My Trusted Friend

 

Farewell, my trusted friend

Somewhere during my junior year of college I decided I would look to leave the Northeast for graduate school. After looking  at all of my options and the onerous task of applying -- typing all of the essays individually on the typewriter above -- I accepted an offer from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. It was a different era and there wasn't a lot of flying around the country to visit my choices. Vanderbilt offered me a fellowship and in August 1972 I got on a plane at Bradley Airport, outside of Hartford and got off in Nashville. I had two things with me. I had my suitcase and my typewriter for a carryon. It was that precious to me and if it was lost I couldn't afford to replace it. I also couldn't do my school work without a typewriter. 

Years passed and the world changed and I've gone through more computers at home and at work than I can remember. But I never had the heart to give away my beloved Smith Corona, even if it sat in the front closet for 32 years. It had taken me through dozens of papers and many late nights where we heard the campus bells chime two and three o'clock in the morning. 

On Tuesday night I was scrolling through my local Buy Nothing Group. I'd offered a bag of bubble wrap and I was hoping someone had wanted it. I saw a post looking for an electric typewriter. The poster thought it was a "unicorn," i.e., practically an impossibility. I wrote back immediately and after several messages, my old friend went to a new home this afternoon. My new friend wanted a typewriter -- not a computer -- for her children to learn to type. I can't think of a better destiny for my typewriter friend. 

For those unfamiliar with Buy Nothing Groups, they're groups on Facebook -- there is an app, too -- for neighbors to give and get things. It's great for finding things you'd need/like and recycling all kinds of things. This week I've sent my typewriter, the bag of bubble wrap and a book to new homes. Besides the benefit of recycling, it's made my big New York world a lot smaller.  

I'm feeling a little melancholy tonight. It's thankfully not often I say goodbye to a friend of 50+ years. I know my friend will be loved and won't be stuck in the corner of the closet any longer, but it's a tough farewell. 

As ever, thanks for visiting and have a great weekend. 

One is Silver and the Other is Gold

I had the good fortune to have a fun lunch on Monday with three women I went to college with. One was my college roommate, who I've kept in touch with for the more than four decades since we graduated, despite living in different cities, states and sometimes, even countries. Happily now we live only a mile apart and just a quick bus ride away. The other two women I didn't know in college, despite all of us being part of a class of not quite four hundred. We connected at our class mini-reunion in April and now I am having the pleasure of making new friends. We have the bonds of shared college years, a love of reading and an enjoyment of art museums as our connections as well as a desire for friendship.

Our lunch made me think about how we form friendships, especially in this changing season of our lives. Through the years many of my friendships were made at work. Most drifted away when we no longer worked together but some grew stronger through the years. I was fortunate to join a book club almost twenty years ago, but that invitation came via work friends. I have also made friends from participation in synagogue activities and that has grown and flourished through the years, too.

A decade ago I made my first foray into social media by signing into a thread on the Weight Watchers site. I didn't expect much -- actually just diet support -- and made a great group of friends all over the country. I was initially hesitant -- what if the women I chatted with weren't who they said they were -- but I took a chance and met one of them who has visiting New York. Julie was exactly who she said she was. Blogging opened up a still wider world and I began to meet my blog buddies who lived all over the world. This week I will spend time with my English blog buddy, Sheilagh, on her third trip to New York. She no longer blogs and I realize it's time to drop the phrase blog buddy. She is simply my friend, no matter how we met.

In another time I was a Brownie and then a Girl Scout. One of my favorite songs was "Make New Friends." We sang it in a round and I never tired of it. The words were simple:

"Make New Friends, But Keep the Old,

One is Silver and the Other is Gold."

I'm pretty sure I will never grow tired of the thoughts in this song. When I was a scout I couldn't imagine all that the song would come to mean and that the treasure my golden friends would be. I also couldn't imagine the beauty of my new beautiful silver friends. You are all treasures. How have you made new friends in the fifty and sixty plus years? Have your thoughts on friendship changed?

