Today’s guest post comes from Jim in Clark’s Grove.
Willie was a classmate of mine at Austin Blair Elementary School in Jackson, Michigan. This school was located in an almost completely white working class neighborhood. Willie was one of a very small number of black kids that attended this school when I was enrolled there in the late forties and early fifties. He was not one of the neighborhood kids that I played with regularly. We did spend some time together in school and also after school. I remember one occasion when I went to his house and was surprised to see that there were beds used for sleeping in most of the rooms, including the kitchen. I guess it was a small house and there wasn’t enough bedrooms for everyone who lived there.
Willie and I were two of the tallest boys in our class. We decided we should work on developing our basketball skills. This included practicing shooting free throws together as well as getting help from a teacher on our shooting skills. I was a good student. Willie had trouble with his studies. I remember thinking that he was being treated as if he wasn’t very smart, but that wasn’t true. It seemed to me that he might have been able to do better in school if he had not been looked upon as someone who wasn’t capable of doing the work.
Racism was not a widely discussed topic in the late forties and early fifties. I had some sense that Willie was a victim of racial prejudice because of the way he was treated in school. I also recall a situation out side of school where racism came into play. Willie asked me if he could be my guest at the church I attended. I asked my parents if Willie could go to church with us. They didn’t seem to be in favor of this and said very little about it. There were no black members in our church and it was a church that many of the people from the best part of town attended. I think both my parents and I would have felt very uncomfortable taking Willie to church with us as a guest.
I let Willie’s request drop without telling him anything.
I don’t remember going to junior high with Willie. I think he went to the junior high in the center of town and I went to the one on the east side. I moved away from Jackson for two years before returning to attend Jackson High during my last two years of high school. It was a large high school and the only class that I think I had with Willie was gym class. One day in gym class Willie and I teamed up to beat another team of basketball players that included a member of the varsity team and some of his friends. Willie and I were not candidates for the varsity team, but we gave those guys a surprise on that day.
I have one last memory of Willie regarding something that happened during preparations for graduation. We were dressed in suit coats and ties. Willie noticed that the way he did his tie was different from the way I did mine. I did up my tie with a plain looking knot that I had learned from my Dad. Willie helped me undo my tie and tie it up again with the more elegant Windsor knot that he used.
Willie and I went our separate ways after graduation. I don’t know what became of him. I do very much appreciate having had the opportunity to become acquainted with him during my years in grade school and high school.
If you could re-connect with an old friend, who would it be and why?
Trail Baboon 
Morning all. Very nice post today, Jim.
When I was young, my family moved about quite a bit – some due to my dad working for the state and being moved and some due to my parent’s wanderlust. I used to think that as soon as they had redecorated every room in a house, it was time to move. The upshot of this was that I had very fleeting friendships as a child and that I was pretty good at entertainming myself.
In third and fourth grades, we stayed in one house for over a year – about the longest we stayed anywhere when I was growing up. Three houses up on the other side of the street was a friend; her name was Sara Strong. She was in my class at school and we played together quite a bit, sometimes with the other kids in the neighborhood. My garage was two story and the upper floor made a perfect playhouse; we played school, we played beauty parlor, we played saloon and grocery store as well in that playhouse.
I didn’t stay in touch with Sara very long after we moved away – that move took us to another city and back before cell phones and long distance plans and email, it wasn’t too long before our letters to each other dwindled to nothing. I think it would be fun to reconnect to see how her life turned out and where she is now.
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I can’t imagine moving around that much, vs. There has to be plenty of material for a good blog in that I would think?
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I’m glad you liked the post, VS. There is an internet service that some of my classmate paid for that helps people track their graduating classes. They weren’t able to find any contact information for Willie. I was surprised to find out that some my old class mates from the graduating class of 1959 have passed away. I guess I shouldn’t been surprised by that. However, I certainly didn’t expect to see that there was a fairly long list of ones that are no longer here.
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sara strong is a great name. sounds like the begining of a shel silverstien poem
i used to play with sara strong
we’d play and play all the day long
up in the playhouse in the afternoon
school grocery and saloon
and then we moved and went away
oh where is sara stron today
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Nice.
