Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

On St. Patrick’s Day, I saw a bunch of Irish quotes going around, and one that particularly struck me said, “A good friend is like a four leaf clover: Hard to find and lucky to have.”

The reason it struck me is that I don’t think it’s true. I think it should be the other way around: lucky to find and hard to have and keep. Well, when I say hard to keep, I mean it doesn’t just happen—there is work involved to keep a friendship going for 10, 20, 30 years or more.

I have four friends from high school—A, B, R, and S—who illustrate this perfectly. Any description of our friendship will inevitably sound like the back cover copy of a chick lit book, but I’ll try anyway.

I’ve known B the longest, since we were in middle school together before we both ended up at the same small boarding school. A was my first roommate, and we were so different in so many ways that we joked that we were Ernie and Bert—I was the messy, carefree Ernie, and she was Bert. S found me on the first day we moved into our dorm rooms—she was wandering down the hall, wondering out loud to anyone who might be listening why there were so few electrical outlets in our rooms. And R was just one of those people who drew you in—you wanted to be her friend, felt lucky to be counted among those she called friends.

Among the five of us, we covered quite a spectrum: B was the athletic one (and also the smart one); A was the serious, forthright, straight-laced one (another smart one); S was the loud, funny one; and R was the popular one. And I’m the narrator, so I can avoid labeling myself. But since this was the group I fell in with, I can’t say that these good friends were hard to find. We just found each other, and it was lucky we did.

Keeping them, though—that hasn't been luck. That’s taken some effort over the last (ahem) 30-something years, as we’ve all had life happen to us in a variety of ways and we’re scattered all over the country. 

The gang’s all here, plus a couple of extras—but this was us in high school.

S, although she lives the farthest away, has in many ways been the easiest. We did lose touch for a few years after high school, but got back in touch when my son and her oldest were babies, and the closeness came right back and never left. These days if we don’t talk (or at least chat on Facebook) every day, things feel a little off. We talked through the darkest days of my divorce as well as the darkest days of her cancer treatment, and we talk about plenty else that’s not anywhere near as heavy as that. She’s still the loud, funny one, and so much more. She’s also my sounding board, my reality check. Although A, B, and R were in my first wedding, only S was in my second.

A lives out west now, and sadly, she has health issues that keep her from traveling very much. She did come out for B’s wedding seven years ago, but she won’t be at our high school reunion this fall. The thing I love about A is that she is so very pragmatic that sending an e-mail to make a date to talk on the phone next Tuesday at 3:00 is completely normal, and so that’s what we do. But last week she called me because she had fallen down on the floor with a terribly painful back spasm, and after making sure her 10-year-old could get to school by himself, she asked him if he would bring her pain meds, a glass of water, and her phone before he left, and she called me to pass the time until she could get up. Did I mention she’s incredibly pragmatic? We don’t do it often enough, but we make the phone dates, since that’s the only way to stay in touch. 

R is down at the beach, and although it’s been a few years now since we’ve seen each other, for a long time her home was the place I went when I needed a break from life—she was my refuge from the storm. I thought it might change once she got married, but her husband has welcomed me many times too—sometimes it’s just been me, and sometimes I’ve had my boy with me. One time, before I was coming, she was going through a stressful time, and her husband asked if she really felt up to company. “Company?” she said to him. “Sharon isn’t company. She'll probably end up cooking for us.” There have been times I’ve felt like maybe my friendship with R might just fade away—I’ve changed so much that I know it’s hard for her to keep me as a friend. But we talked about it and decided that, despite our differences now, there’s too much history and our friendship is too important to just let it die. 

B was single for a long time—into her 40s—and she and I were probably the closest in the last years of my first marriage. She does have a lot of natural talent, but one of the things that makes B such a strong athlete and student is that she is tenacious, and she’s a fighter. And she can be rather intense. It felt good having her in my corner when things were hard for me, and it gave me strength knowing that someone with that much fight in her had my back. So that’s why it hurt more than I can say when she decided she needed a break from me several years back and cut me off. It was like a break-up, and a painful one. Her first gesture towards a reconciliation was an invitation to her wedding, and we’ve been building our friendship back ever since. It’s been work—certainly not luck—that’s kept us going, and I’m very glad we’re still going.

