It all started yesterday when I was reading a comment from a cousin whom I've not seen for many years. (And can I just say she has the most beautiful gray hair. It almost gives me the courage to try it myself.) She found her way here through our mutual red-headed aunt, and what fun to hear from her! It's amazing how technology gives us the opportunity to catch up so effortlessly. I hadn't even finished reading before a memory flew into my head.
We were riding in the back of a station wagon (I can't remember who was driving), but there were several of us cousins hanging out and passing the time while we travelled (unshackled, I might add, in pre-seat belt days). We were approaching the outskirts of Ponca City, Oklahoma, where our grandparents lived, and we all knew what that meant. We were about to be in Conoco territory, driving past the refinery. And in unison, we all hollered, "1-2-3-STINK-CITY!!!", with a long drawing out of the word "stink", so that it was more like "STEEEEENK CITY!!!".
And then, as I was commuting home from work, I heard on the news that travel to Cuba is loosening up a bit. The only person from Cuba I've ever known was a friend from the 5th and 6th grade when we lived in Santa Monica, California. Her family evacuated on one of the last ten flights out of Cuba in the early 60s. And she was my first friend who came from a family whose first language was not English. I would call to talk to her, and as she and her mother shared the same name, whoever answered the phone would ask, "Beeg or leetle?", trying to determine which one I was asking for. I was thinking about this friend overnight, searched for her on Facebook and I believe I may have found her! It's a small world...
Which reminds me of the time Flyboy and I got stuck in "It's a Small World" at Disneyland, and like an earworm, I thought I'd never, ever get that song out of my head again. We were plotting our escape, trapped in a little boat, feeling our sanity slipping through our fingers like sand in an hourglass, these are the days of our lives.
Actually, and I probably shouldn't admit this, but I did, for a short while watch a soap opera. I had babies and hours at home alone and Josh and Reva were my friends and Alan Spaulding was a power hungry pig (name that soap) and Fridays were always cliff hangers. Before long, when the babies were turning into toddlers, there was no more time for soap operas, and we were more into homemade play-doh and stroller walks to meet my best friend, who also had babies. Except at that time she had three while I had two, though we were pregnant together both times (she had twins the second time around).
I'd sure love to sit down with her for a cup of coffee today, but she is currently occupied in other parts of the world. Our husbands were Air Force pilots together, and after we got out, we went to seminary and into ministry while her husband spent the next 30 years flying for one airline after another as merger after merger kept their lives ever interesting. Today, after retiring as a 767 pilot (I think), he is now flying for a charter outfit IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INDIAN OCEAN WHERE THEY LIVE ON AN ISLAND. With PALM TREES and shimmery crystal clear blue water and year-round 80 degree weather with gentle breezes. (Okay, so she also lives in a crowded capital where there are tons of people and tons of tall apartment buildings and narrow streets and scooters parked everywhere. And from her photos, it would appear that people there really don't know how to throw their plastic water bottles in the trash, preferring anywhere but.) I think I may have mentioned this once or twice (or maybe 50 times or so), but I really do love palm trees.
And Fernando Ortega.
And cousins.
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