Off too a busy day. Department holiday breakfast and then Cantus downtown, but I’ll be back later to hear everybody’s stories!
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I heard the Cantus concert on the radio. I love those guys; they put on a great show.
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Your post really got me thinking, Jim. A lot of old friends are rambling around in my brain right now. While I’m pondering the question, here’s a song about friendship:
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hey jim,
nice blog topic you were a studious looking guy in that photo. your friend looks like he has a football in his hands out of the picture. it is intersting to learn about other parts of the country and other times. i grew up here in bloomington in the 1960s and we had 2 black people. they were so out of place you felt sorry for them just because they were normal people put in such an odd position. to be looked at as the black people in a lily white burb had to be an interesting to go through jr high (they left before high school.)
if i could check in on someone out of my past it would be either ray dewberry or tracy shall remain nameless. ray was my friend in first grade. he was older and so i looked up to him. we played baseball football gin rummy listened to twins games on the radio rode biles to the store to buy baseball cards, hiked the river bottoms and got into trouble for breaking windows by hitting driveway gravel with surveyors sticks out into home run territory in the neighbors back yards (if we hit it good it surpassed the back yard and reached the kitchen /bedroom windows. he wa sa round headed freckle face kid who had kind of a howdy doody way about him but we were pals. his dad worked for hneywell and they move to minnesota form south carolina, the mom and dad stilll talked funny . they had a subscription to playboy and ray would sneak it out sometimes. then one day they got a job tansfer to decca east pakastan. i wrote a couple of letters. he wrote back and that was the end of that. not a very satisfactory way to end your best friends departure. i have looked him up on the internet a couple of times and all the ray dewberry’s of the world seem to be concentrated in the same place but i havnt sent out the note wondering if he has a sister named wanda and another named carolyn. i suppose i need to do that before too much longer just to say hi.
tracy was a friend in high school who was a recent transfer from minneapolis to the burbs. we became friends in a very platonic way even though she was beautiful i never had the inclination to hit on her because i was always involved elsewhere. she moved to eau claire our sr year and then came back to minneapolis after she finished up there. she was kind of without direction and anything to tie her down and she ended up in hilton head south carolina and was hanging with the gorup that imported all the cocaine for the southeastern us back in the 70’s. she talked about it as though she was selling magazine subscriptions and it was very interesting to see someone who had a different set of concerns. when i married my first wife tracy invited us down to hilton head for a honeymoon of sorts. we stopped in on our way to disney world in florida and then came back for the golf tournament that is a real big deal there in early spring. wonderful drive down there form the tundra, through the blooming dogwoods and into the land of slowtalkers (it was my first real extended visit to the south) her house was a nice little cottage on the beach and we enjoyed it very much. her life had recently been disrupted by the feds coming and arresting all her firends form the cocain trade and somehow she had avoided getting accused. she was a little twitchy like they were going to come and get her though. we had a nice visit except for some odd circumstances that were caused by my first wifes quirks more than anything else. tracy was very good and came up with the most wonderful ideas on cool stuff to do, got us tickets to the gold tournament, took us to a local comedy club where sinbad was the up and coming unknown comic in the room of 30 people and funnier than heck, offered large piles of cocaine i felt inclined to pass on because my wife was opposed to this sort of thing ( i rather enjoyed it) and was an all around great friend. that was the last i heard of or from her, i have looked her up on the internet and she has disappeared from the face of the earth. i would love to find her one day to say hello.
thanks jim for the chance to remember this morning.
i look forward to the trails thoughts today.
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Dale came up with the question. He’s very good at doing that as we all know. He also asked me for the pictures of Willie and I which my wife got by photographing pictures in my high school yearbook.
