Ruined 'surprise'
retirement party set for Linda Alt
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September 7, 2011 |
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| Linda and
John Alt were the guests of honor at a
courthouse breakfast outside the door
she opened for 19 years, but John and
their sons are putting together a real
celebration. |
After 19 years as the smiling and
ever-accommodating face behind the counter at
the county motor vehicle licensing office, Linda
Alt joined her husband, John Alt, who retired
from County Road and Bridge a few years ago, as
a retiree herself.
Her official last day of "work" with the county
was August 31, last Wednesday, but everyone who
knows her knows that with all the free time she
now has on her hands, her real work, just like
John's, is only beginning.
After John's retirement, he continued to work
hard on the family farm in Paradise Valley and
in the butchering and packaging business he
founded. John's slowed down some in the years
since, getting out of the butcher business, for
instance, but he's still a dynamo, going pretty
much from sun up to sun down and even later or
earlier as the need arises.
And even while working full time, Linda has
never been a shirker when it came to doing what
had to be done either on the farm or in the
community she grew up in. She's a Badger
Booster, a Rotarian, a member of several local
ladies' societies and one of the driving forces
behind the Boundary County All-Class Reunion
that takes place only once every five years
because the other four a so much needed for
planning, organizing, tracking and getting all
the letters out.
She's also the matriarch of the family dynasty,
always present and part of just about every
special occasion in their lives, be it
grandaughter Savannah's first recital or
grandson Derrick Alonzo-Alt's graduation from
Air Force basic training.
By all accounts, Linda isn't likely to slow down
in retirement, but to speed up.
She knows her husband and her family so well
that what had been planned as a surprise party
by John and sons Don and Pat, is no longer a
surprise to the guest of honor, but a
get-together to which everyone who knows and
loves her is invited, and you don't have to
bring anything but yourself ... John and the
boys are doing all the work.
What led her to burst the bubble of secrecy, she
said, was John telling her he needed to go
shopping at Costco.
"John hates shopping, and it has always taken
something drastic to get him to go to the
store," Linda said. "It wasn't too hard to
figure out after he told me that."
John, Don and Pat and everyone else in Linda's
tight-knit clan invite you to her "official"
retirement party, taking place between 3 and 6
p.m. Saturday, September 10, at Paradise Valley
Fire Station 1 on Paradise Valley Road,
just a couple of miles from where John and Linda
let the district use their land long ago for an
old, now idled fire station.
They'll be serving up barbecue pork and beef
with all the trimmings.
And almost as soon as it's done, Linda will most
likely go right back to work, getting ready for
the upcoming CommUnity Breakfast, taking place
in the Middle School lunchroom from 7 to 10 a.m.
Saturday, September 17. |
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