Visiting Friends - Priceless

This must be my month to catch up with old friends. I met up with several on my trip, and some others coming back from the job fair on Sunday. And I came away from each thinking why didn’t I do that a long time ago? Why did I wait so long? Why don’t I just pick up the dang phone and talk to people? It’s not like I don’t think about them. Heck, we even email and talk on Facebook. But this was the first time I’d seen most of them in 20 or so years – let’s see, Annie it’s gotta be over 20 years, it was the year we went to Disney World when SETC auditions were in Orlando. Kelly, must be when her mom died, so that’s about 15 years. Mary Jane and Harry – wow, I can’t even remember when I saw them last, although her daughter and family did show up on mu porch a year ago summer and made me stand there trying to figure out who it was for a while. Johnna, only since Camp Katrina, in 2005, but still a while.
Admittedly, distance is a factor for some of them, they live in Florida and Mississippi and North Carolina. But the others are only a couple of hours up the road. Why don’t I take a day trip and have lunch? Not like I don’t drive places. Not like I’m not looking for road trips. Why didn’t I do this sooner, like many years ago, and many times since?
OK, so two of them, Claude and Shirley, it wasn’t a matter of visiting, two of them it was the first time I met them, even though I’ve known them for about ten years, online. And they live in Florida, too, so there’s the distance thing again. But gee, it was nice to actually meet them and sit in their nice little house, pet their dog, and just talk.
And to talk and talk and talk some more about old times and old friends and as much else under the sun as we could cram in with the 3 hours and 24 hours and few days I stayed with them – well, like the ad says: gas-haven’t added up yet, motels-haven’t added up yet, food- I travel fairly cheap, seeing the sights along the way-great, but visiting with people dear to me – priceless.
Here’s what I think – I have to get to do it again, and not so many years apart the next time – and do it with more people, too.