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its a good post without it. its a better post with it
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I would look for a boy named Jim Flattum. He was in a couple of my classes in elementary school, but I remember him most from 4th grade with Mr. Eblen. We sat across the aisle from each other. He was a quiet kid, but creative and quite nice. He carried a Holly Hobbie lunch box and the other kids teased him about it. I didn’t mind the lunch box – I wasn’t a fan of Holly Hobbie, but figured if he wanted to carry a “girl’s” lunch box, it was fine by me. He liked it, so what did it matter if it was a “boy’s” or “girl’s” lunch box? He invited me over to play at his house after school once – I only remember going just that once though I guess I may have gone over another time or two. It was a small house that I think he shared just with his mom. I remember thinking it was sort of sparsely furnished, but cozy. His room was full of stuffed animals and other Holly Hobbie stuff. I don’t think he had many friends and it probably took some courage on his part to invite me over to play, even that once. I would like to say I was a good friend to him, but I’m not sure I was – I think I just had better sympathy for being the teased kid than some of the others and was willing to sit with him at lunch and play during recess with him. I have tried to find him once or twice on Facebook, but I’m not sure I’m finding the right Jim. It would be nice to know that he was able to find a space in the world where he could be comfortable in his own skin and accepted for who he was.
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Do you think Jim was gay, Anna?
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I’d give it an 80% chance, yes.
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Nice post, Jim. Thank you.
Like everyone, so many passed through my life. A couple hundred students I would like to sit down and have a pot of coffee with, but one at a time. Some to apologize to. My U of Chi dorm roommate, who cannot be found, nor Bill Anderson across the hall and his roommate Kenny Raider, who taught me so much about real tolerance, since he was a Jew and I knew only bad thinks about Jews thanks to my parents. Did not believe my parents and then Kenny showed me the depth of a wonderful religion and its culture. Go ahead, find a William Anderson. NYC has many Ken Raiders.
Most of all Annie. We were friends in grades 5 to nine. Then we were boyfriend/girlfriend. Then we did not talk. Then we were friends. Then we were boyfriend/girlfriend. Then we were just friends. Then we graduated. I could have found her; spoke to her mother often. Her mother lived the other side of Silver Cliff from me. The house was torn down to build the tunnel. Then her mother died. All my fault all the way through the relationship. I was too immature for her as a boyfriend. Then I felt regret or remorse and just did not know what to say. Would not know now. But she was that friend with whom I had that bond of friendship that says we are soulmates.
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Clyde, I suppose Annie is somewhat similar to the friend you included in your book, but different to some extent from that fictional person.
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No, she is not a model for the girl in my book. Very different kind of person. Annie is quiet, contemplative, very careful of how she impacted others, or was that way 60 years ago. Beautiful black hair and deep dark day eyes. Swam upstream but very quietly.
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thats what this post is good for. reflecting a bit. nice to make contact with those we havent made cntact with for a while. even it is a little one sided
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I had a good friend named Julie who was two years older than I was, who i met when we moved into our second house in Luverne. She lived two houses west of us, and we became inseparable during mid elementary and junior high school. I found it very frustrating that on Sundays, when we could have had lots of time to hang out, she had to go to church not once but twice. After she graduated she went to Calvin College in Michigan (she was from a Dutch Reformed family). We totally lost contact and she died of cancer a couple of years ago.
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The more I ponder this question, the more the answer is obvious: Tia C, my best friend from college. It’s not that I have lost contact with Tia, it’s that she has lost herself. I want the old Tia back.
Tia was always a lot of fun to be around. The daughter of Polish immigrants, she grew up in Chicago. I met her while waitressing at the College Inn the summer before I started college; she was a junior at SIU. Polar opposites, me a 5’9″, 120 lb beanpole, she a 5’2″ voluptuous, 200 lb firecracker; we became fast friends. Tia was smart, boisterous, and gregarious; she knew the most interesting people. We’d talk for hours and always enjoyed each other’s company. We stayed in contact when she graduated and moved back to Chicago to teach. Tia and her boyfriend, now husband, Bob, (also an old friend from SIU) have visited my family in Denmark, and my family have visited them in Chicago. Tia’s was my maid of honor when I married Hans, and I hers when she married Bob. The four of us share a warm friendship, the kind where you can talk about anything. You get the idea, we’re the best of friends, really more like family.
