48 Years Later ...

In early June of 1964, despite flooding from heavy May rains and a heavy snow melt from the Rockies that had burst dams, carried off bridges and chunks of the paved highway and other roads in the north-central part of my birth state of Montana, my intrepid father drove me in the family car to the "Big City," aka Great Falls, where I would board an airplane for the first time in my life. This journey would take me to a truly large city, Philadelphia, PA.  There I would meet with several other groups of prospective Peace Corps Volunteers to be physically and mentally assessed beyond our initial qualifying physical and mental assessments and have our teeth and eyes checked. Providing that no previously indiscernible disqualifying tendency had emerged in the meantime, I would join the Morocco III group. Together, we would go on to Princeton University for a couple months of training in languages, pedagogical methods, Middle Eastern and North African cultural studies, contemporary American issues and a bunch of miscellaneous other skills deemed necessary for our survival in North Africa for the next two years.

There were generally two routes to get us to Great Falls. One was the highway, which had not suffered the flooding with grace, and was also the longer route - 120 miles. The other was a gravel road, which had the advantage of being shorter (90 miles) and from all accounts, was less damaged. According to local lore, it had once served as a bootlegging route dating from the days of Prohibition. We took the bootlegger route that day and had little trouble. But in many respects, there has been a lot of water under a lot of bridges since that day in 1964.

Morocco III turned out to be an exceptionally close-knit group - and so most of us have remained these many, many years later, in large part due to the driving force of one member, our beloved "J-J," aka "Jean-Jacques." This is not at all his real name, of course, but he chose it "back in the day" and it is how we all remember him best.

Since 2004, J-J has tirelessly worked with other members of the group to organize Morocco III reunions every four years, with the location generally being determined by the hosts. Thus we have met in Saint-Paul, MN, in Sacramento, CA and this year, in beautiful Martha's Vineyard. Today, I received some photos from the reunion, which I was unfortunately unable to attend.

We are not an "exclusive" group. If other returned Morocco PCVs happen to be in the area, occasionally they also show up and are welcome. Generally we like to do whatever is most done, thus some attendees tried their hand at fishing, reminiscent of the fishing some did on the North African side of The Pond.

But the real draw this year was something that the New England coast is well-known for: lobster with roasted ears of corn!

Everyone clearly had a wonderful time!