"Lost connection, sorry..."

As I was checking Facebook this morning, I noticed a long lost friend was also online.   After all isn't that what facebook is all about?  I began a chat session with her with an admittedly unoriginal "Hi Susie".   We went back and forth with the obligatory "How are you?"  "How's the family?"  "How about this heat, huh?"

As I was politely waiting for one of her replies...you know chat etiquette...I wondered why it was taking so long for her to respond.  Finally she came back with "Lost connection, sorry".  We chatted for a few more minutes and then again following chat etiquette, I began to bring the session to an end by saying: "Anyway I saw you online and just wanted to say hi."

After we said "bye" I began to think about how e-mail, texting and social media has changed our whole way of communicating.

I know, I know, it's been written and spoken about many times.

On a personal level, this particular incident, had quite an effect on me.

Susie and I worked together at the same company about 20 years ago.   We were actually cube mates.   Because of the nature of our job, there were times when we probably spent more time with each other than with our families.  We had a lot in common.  We were around the same age and were in the middle of raising teenagers.  We even tried to fix her son and my daughter up.

A disturbing fact about the group of people that we worked with.   When I came into the group, Susie, had recently lost her father to cancer.    At the same time another woman, Sue,  was dealing with her father's battle with cancer.  He passed away about 6 months later.   About a year after that my father became ill with cancer and passed away.  And the next year Gail's father passed away from cancer.

During all of this, we were each other's support.  In particular, Susie was a good friend to me and I hope I was the same for her.

I retired from the Company 10 years ago and I haven't seen or actually spoken to Susie for probably that long.

Interestingly enough, my son Joe works at the same company as Susie and I did.     When Susie found out that Joe had cancer, she sent me a touching e-mail offering her support.  And, if I ever needed to talk, I could give her a call.

There have been times during this past year and a half when I really could have used a good friend like Susie.    And after all she did offer.

"What stopped me?" I wondered.

Ironically, the "Lost connection" comment during our chat session probably says it all.

How do you pick up where you left off with someone who you have "Lost Connection" with?  Would we still have the same "connection" as we once did?

One thing I do know, having a brief chat session is probably not the best way to re-establish a most precious" Lost connection".

After all when you are speaking with someone on the phone or better yet in person, you don't need to qualify every conversation with LOL's, haha's, smiley or sad faces, do you?

Now, where did I put her phone number?

L is for...Well of Course, It's for Lynda with a Y

Yea! Week 12 and the letter L from the "Learn your ABC" with the Accidental Knitter meme is all mine.

L is for Lynda.  That's Lynda with a Y.   According my mother, the decision to name me Lynda was not a hard one.   After all, it was the  most popular girl's name at the time.
The reason for the popularity of the name was that the most popular song of the day was "Linda".

Since I was born during the baby boom, and there were a lot of us, there were also a lot of little girl babies given the name Linda.   There was always at least one other Linda in each of my classes all through school.

In fact, going through my high school year book, out of a class of 456, there were 17 other Linda's.

Now my mother suspecting that this might be the case, decided that in order to make sure I would stand out a little from the crowd, she would change the spelling just a little.  

But the only thing this really did was that every time someone asks me my name, I have to say...that's Lynda with a Y.

Research shows that the song writer was Jack Lawrence.  The back story of the song is that a close friend of Jack's asked him to write a "name" song for his little 5 year old daughter Linda.   An interesting side note is that little girl grew up to be Linda Eastman who married Paul McCartney.

Also, while doing the research on this song, I found out that a club was formed called L.I.N.D.A.
 In order to become a member the only rule is this:

"WOMEN who's first names are pronounced Linda.  It is as simple as that.  We welcome Lynda, Lynnda and Linnda."

For the past 24 years the club has held an annual convention.  This year it was held July 22-24 in Chicago.   I might have to sign up and maybe attend next year's meeting. 


And just in case you are interested, you might want to check out the video of Buddy Clark and Anita Gordon singing the song. Linda.

Yep that's me...Lynda with a Y.

Keepsakes and Dick Clark

Week 11 of the Accidental Knitter's ABC Meme.
The Letter is K

I was 14 years old...yes many, many, years ago.  Larry delivered the Daily Home News to our house every afternoon at around 3:00.   I of course would just happen to be sitting on our front stoop every afternoon at around 3:00.  Our house was his last stop.   When I look back now, I realize that he probably planned it that way.

After he handed me the paper, he would kind of hang around for awhile.

Larry lived around the corner on the next block.  We were almost exactly the same age.  Our birthdays were 5 days apart.   We would walk to school together and sometimes he would even carry my books.

Larry and I were not officially going steady, though.

In 1961 My girlfriend Cathy and I wanted to be on the T.V. dance show  Dick Clark's American Bandstand.  Cathy's Mom agreed to drive us to Philadelphia, which was about 1-1/2 hours from where we lived.    We decided, though, that we probably should bring our own dance partners, just in case no one on the show asked us to dance.

I asked Larry  and Cathy asked Mike.

After watching the show every afternoon after school, it was very exciting to actually be in the studio and see Dick Clark in person.

Larry and I danced all but one of the dances together.   Another boy from the show actually asked me to dance and I did dance one dance with this other boy.

On the drive home from the show,Cathy rode up front with her Mom.  Larry, Mike and I sat in the back seat.  Larry got up the courage to do the yawn and stretch move and put his arm around me for the first time.

After that when we would walk to school, or walk anywhere in fact, Larry would put his arm around me.

On February 14, 1962, Larry gave me a Valentine's Day card and this gift.

Now I suppose the L could have stood for Lynda, or Larry, or maybe Larry Loves Lynda.

After that I guess it was official that Larry and I were goin' steady. 

We went to our Senior Prom together.

All of the girl's got a charm.

The Valentine's gift, the prom picture and the charm are three keepsakes which bring back memories of a  special and carefree time of my life.

After high school Larry went off to college and I went to work in the Credit Department of Montgomery Wards.

The last time I saw Larry, I was visiting my parents.  My daughter was 2 and I was pregnant with my second child.   Larry was married and he and his wife were expecting their first child.  That was over 35 years ago.

Of course since then, and up until now, I have collected other keepsakes of many other memorable times in my life.

Keepsakes are memory joggers.  Sometimes you just need to look through that old shoe box and reminisce about those precious moments, don't you?

For more K posts click here here.