For the past couple of years it has been increasingly difficult to talk with Tia. It’s always a litany of complaints about which she chooses to do nothing. She rarely answers her phone, doesn’t respond to emails, and her Facebook postings are nothing short of alarming. I’ve had a couple of phone conversations with Bob, he says she’s depressed. Her doctor has her on antidepressants, and she’s been seeing a counselor for several years. Nothing is helping. Tia and Bob’s marriage has not been happy for many years, and I’m guessing that now that their children are grown and have moved away, it’s a crisis situation. Tia’s mom is 97 years old and has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, that may also factor in there too. (Tia’s dad passed away 25 years ago, and it took Tia several years to get over that.) I’m very, very concerned about what’s going on with Tia, and I wish I could think of something to do that might help. The joyful Tia, so spirited and full of life has vanished, and I fear she may not come back. She’s pushing old friends away in favor of communicating with Facebook friends, many of whom she’s never met. This is very, very painful to watch.
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That’s very sad, PJ. I hope your friend finds some relief and can find a solution to the problems that she is facing.
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its hard to watch someone do the crash and burn. i think the face book phenomenon is a new avenue for this type of person. its easy to cry in your beer to people who dont know you and you can be who ever you want to be whenever you want. its touchy for well folks, devastating for depressed folks. good luck. if shes open to it i know some other ways of dealing with depression that may be worth a shot. i doubt it would be easy to get her to lok at it though.
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tim, it’s one of those situations that I think she knows what she needs to do, but for whatever complicated reasons isn’t willing to do it. Any ideas for how to deal with the depression are most welcome, I know that my instinct to grab her by the shoulders and shake her won’t work.
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I have spent many a dark day with the dark guest and know how hard it is on those who know and love the sufferer. He’s been knocking at my door lately.
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So sorry to hear that, Clyde., hope you have some strategies for dealing with it? My mother suffered terribly from depression much of her life, to the point of receiving what in those days was called “shock” treatments. I think we’re making progress in at least being willing to broach the subject now. Back then it was pretty much a shameful thing you tried to hide.
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When I was younger I believed I could help people like your friend, PJ. One of the lessons of age has been that we rarely can intercede like that, or if we do we will rarely see the outcome we intended. We can love friends in pain and offer help, but often we need to accept the agony of being a bystander as they do what they will do.
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We have some good pharmacopia, but somehow those drugs have developed bad press and a social stigma. My nutsy brother–another person with whom I would wish to connect and whose non-Christmas card is a whole novel of pain and guilt and depression–will not take anything because only weak people would do that and he doesn’t need them and he is ashamed to have a brother who had depression and used the drugs and he doesn’t have any damn depression.
The problem with depression, as I see it, is how the disease defends itself. You have to fight to stay on the drugs. Drugs and time got me through it. Did some talk therapy, which helped some, mostly because the therapist said he was there to support the drugs and monitored my use.
One of my wife’s friends does well on Prozac and then she goes to her Fundy church which says she must rely only on God to clear her or she is not worthy of God. So she goes off it and her husband and my wife have to get her back on it.
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Steve, I know full well that I can’t “fix” her, make her better. I hoping that with the right help that she’ll be able to do some of the important work that she has to do. I can’t support her in some of the self-destructive behavior she’s exhibiting right now. It’s so obvious that a couple of casual acquaintances of Tia, and mutual Facebook friends, have asked me what’s going on with her.
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I served a church of about 100 mostly older members, about 60 of which were fairly regular. I gave a sermon once a year on disorders like depression and bipolarism, and anxiety disorders, admitting my battle. About 10 of them would lavish thanks on me for doing it, but quietly, and everyone was positive about my doing it.
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homeopathy has some remedies that replace the chemicals your body mispalced along the way. they are not drugs they re tweaks form nuts and berries to the point where you were before it started becoming an issue. i have a friend out in californa who deals with manic s and paranoids as well as depression and fear issues with homeopathic remedies. im so close to perfect thanks to homeopathy.
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Trust and follow your “instinct”, PJ. One of the biggest problems that depression brings with it is a growing sense of powerlessness on the part of those around us. People tend to walk on eggshells around someone gripped by depression – not all that different than adapting to an alcoholic rather than confronting the elephant in the living room. Your instinct is right on target: grab her by her metaphorical shoulders and shake her with your love, concern and feedback. Tell her how much you miss the old Tia. The worst that could happen is she’s so far gone that your honesty won’t move the needle. At best, perhaps you can be her own personal “wake-up” call? I strongly question whether she’s getting effective therapy if this state has been going on “for years”, too. The contemporary definition of depression is “anger held in and turned against the self”. This makes me wonder from where that much self-loathing originated? Regardless, it sure
appears to me that her therapist hasn’t “cracked the code” after so many years.
