Tag Archives: life

MY FRIEND DAWN

When I was a little girl, my sister and I had penpals.  Now if there are any younger folks reading this, penpals were kinda like online friends—except without computers, internet, etc.  You may wonder ‘then how in the world did you do that?!’ 

Imagine a life where you get snail mail every single day.  And if a day happens with no mail, you figure the mailman must have missed your house!  Now to explain what a mailman is…..sorry, I digress.  Oh, and EVERYone would read magazines!  People would pay for yearly subscriptions, even if it was quite expensive.  I’m sure I didn’t have any subscriptions unless it was a gift.  But at  around 12 years old, I LOVED the magazine called Sixteen.  It had THE cutest boys I had ever seen!  I had a huge crush on a boy I saw in a movie.  His name was Sajid Kahn.  I can’t recall the movie but I sure remember Sajid!

In the back of some of these teen magazines, kids could submit their name, age, and address to hopefully ‘meet’ someone with which to share letters. (I was going to say ‘to share letters with’ but I might offend an English teacher—or a theme park writer. 😃)  My sister found a penpal from England, and probably Liverpool since she was a huge Beatles fan.  Well I made friends with Dawn, who lived in exotic New York!  Being from small town Texas, I just thought she must be on the other side of the earth and SO sophisticated!!!  I don’t remember exactly how old we were when we started writing, but we continued throughout our teen years.  And we couldn’t call each other—in those ancient days, we paid by the minute for long distance calls.  Monday through Friday, 8-5, was the most expensive at around 35¢ a minute and the weekends were the cheapest at maybe 10¢ a minute.  (I may be off a bit on those prices but I bet not by much.) Anyway, needless to say, my day was SO much brighter when I got home from school and there was a letter from Dawn in the mailbox!  I don’t remember what all we talked about (probably boys) but I remember writing to her a few times after I got married at 18.  

Over the years, I would occasionally think about her, especially during the years I lived in New Jersey.  I always thought it would have been so cool to meet her in person!  But I knew her last name had  probably changed and I really didn’t think I could ever find her.

Last week, I couldn’t sleep and started thinking about Dawn.  I decided to google her.  And while she didn’t have a really common last name, several people came up with that name, living all over the country.  I decided to google her name again with New York added, even though she could have moved away. (I haven’t lived in Texas since I was 21, but I still call Texas home.  I even have a tee shirt that says ‘Just a Texas girl in a Tennessee world’.) I still didn’t get a hit…except….I noticed an obituary of an older gentleman with the same last name in the list.  When I read it, it said he was survived by his daughter Dawn and her husband.  And of course, they had a different last name.  I decided to look and see if she was on Facebook and there she was!  I had no idea if it was MY Dawn but I decided to write her on Messenger and ask.  And hopefully, not sound too crazy when I told her it was over 50 years ago that we were friends.  

A day or two later, I got a reply.  YES!!!!!  That beautiful, Facebook woman is my Dawn!!!!  She still lives in exotic New York and I hope we stay in touch forever!

FEBRUARY 2. 12 YEARS LATER. (and a month late)

February 2nd. Jonathan’s new birthday, Groundhog Day, Gary Snyder’s birthday (RIP)……and twelve years (and one month) ago, my brand, spanking new adventure started! Goodness, how things change over the years!!! And this past year of my life was phenomenally changed!

First, MY ADORABLE GRANDSON WAS BORN!!! Barrett Jonathan “Bear” Plsek was born May 29th. I fell in love with him the first moment I saw him! He is a precious gift from God! My condo in Florida has been put to good use. I spent a couple of months there—and plan on many more months next winter and maybe some in between. And a sweet family that are dear friends used it when, after moving to St. Pete three weeks prior, they were ordered to evacuate due to a hurricane. And my niece and her family used it to go to the parks. No regrets buying it!

Another big, new development in my life is, 5 1/2 years after Kenn died, I have met someone special. His name is Chris. When we met, he had been a widower for 3 1/2 years. And while each of us had met other people, we are each other’s first relationship since becoming widowed. He is a great guy and lives on a farm about 20 minutes away from my home in Murfreesboro. I’ve gotten to hold a baby piglet and a four day old lamb since meeting him! Eeeeek….right up my alley!!!! However, he has warned me, that occasionally they have to send some of the animals to freezer camp. I won’t be visiting on those days. 😳. Anyway, we are enjoying each other’s company and taking it one day at a time.

My big, 35 day cruise was a blast! But I got some surprises, too. Everyone who knows me well, knows that I am—and have always been—an extrovert. I will talk to a wall if I think it will listen. All of my table mates at dinner were solo travelers as well. It was a very interesting group from all over the USA and two were from other countries. I enjoyed visiting with them a lot. However, I felt so awkward doing things around the ship alone. One day, I called Chris, and asked him a simple question. If it’s allowed and possible, will you fly to Buenos Aires, Argentina and meet our ship to sail on the last half of the cruise. He said yes, and I asked, and they said yes, and he did it! His cabin was on the opposite end of the ship and three floors above me so needless to say, he got his steps in every day! But we both had so much fun! We saw one colony of penguins (from a distance, thankfully) that the captain said was over 250,000 penguins! And boy howdy, could we smell them! We did get up close and personal with some smaller colonies in the Falkland Islands. They were so interesting and cute! And very human tolerant! It truly was a trip of a lifetime!

Overall, my year was good. I had some heartbreaking moments but all in all, God has been very good to me. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next year brings!