It was “Western” night last Saturday at the monthly Beach Club potluck dinner. We dug out the cowboy clothes and joined the other Roy Rogers and Dale Evans wannabes for the last dinner of the season until next September.

Cowboy tunes were performed live by a fellow dressed all in black who sang well, in addition to preferring to be called T-Bone. Hey, we all have an ego.

Fran Bodman continues to do a great job coordinating these get-togethers, as she has for several years. She burdens her partner, Steven Gross, with the job of acting as master of ceremonies for the evenings, and he has dutifully provided humor of dubious quality for several years. Fran is trying to get some help coordinating for the future, so she asked for volunteers to each lead one of the dinners next year and got several folks to sign up. BJ signed up after I confirmed there was no requirement to keep Steven on as the MC. Harsh, I know.

We celebrated Father’s Day most of last weekend. It started Friday as we loaded Pang’s “overpacked” suitcases into the car for the initial leg of her return to Thailand. We started with dinner at our son’s home in Seattle, joined by our daughter and her family. The evening gave them an opportunity to present me with cards and presents for Dad’s Day.

I received a couple of books, one of which is a signed copy of “My Old Man and the Mountain,” a memoir by Leif Whittaker. Leif is the son of Port Townsend’s Jim Whittaker, the first American to ascend Mount Everest. It looks like an interesting read.

Then, it was off to Sea-Tac to put Pang on a 1:50 a.m. flight home. The departure time was the bad news. The good news is that we got there early enough to get her overweight bags checked in and paid for. BJ and I were absolutely astounded at the size and number of boxes being checked in by other travelers.

It appeared they might be moving, but we have also heard that many Asian visitors to the U.S. load up on cheaper presents for friends and family at home. Shoot, wasn’t most of that stuff made in Asia anyway?

In addition, all these Rotary Foreign Exchange students like Pang have blazers that get adorned with small flags and buttons from the various people and experiences encountered during their stay in the U.S. Pang had tokens as diverse as a big button from Disneyland to a small pin from Wabash College. BJ found her a pin from DePauw as well. Anyway, the coat weighed another 5 pounds, and she was quite a sight taking it through security. Since it was an international flight, she had to check in a couple of hours early, so we were able to hit the road home rather than wait for her departure.

We actually got back to Port Ludlow 90 minutes before her plane took off.

The next day, I found she had left me a box of Russell Stover chocolates for Father’s Day. Yep, we will miss her. In the spirit of Father’s Day, I offer this sage observation by Charles Wadsworth: “By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he has a son who thinks he is wrong.”

(Port Ludlow resident Ned Luce writes this column weekly. Connect with him at nedluce@sbcglobal.net.)