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I shouldn’t disagree with a professional therapist, CB, but my life’s experience points toward a different conclusion than the one you draw. I’d say at least half the people I know who are depressed are depressed (if maybe a bit less so) after decades of therapy and medications. To say the least, it is a disorder that burrows in deep in the soul and morphs as often as it can in order to remain beyond the reach of treatment.
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Clyde, the courage it must have taken to get up there and give that kind of sermon, admit to that kind of vulnerability, is truly admirable. Knowing that so many people will think less of you for it, yet recognizing that you’ll help more by doing it, truly takes guts. It is that kind of courage that is responsible for driving some of our demons out of hiding. I salute you.
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You are giving me too much credit, really. I did it originally for a reason I cannot explain in
detail but to show public support for someone. My only message was the simple one, using healing miracles as the text, to say that such diseases are just a disease, a chemical fault of the body and not a character flaw that people cannot just snap out of with their own will. That is the main point I would always make. People in deep clinical depression are not choosing to live in dark and unless you have been there, you do not know darkness; the chemicals in their bodies are doing it. Being depressed, feeling blue, is a long way from being clinically depressed, being utterly worn out emotionally, feeling distant from everyone, feeling unworthy, which is hard for some to accept. To feel that your life needs to just end and be done with much of the time. I owe my wife years more of constant care for her care and support of me, even thought she still admits she simply cannot understand why I did not just choose to stop being that way. I did things, just weird, not immoral or anything in my darkest hours, that I still will not admit to.
For about 18 years I have been able to deal without easily without drugs. I have developed self-talk to keep it in control, which I could not have done in the dark years.
Stigmatization is still very common, but in the right context I admit to it and explain. My ex-partners wife fiercely attacked me for it and she has a Ph.D. in school psychology. My wife’s best friend, a former director a private social service program, clearly has a diminished opinion of me for it.
My ever-lingering effects: 1) I do not like when the phone rings or getting the mail
because it may be bad news 2) I feel a lot of guilt for passing on the disease to my
children, and I mean passed on genetically only.
Oops, that was a sermon. Sorry.
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MY WP has been awful today and sort of messed that long post up.
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It’s INFURIATING to hear that people in the areas of school psychology and social service would not only think less of you but attack you for something beyond your control. Not to mention that they had a personal relationship with you.
Grrrr!
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Thanks Clyde, for sharing what clearly has to be very private thoughts. I think I better understand your devotion to your wife knowing that she has supported you through your difficult times. That’s what love and commitment are about.
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Lovely post, Jim.
I’ve lost several friends to death, including three this year. But I was on good terms with all of them except two, and so I have no special need to reconnect with them. Two of my dead friends were not able to sustain a stable, candid relationship with me. I have so many questions I would ask of them, but they wouldn’t know how to reply. So I shall leave their ghosts peacefully asleep.
The friend I most would like to contact is one of the women I dated in my Match.com days. Beth was one of the most stunningly original people I’ve met, a gifted artist and musician whose greatest gift was her ability to love. Nothing about her was conventional or boring. She lived in poverty because, although she made a handsome salary, she spent almost every dollar she made on her daughters’ education at the most expensive private school in the state. She had a doctorate in music from Illinois, but she kept her home silent almost all of the time because music was such a passionate thing for her that she had to give herself to it totally or just have silence. I could go on and on. She was a total enigma to me for months and then a puzzle I could not solve. We dated for two and a half years before the seventh breakup proved to be the one that was final.
Romantic friends are so complicated and so difficult to lose, if the romance dies. They are your best friend in the world and the person you love . . . and then if the romance fails they become a person you cannot even contact with a casual email. I guess that’s why so many people go on writing songs about this, trying to find the words to express the inexpressible.
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True, true.
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or to reexpress the easily expressible. everyone can say how bad it feels and i think its food therapy to get it out. hank williams and paul simon and paul mc cartney all say it differently but they dont let the other guy shut them up. they have a story to tell thats been told a million times before.
