“The doctor told me I had ten years left. I said that’s perfect!”

We have just sped vigorously up a mountain highway, tailing a sporty Mercedes SUV as its 70-year-old operator led us to her mountain home, where she spends peaceful stretches in a Chautauqua (I had to look up what that meant). Within moments of exiting the interstate, we’ve explained ourselves at a guard station and entered a world that predates our usual modernity.

Having delivered her terminal diagnosis in the bounciest way possible, Elizabeth concluded our tour of the house with the presentation of their community book. It would need to be referenced several times that weekend because there are a few interesting rules to abide by. My favorite is that children are not allowed to be anywhere other than snug in their leafy early-century bungalows from the hours of 1pm to 3pm daily. You might be thinking that this sounds like something a group of older people would come up with. That would be correct.

All four Chapmans are present for this trip and Elizabeth has a friend coming Saturday morning. We cover very little of the floor space on offer in this completely renovated beauty that I’m pretty sure used to be a modest hotel. The kitchen is beyond gorgeous but our host prefers to use a counter-top air fryer if she’s cooking. After meeting for a Friday afternoon showing of The Barbie Movie in the nearest town with a theater, I am quickly reminded that my duties are to be the chef and sole male representative for the weekend.

Thinking ahead, I had pre-assembled a baked pasta with pork slowly cooked in Allison’s family red sauce. All we had to do now was figure out how to work this very french oven. It had industrial handles and knobs that meant business. There was also no way to see your food as it was cooking behind cast iron doors. Let’s just say it took longer than expected to brown that cheese topping.

We catch up on family stories over dinner. Explaining our connection to this hilarious woman can feel complicated at times. She was Allison’s stepmom for a handful of years, during a period that encompassed high school and college. Ex-step-mom doesn’t do the relationship justice, as Elizabeth has stayed close with everyone, even Allison’s mom. They used to get together and roast their mutual ex-husband for a good laugh. More recently, she was a noted saint in helping us manage the decline of Geoff’s health, being the last one to visit him before he passed.

What I love about Elizabeth is she has reached the point in life where she does what she wants. It is a remarkable case study. Her golf cart is whisper quiet when it backs up. One imagines a scene where a technician says “yes m’am” when she tells him the factory-installed safety beeps simply won’t do. Life is here to live and there is a definitive timeline. Might as well enjoy it.

A proud forty years sober, Elizabeth gets down with bridge. We gather from the book of visitors that a handful of weeks a year are intensive sessions with various groups and professional instruction. Her enthusiasm made me want to round up all the neighborhood dads and tell them we’re starting a bridge club.

As daylight fades, we get a walking tour of the Chautauqua. This whole scene is straight out of Dirty Dancing. Long, ancient-looking wooden footbridges connecting a wide array of forest green buildings one would imagine at camp. Any given night, there could be movies playing in the gym, a kid’s dance in the activity hall or a community potluck drawing folks to a freestanding cafeteria. The pace is slower. So slow, in fact, that the community cop (known predictably as Barney Fife by the locals) regularly nabs anyone enthusiastic enough to go 20 miles per hour.

The houses in our vicinity all seemed to contain great friends that had known Elizabeth for years. And if they didn’t, she still walked right on in to say hey. Most were relaxing on the kind of porches your grandmother had back in the day. Gentle laughter and the swinging of screen doors would occasionally punctuate the hum of cicadas and sagging fans.

We put the kids down and our adult triumvirate capped off the evening with a terrifying movie (picked by our host) about a fella who kidnaps young women and sells off their body parts while still keeping them alive. Elizabeth had a personal connection to makers of the film and enjoyed saying “y’all watch this!” in her Tennessee soprano right before another character was hacked to pieces.

The next morning, I awoke early for a quick jog around the community. It’s rare that I go off on any trip without google mapping the hell out of a place, but it simply wasn’t possible here. I definitely got lost for a smidge and it was unclear as to whether a few neighborhood rules were violated in the process of finding my way again.

After treating our crew with some of Chappy’s famous homemade biscuits and a fanciful breakfast spread, I was thrown the keys to the Mercedes. There was a minor drain issue, so as the resident fella it was my pleasure to act as chauffeur slash plumber while we knocked it out. She encouraged me to leg out the AMG all the way to Ace Hardware and back, at least until we were approaching officer Fife’s favorite hiding spot. Some excesses aren’t worth the trouble.

