A FRIEND IS A FRIEND...

Forty years ago my mom and dad dropped off their barely 18 year old daughter (me) in Kansas City, entrusted to the care of Weaver Airline Training School. I had been taking instruction via the mail for months and this was to be the culmination of my education and the beginning of a career in airline reservations. I had responded to some mail my sister, Lana, had recieved as a senior in high school, and soon enough a salesman showed up at our house. I still remember his last name.... Outhouser..... hmmmm. We bought in to the idea that this should be my future and, although I changed my mind in the middle of my senior year when a teacher said that I ought to be going to college, my folks had paid their money ($200 or so, I think) so that was that.

I spent several weeks in KC being educated and at the end of that time TraveLodge folks showed up there looking for reservationists for their first-ever reservation center that was to be set up in KC. They hired me and 7 other young women to work for them. The first time we all met one another , this tall, cute, energetic girl and I decided to get an apartment together. I don't remember if that was before or after we exchanged names, probably after, but not by much. She went back home and so did I. I returned with my folks and found an apartment in the Country Club Plaza area, on the 6th floor of the Longfellow apartment building. I remember crying after they left me there, very much alone. In a day or two, Paula showed up and the world improved greatly. I think we probably shored one another up. If she was scared, she certainly didn't show it. She even had a guy mooning after her already. What power!

For the next 2 1/2 years or so we were roomies. We moved some and had other roommates as well but no other compared to her. We clicked.

Well, in life you loose people. Jobs change.... people move and get married.... life happens.

A couple weeks ago, I decided to google Paula. I knew she was married but didn't remember her last name. I knew she used to live close to Sikeston, Missouri so I googled that and her maiden name. Unfortunately, what I found was her father's obituary, but it did give me her current name and where she lived. I sat with that information for a few weeks, somehow thinking that she was thinking about me as well. Today I looked up her phone number and, feeling particularly brave, called her up.

Now, several thing could have happened... she might not have been home.... she might have said "Sue who?".... she might have been embarassingly cool (it has, after all, been 40 years since we've talked). What it was, was great! We talked and reminised about the silly things we had done (she still has that young girl's laugh). Funny - some things she remembers so clearly, I didn't remember at all and vice-versa. For 30 minutes or so I sat there grinning into the reciever as we talked and Paula re-appeared. She even said that she's been thinking about me lately, too, and that someone in her family (I think it is her son and members of his family) is on RAGBRAI right now. I just finished riding one day of it with Janet and they overnighted in Ames, where we live.

What a small, marvelous world. Let's stay in touch, Paula!