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Food therapy! I could get into that.
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A lot of us engage in it!
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Yes, I regret letting one friendship turn romantic, because after the break-up, the friendship died.
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Yes. I can’t contact my ex-boyfriend. He’s married now and living somewhere out in Washington state. He was the perfect guy for me and will always be the kind of man I think of as being the “right” one. He left me for his current wife and I still grieve. My friends do not want to hear about my feelings and are frustrated by my complete inability to get over him (it’s been since 1997). The pain of it is much less now but I just can’t imagine myself with anyone else.
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What a thoughtful guest post, Jim. There are a number of people who pop into my memory at odd times, that I would like to contact again. Trudy down the hall in my freshman dorm; Jim from 6th grade, ran into him once at Iowa State; Jane who lived around the corner from us that one year we lived down by Storm Lake… I am a hanger on to people – am still in contact at Christmas, anyway, with at least one person from each location I’ve lived. (Makes for a long Christmas list.) But I long to be in closer contact with Jennifer, my best friend from high school – thought we would be forever as close as we were then, but it is now one sided.
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Nice post today, Jim. And lots of sweet, sad memories have been elicited.
I often think of the fact that the youth of today will probably never have the experience of losing (and possibly finding) someone. Unless an “unfriending” happens along the way, they will be connected forever.
I did track down a few elementary friends on FB (we went to different high schools). It’s interesting to see how similarly we have turned out politically except for one right-wingish sounding one.
My “would-like-to-sees” are pretty casual. From elementary school, I remember charming red-head, Molly Day. I went to great birthday party at her house and recall being sad that she moved away. It’s especially tough to find women with common names who have married on top of it.
The other was one of the two Shelleys in my elementary classes. (we have a pair of Shelleys in our choir who are partners – I guess they come in twos).
Her name was Shelley Marcotte but for some reason I called her Shelpa Marcottey. That indicates some fondness but I don’t remember anything else.
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I could write a list of those with whom I do not want contact, like almost all of my class.
One of my classmates I did have contact with asked me by email to become friends on facebook. I demurred. She pleaded. I did. About 16 other classmates asked for a friendship link. I accepted all and then took about 7 off because I do not want to read lots of swearing or bigotry or strong political statements. Those who are left keep asking why I do not go to reunions, will I go to reunions, can they list my contact information? I could maybe make contact with Annie if I pushed it. But I would no doubt make contacts I do not want. Right now I am holding a request from one of them to add my address to the reunion book. I am trying to decide. The woman, Kathy, who is asking me, is an interesting woman with whom I was friends at a very young age because our parents were friends. Then she went to the wild side, which was about 70% of my class (you think I am exaggerating but I not). But she and I have formed a friendship by fb, sharing our stories about depression and not being able to handle crowds, about my fm and her daughters, about life. It has been nice. So I guess I need to say yes to her. She is on the reunion committee after never having gone before. Forcing herself not to isolate herself.
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I have passed up class reunions because there isn’t anyone from my high school that I have been in touch with for a great many years. The people who work on the high school reunions found me because I am on Facebook. I only use Facebook for a very limited number of contacts. I guess it is possible I would get some good out of going to a class reunion and making more use of Facebook. I have more than enough things in my life, so I don’t think I will add class reunions and more use of Facebook. I do very much like participating in this blog which maybe in some way takes the place getting reconnected with my classmates or doing more on Facebook.
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Molly Day. I want to steal that name and write a book about her. Molly Day.
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Jim – when I read your post, it reflected a very sensitive and man: you. It made me fantasize that you could put in the effort to track this man down and, after so many decades, tell him how sorry you are that you ignored his request to go to church with your family. Please forgive me for this takeaway from your touching story – I watch far too many movies.
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I agree about trying to find Willie. Have you tried googling him or looking for him via the internet?
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I made a little effort to find him on the internet. His name is one used by very many people. He wasn’t actually a close friend. He was someone that I liked and we did spend some time together. Those things I recalled and included in the blog are most of what I remember about him. I certainly would like to get in touch with him if I could.
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Did you notice that one of my missing past friends is also named William Anderson?