We were already on pace for a lively morning and then Cornelia arrived with her big fluffy black dog, Molly. It took me a bit to decipher the correct spelling because Elizabeth went for the more efficient and southern “Ca-neel-yah.” By the end of the day, we would be kindly asked to take custody of Molly if Cornelia passed. Not to ruin the ending, but we all got along like thieves.

I enjoyed the dynamic of these two ladies in their eighth decade. Unburdened by the yoke of men, one had taken to farm life outside the city with an exceptional dog and amazing view. The other presided as matriarch over the close-knit suburban family her boys had expanded. They knew one another’s strengths, and, more amusingly, weaknesses as they constantly teased one another for being like they always had.

After a heartwarming game of fetch with Molly, we loaded up on the golf cart and made our first of four trips that day to the Arts & Crafts fair. The ladies were in their element. I always hit up the tables of pickled things and hot sauce first, but we quickly found out that this is how Elizabeth decorates her houses. Vendors hardly knew what was coming. When we finally caught up, our rendezvous was at a booth offering handmade stained glass artwork. I struck up conversation with the proprietors as they sweated in the summer sun. They were spending brief nights at a nearby hotel between marathon sessions onsite here in peak tourist season.

We were asked about a few pieces that had apparently made the final cut for purchase, but not much thought had been dedicated to exactly where they would hang. Thus began a lengthy series of trips back and forth to the house, the final one including the vendors who surely thought they would be headed back to the hotel after the fair shut down for the day.

I began to prepare our meal of burgers and simple sides, feeling like it was well within my wheelhouse. The grill was state of the art and still looked new. The propane tanks, I was assured, had recently been filled. I got the fire going on the first try and walked away for a casual beverage.

Guests began to arrive for dinner and most inquired out of earshot who the genteel older African American couple was. It took me a few tries before I could explain what was happening without making it sound like our host had taken hostages who were now decorating her house. Without the proper equipment to hang heavier works, Elizabeth had spirited away the gentlemen in the Mercedes down to the Ace Hardware. His wife, still looking spent from a long day out in the sun, accepted our offer of some chilled white wine. That made us all feel a little better in the event the police showed up.

Eventually, everything was in its place and the spent artisans refused an invitation for dinner. I walked out to throw on our burgers and the flames were extinguished. Our primary tank was empty. So was the backup. My mind reeled for a minute with twenty raw hamburgers still sitting on that platter. For all of the grief I gave Elizabeth about her air fryer, it sure did come in handy as we rallied to feed the starving faithful. After the meal, Cornelia asked us all to stand back as she did an impromptu demo of Dawn Power Wash spray on the mountain of beef-fat covered dishes. This blog currently receives no sponsorship, but I’ll be damned if that stuff didn’t work some impressive magic.

As the night came to a close, I found myself rocking away on the front porch with wives and ex-wives from the neighborhood. They shared various complaints about men, with some offenders being named specifically. It felt like I had been accepted into the fold as their own. First The Barbie Movie, then extreme craft fairing, and now I was gently sipping from a zesty pinot grigio while happily belittling my own kind.

Before we could get too settled, Elizabeth whisked us away to the various evening happenings in the neighborhood. Our girls danced to a DJ who was smart enough to go heavy on Taylor Swift. Faces that were new and fresh one evening previous were now familiar friends. Just like the last night of camp, we were making plans to do it again next year.

On Sunday morning, we collected our things and gathered around the kitchen island for extended goodbyes and promises to keep in touch. Big hugs for Elizabeth and Cornelia. One last game of fetch with Molly. I gave them my number and affirmation that we would indeed add this precious dog to our fold if the moment unfortunately arose.

If I’m seventy and still living with the vibrancy of these ladies, I would count this time on earth as a resounding success. We’re all going to be faced with suffering and situations beyond our control, but wouldn’t you want to be the person who hears they have ten more years left and decides to make the most of it?

We're headed back this July and I can’t wait to get the band back together. Cheers to one more year of living and whatever comes next.