Old Friends Are Always Friends

So, anyway, after the growth that I went thru recovering from my accident, and returning to school, learning to write, and recovering the ability to WALK to my classes and around campus...yep, took about a year and a half. Then, I was moved out of the "Virgin Vault" to a normal co-ed dormitory, that I'd planned on moving ...took potluck with the room-mates...a wing and a prayer! I figured it worked my first semester in college..I met Julie, an interior design student! Let's try it again! And, so I ended up this time with a sweet smart red head named, Melissa!  Funny and very shy...I remember she would always follow me so closely around at the frat parties that I would get us invited to...and I would encourage her to walk around and "meet people!!"

 Well, we lost touch until just recently, 28 years later, a common friend on facebook (unbeknownst to us) lost his brother...we both expressed our condolences...then she noticed up above her post was MY post...I had never met this facebook friend in person, only we had connected years before when I, and I guess he, too, had been visiting Miami.  Turned out, he was a good friend of hers from Indiana! But they both lived now in San Francisco!  And I had a conference planned in San Francisco in just a couple months!!  So anyway, the usual story, she and I got back in touch, and he and I started texting a little more, when he started asking what I felt were inappropriate questions, and sending me more inappropriate pictures, and I had to delete and block him from facebook.  Then came time for my visit!  1st thing Melissa had wanted to do was take me to our common friend's "winery"...I thought, "oh, shoo, this is going to be difficult." 

So without further ado, I requested his friendship again...and told him that I'd be coming for a visit, but that my schedule was Melissa's...Anyway, I worked the conference most of the weekend, and only had about 24 hours to spend with my long-lost friend...who I can tell you has never married, but she has turned into the most intelligent, capable, sweet, thoughtful and generous woman...we laughed and laughed at the funny stories that we remembered...names of locations and stories that I'd forgotten...she now was quite out-going and knew how to make friends, and "work" a room!! After, the 1st late afteroon visiting Sonoma and wineries there, then getting dinner and drinks at a local pub and then waking up bright and early for a day on the cold bay in another friend's yacht, with more friends of Melissa's! The day ended just in time for Melissa to drive me all the way to the airport...WALK me inside and help me carry my luggage, and send me off with an $80 bottle of the common inappropriate friend's wine that I never met.