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Now I see that you also knew a person named William Anderson, Clyde. I wonder how that happened?.
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Oops – “it reflected a very sensitive and OBSERVANT man”
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Michelle (Mickey) McDermott. Mickey was one year older than me when we lived across the street from each other on South Grove Street in Owatonna in the mid-60s. We were best friends and I still remember her phone number, her smile and her blue eyes and dark brown hair. She came from a large, Catholic family and my family was small and Presbyterian (when I was a kid – we stopped going to church entirely when I turned 11.) We had great fun playing outside together in a large vacant lot behind their house. We shared secrets and toys and clothes and everything that young girl friends share. We formed a “Gallant Gals” ecology club and invited other girls to join us. Mostly we picked up litter and climbed trees.
My family always had a place on Cannon Lake – it was my paternal grandmother’s property – but it was only seasonal until I was 11. Mickey stayed there overnight with me on several occasions. We moved there permanently when I entered Junior High and Mickey and I lost touch. A few letters passed between us but eventually stopped.
I saw a picture of her once, long ago, and I remember thinking that she was so beautiful. I have no idea how to find her now because I’m sure her last name isn’t “McDermott” anymore. I think some of her male siblings are still around but I’m not sure if they’re really her brothers. I’d like to see her again.
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Well done, Jim! I should’ve said that first!
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Cantus was fabulous – it was a live MPR broadcast so saw Mike P scurring around as producer. Didn’t get to talk to him as he was in the middle of something at the end of the concert.
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Just back from Christmas Tea with three old friends at the St. Paul Hotel. Very nice social occasion. Rather non-traditional tea, but a delicious five course meal. I’m in the spirit!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIMJBDj_JkE
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Perfect again, Holly!
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Unlike yesterday, I thought that this one might come up today. Excellent choice, Holly.
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I keep wondering what you DID think I would post yesterday, PJ.
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Me too.
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I won’t tell!
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Since I have an uncommon last name, and I haven’t changed it in my lifetime, I am pretty easy for people to look up on Facebook. I’ve heard from a few people I haven’t seen in decades. I’ll mention a couple of them, but without using their real names.
One was a friend from junior high – I’ll call her Carla. I remember she sat behind me in 8th grade English and always made me laugh. She had a somewhat difficult home life – she had a wonderful, funny father whom she adored, but her mother was sort of unstable – would probably be termed bipolar in today’s world. I didn’t keep in touch with Carla, but a year ago or so we had a Facebook conversation. She said she remembered I had given her a little ivy plant which she kept and grew for years, and kept it going till it reached a length of about 15 feet.
Another was a college-age girl – I’ll call her Geri – who worked with me when I managed a bookstore. I chose her to be a supervisor because her people skills were excellent – all the customers loved her. Again, a Facebook conversation out of the blue. She talked about a Sunday morning when she had been working at the store, and it was my day off. She said she had called me at home because she couldn’t get the sales recap to balance, and I had come in to the store to help her and brought cinnamon bread.
The funny thing is, I have no recollection of Carla’s ivy plant, or of that Sunday morning Geri remembers.
All of this, Jim, is a long way of saying that I really believe if you could contact Willie today, he wouldn’t remember the incident about the church that apparently still gives you pain. He would likely remember something from your friendship that you have forgotten completely, perhaps something that would show you to be a better friend than you actually remember being. After all, you accepted him for the person he was, and there is value in that.
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Yes.
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Agreed.
I wonder how many people can say you are the only one of your name in the US, like me.
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I also imagine that he likely has a long history of being “slighted” or not accepting, so even if he doesn’t recall his rebuffed request to attend your church, just having someone from so long ago apologize for it could heal other similar hurts from that time. Just a thought.
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Linda, you’re so right. So much of what makes an impression on us, and so much of what we regret, are really small, insignificant things. One small kindness shown to another, one small slight, may each carry a significance because of the moment. Opt for the kindness when possible, better leave a legacy of fond memories than a string of victories purchased at someone else’s expense. Be careful, memories are created not out of the carefully orchestrated highlights but from the details that go into everyday living.
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Beautifully said, PJ.
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Wow, lots of baboon wisdom in here today.
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