In this digital age, it's easy to keep tabs on friends using social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat - and those are just the old people apps, as the kids are using TikTok and lord knows what else to keep in touch.
But once upon a time, we used pen and paper to forge a connection.
I feel like I've told Nancy's story here before, but it bears repeating.
I met Nancy at the Holiday Inn Holidome in Sandusky, Ohio when our day at Cedar Point was canceled due to major thunderstorms. I think I was probably about 8 years old. Our parents decided to cash in our tickets for rolls of quarters and all of us kids played video games, putt golf, and swam in the pool while they ordered pizzas and drank beer poolside. Nancy and I forged a deep friendship at that time and promised to write or call.
And that we did. Faithfully, for years, we would trade letters monthly and be allowed the occasional phone call. Our correspondence died out when I went to college and she was engaged to a guy in the service. I wasn't invited to her wedding, but I invited her to mine, and she sent a picture frame. I called her parents' house once while we were driving through Buffalo, and her brother excitedly said I had just missed her by a day. I left my number with him but I never heard from her again. I looked her up on Facebook again just now and think I found her and extended a friend request.
Sacha is a little different. I found her through one of those pen pal services they had for grade school kids to forge a better and bigger world in maybe seventh grade, which seems right since that's the kind of thing Mrs. Hanna would have done. IPF was the agency. I want to say I paid fifty cents and got three - a boy from Italy, a girl from France or Brazil (I don't remember), and Sacha from England.
Sacha and I wrote a little less frequently than Nancy and I, but we bonded over music, (Madonna, Culture Club, Wham!, Def Leppard), boys, school, and learning about each other's families, sports, and activities. We too kept writing up until the end of high school.
Did I do a pop-in on her? Well, while in England on our honeymoon we traveled through Huddersfield and fate had us turn on her street. Having no way of understanding how to find her house since she didn't have a street number, I stopped at the corner shop to ask. The shop owner knew who I was! Mail was delivered to the post boxes in their shop and Sacha and her sister would walk down to pick the mail up. When she got letters from me, she couldn't wait and would open them up and share pictures and news about me and that is how they recognized me.
Sadly, her mother had died and since the girls were grown, her father had sold the house and had moved... the week prior. I asked if there was a forwarding address or if I could leave her a note to post, but I never heard from her again.
A name like Sacha Kelly is fairly common, and chances are she's since married and hasn't been known by the last name Kelly for years. Still, I may trot that box out and see if there are clues - her school maybe? - in tracking her down. I'm suddenly bashful, wondering if I've lived an interesting enough life to track her down to say what's up.
No comments:
Post a Comment