I also mentioned date cake on Monday and here is the dessert we shared at our lunch. An almost lava-like cake, but using dates instead of chocolate and a wonderful coconut ice cream to go with it. One thing that has changed is the ability for the four of us to share one very sweet dessert and be quite content. 

  The coconut ice cream is resting on a macaroon-like cookie, which we enjoyed a lot, too. 

To celebrate the first of October I'd like to share this photo. I took it in the area around the restaurant. It's the wholesale flower district and I loved this bright and colorful display.  Welcome October!

I want to apologize for skipping a post yesterday. I saw Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya," last night. It was a good production, but the story is bleak and sad and I wasn't up to posting when I got home. 

Please stop by tomorrow. It's time for a book giveaway.

As ever thanks for visiting and enjoy the autumn. Take good care.  

Stardust and Golden

This is the post I meant to write two or three hours ago. I got home from the gym and thought I'd take a quick look at Facebook before I sat down to do my Pink Saturday post. I saw a link about the forty-fifth anniversary of Woodstock and thought I'd just spend a few minutes listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash singing "Woodstock." This might take fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. One song turned into another and another and I needed to hear several versions of "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" and now it's almost midnight. If you'll let me be very sentimental, I'll do my Pink Saturday post tomorrow, and tonight I'll spend a little while remembering the nineteen year old girl I was in the summer of Woodstock.

In the summer of 1969 I had finished my freshman year of college and was waitressing to earn money for sophomore year. At this point in the summer I had three more weeks of work and if I had taken off a weekend I would have been fired. I was the summer help, and if I left they wouldn't welcome me back. Amazingly enough those three weeks of work would pay for half a semester's tuition. I was practical and knew that I had a good summer job and the rock festival in upstate New York wasn't possible for me. But it didn't mean I didn't want to go. I achingly did.

My college friend Lucy had been there and I loved hearing her stories of the weekend when we were back at school. My friends and I listened to the "Woodstock" album at least a million times, and I'm sure I memorized every word.

Forty-five years have slipped by and I think its been decades since I have thought of that weekend in August I longed to be part of. My thoughts are so similar to those I had about my childhood in my last post. The memories that are the most vivid are the good ones.  It's not the disappointment that rises to the top of my memory, but the times spent with my college friends singing along with the music and laughing.

The nineteen year old Carol could not have imagined the 64 year old woman I became and the world of 2014. But I wouldn't have become the person I am without those New England college years. Thanks, my friends, for so many sweet memories. We were stardust. We were golden, and we still are, forty five years later. 

It's Raining Reunions (1)

It seems that reunions are falling out of the sky. My 40th college reunion is next May. I haven't been to a college reunion, except my fifth, and I did have a good time. But on the whole I have mixed feelings about college and I haven't thought of going to subsequent reunions. I do keep up with a handful of friends -- including K. and my roommate, Jane, who lives down the street. They are among my closest friends I could ever have and feel blessed they are in my life forty-three years after we first met.

For the last few years a woman I was friendly with in college, Mona, has been in touch with me about donations to the annual fund. Despite my feelings about the college, I have made small donations and we have had a nice email correspondence. Last month, to my complete surprise she asked if I wanted to be on our 40th reunion committee. My response was that I couldn't go to reunion as I hadn't kept up with my "group" of friends and couldn't imagine going to reunion without them. For clarification, I went to a women's college and many people lived in "groups," moving each year to a different dorm with the same group of women. When I actually write this now -- forty plus years later -- it seems ludicrous. We keep friends, we make new friends, we change and we grow.

But I was stuck in late adolescence with this issue of my "group." Mona's response was wonderful and kind. Her suggestion was that by working on reunion I would make new friends. What a simple, smart and obvious suggestion. I realized by moving ahead into the future I could transcend the past. How wonderfully liberating.
I'm on the committee and next May I expect to be here, in one of loveliest of all New England towns, moving into the future.

The leaves will be green, not red, but it will be beautiful.