the victor. In this case, possession was 10/10ths of the law. Ashleigh won a keepsake box with the convention logo and a $75 gift certificate to the hotel restaurant.
All in all, it was a swell time – with typical Sons comraderie. This was our last night with Bob, as we were making the scheduled trip to Stone Mountain on Saturday morning and he was leaving for South Africa via Washington D.C. We still had one more full day of fun and frolics.
The convention will continue at Stone Mountain…
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