There are some people who have a knack for finding four leaf clovers—my dad and my sister both have it, but even if my sister points out a single square foot of grass and tells me there’s one there, I can never see it. I did not inherit the knack for seeing them, but I do have ones they’ve found tucked away in various books in my house.

I do, though, have a knack for finding those people who are going to be lifelong friends, and not just these four. I kind of collect them and hold onto them like a friend hoarder. I’m just not willing to give them up when I’ve found them, because they are precious and rare, like the four leaf clovers. Lucky to find, and worth the effort to keep. 

My Weekend Trip to Atlanta

Most of my work days are spent here at my desk at home, copy editing scholarly books, usually on topics of education. It's interesting work, and there are definite pluses to being able to do it from home.

Then, once or twice a month, I get to write an article for a web site promoting good things happening here in the Upstate of South Carolina--a little bit of spending money for some pretty interesting work, learning about what's going on around me.

But hands down, the most rewarding work I do all year--if "work" can even describe something that brings so much personal satisfaction--is heading up Great Kids Deserve Great Books, the annual children's book drive of Hub City Writers Project in Spartanburg, now in its 4th year.

Great Kids Deserve Great Books collects books to give to each student in high-poverty schools here in Spartanburg, and nothing could be closer to my heart than that.

The first two years I lived here, I was involved only in the sorting of books and distribution at one of the schools. Having worked in two different children's book mail order businesses, I had a good handle on the sorting part, determining the proper age range for each book, making sure there was a good mix of boy/girl, fiction/nonfiction, advanced reader/emerging reader, and so on. But with mail order, you never get to actually see a kid pick up a book and get excited about it.

So going to that school and being with the kids when they picked out their books--well, I was in smitten. In love. Besotted. Not only were these kids picking out their books, but they were being given the books to take home, and some of these kids may have never owned a book before. I wanted to do it again.

Last year, I was asked to head up the drive, and in addition to the bin collections we had done the previous two years, we were given a donation from the Rotary Club, and with that, I went down to Atlanta to GABBS, the spring remainder and overstock sale, and bought nearly 1,000 books. I was familiar with this sale because I used to go there and buy books to sell in catalogs, thinking about sales projections and profit margin and catalog slots. But this time all I was thinking about was getting as many books as I possibly could for the money I had available.

I loved being able to get so many new books to mix in with the donated used books, and once again I got to go to one of the schools while the kids picked out their books. You may have to know me well to understand how close to heaven that was, being able to buy books and give them all away to kids. To be there with kids as they looked over the books to make their choices. One child tearfully came up to me and asked if there was another Sponge Bob book, because other kids had snatched up the two or three on the table, and I was able to find a different book to make her happy, which very nearly made my own heart explode with happiness. Another  boy came and asked me if I had any snake books, and once more, the answer was no, but we were able to find something he liked. Another satisfied customer.

This year, we got twice as much money donated, this time from Advance America, and again, this past weekend, I went to Atlanta to buy books. I had to use that money to cover the expenses of my trip as well as buying books, so I had to be as frugal as I could be--and not shy about asking the vendors to work with me since I wasn't reselling their books but giving them away.

One of the vendors donated the shipping costs so that I could just spend my money on books. Another took a percentage off of the total to offset the shipping. Yet another gave me her rock bottom prices on the books I was buying (and this is a business with thin margins to begin with) because shipping was out of her control. I'm still waiting to hear from the last vendor, because she was checking with the owner to see how they could help.

