The conference center is licensed for all kinds of gatherings, and has a regular staff of cooks. Volunteers do the clean-up.
The main dining room has about 20 long tables, with oil-cloth coverings. I suppose every ole lady who has been here has brought her favorite plastic flower arrangement - a personalized assortment of dimestore daffodils, lily of the valley, red tulips, and pink daisys, all with startling neon colors in a teddybear holder rimmed with blue Forget-me-nots. Even from a distance the razor-sharp stamens and pistols inside the Passion Flowers would have injured any probing bee. These were definitely bouquets that were meant to last a long time. A few had faded along the windowsill. The reds had turned to blushes of adolescent pink, the blues had clouded over into the greys of winter snow, and the yellows lagged behind, without perk or notice.
You'll see these floral offerings on oil-cloths in the Senior Center in Augusta, Montana. Even in that little one horse town, Aunt Pearl made sure daffodils were in bloom even if winter temperatures were 20 degrees below zero.
