Thursday, July 2, 2009

A very exciting day

What excitement! Today I had lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years. We first became friends when I was still a teenager in college in California, and he had just returned from the army where he had played trombone in the army band. We had many mutual friends, and so before he came I was always hearing, “Shelley is coming and he has bought a Porsche!” followed by gasps of amazement. I think I didn’t really even know what a Porsche was, so I couldn’t be as amazed as the others. Anyway, we were great friends for years –I got married to Dennis, he got married to Susan they eventually moved to Sacramento. Then I rather abruptly got unmarried, and fled to the bosom of my family in Seattle without even telling a number of my friends, and lost contact with many of them. I tried and tried to find Shelley’s email, but never could. I found pictures of him playing with various groups, but no contact information. Then a few weeks ago, my aunt was marveling about people with perfect pitch, and I counted off those I knew, including Shelley. Reinspired, I went home and looked up his number in the white pages. How low tech! But effective. I called him, and he said that he and Susan were coming to Seattle to visit their son and daughter-in-law who had just moved here. Amazing! I told him the story of the perfect pitch conversation which was the impetus for my call, and he said, “Oh, I don’t have perfect pitch – it’s only relative.” But whatever pitch, it got the job done. Here is a picture of Shelley and Susan and their adorable twin grandchildren. I was so excited and happy to see them.

2 comments:

Janet said...

It's wonderful to get together with old friends, particularly when you have lost contact with them for a number of years.

Samos said...

Great photo, ...nice lookin' friends. Did you get to play music with him? It would be cool to have a trombone in your home! :-)