There are a lot of things I have loved doing professionally over the years, but I can't think of anything that has given me so much sheer joy as these trips to Atlanta for this show. Back when I was buying books for resale, I loved the book shows, and the remainder shows in particular. Row upon row of books--but more than that, books on sale. For cheap. It doesn't get much better than that for a frugal book lover! And I could, and did, wheel and deal. But as much as I loved it then, doing my best to drive up our margins and down our cost of goods, there is nothing quite so rewarding as buying books that you get to give away to kids.

In a few weeks, the boxes of books will begin to arrive, which will pretty much be like Christmas for me. Then the process of sorting and boxing these books, as well as other donated books we collect, to distribute to our schools. I ended up being able to buy over 1700 books in all. I found not one, but two books about snakes, and I hope the snake boy will be back and find one of them. I have dreams of him growing up to be a preeminent reptile scientist, but even if he doesn't, I'll be happy to send him home with a couple of books to call his own.

These kids in these schools may not have been dealt the best hand in life, but they really are great kids. And great kids do, truly, deserve great books.

On the Occasion of My Dad's Retirement

Dad on his 88th birthday

On Friday night, my parents and sister came to our house for dinner. I meant to have a cake or something special for my dad, because it was his last day of work, but somehow dessert never ends up factoring into my meal planning. I'm not sure he really felt like celebrating it, though.

The truth is, I can't quite imagine my dad not working--and not because he's a workaholic, or because his identity is tied up in what he does for a living, but just because he likes to stay occupied and he likes having a place to go and seeing new people.

Nine years ago, we had a retirement/birthday party for him, but right before the party, he decided that instead of retiring, he would just cut back to part time instead of retiring. He was 80 then, and I think he was hoping to keep working until his birthday this year, when he will be 90. So if anyone deserves to kick back and take it easy, it's my dad.

Dad with my grandpa, circa 1945

I don't know what Dad's hopes and ambitions were for his life when he was a young man, but probably he assumed he would keep farming the land that he and his father had been farming--and he was doing just that when he met a young nursing student at a church singles' group. They married soon after she graduated, and he was past 40 when three children came along.

I've often wished I could know what went on in the conversations that took place in which my dad was convinced to leave Indiana, the only home he had ever known, and go out west, with no particular town in mind, with the object of finding someplace they liked where there was a motel for sale. I have my ideas of how that went, but even if I were to ask them now, I don't know if I would find out the whole story. But in any case, we ended up in Durango, Colorado, the owners of the Alpine North Motel on Main Street. And then we ended up in Peru for a couple of years, where my parents were sort of "temp missionaries." When we came back to Durango, we didn't have the motel anymore, but there were two mini storage businesses.

And then, in 1978, we moved again, this time to Asheville, NC, where my parents still live. They were small business owners again for a little while, but it wasn't a good fit and didn't really work out, so my dad went out and got a job.

When I was 12 and he was 54, he started working as a locksmith at Alan Shaw Company. I remember him bringing home the cylinders and pins and showing me how to put different sized pins in a cylinder lock and how a key is cut to match the pins so that it will open the lock. For 35 years, he's been keying locks and installing them, working on projects big and small, in people's homes and in schools and hospitals.

It may not sound like a very exciting job, but one of the beautiful things about my dad is that he always found something interesting about his work day--someone he had spoken to, or a new route he had discovered while driving to a site, or the particulars of the job itself. When my son and I lived with my parents for a while after my divorce, we all ate dinner together in the evening, and he always had a story about his work day.

Dad with my son, planting his small garden patch

It is rare, going out in public with my dad, that someone doesn't come up and speak to him--and often it's someone he's met on a job site. These days, he's more likely than he used to be not to remember who the person is, but they never know it, because he greets them all in the same friendly way. But these are the people he would talk about at dinner--the janitor whose wife was battling cancer, the contractor who knew a guy Dad went to high school with.

A book could be written about the lessons to be learned from a guy like my dad, but I think the thing I admire the most about him is his absolute contentment. A couple of weeks ago I got a fortune cookie that said, "Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation." I understand the truth of that in terms of the big picture, but in terms of daily living, my dad's quiet contentment with his lot in life is, I think, the way to really live.