Recently life got so busy that I didn't have time to blog, but at last I'm back. For the last few days we've been hosting our British visitors, Margaret and Pete, and that's been really fun. I met Margaret in 1967 when we were sixteen years old. We met through a student exchange program with The English Speaking Union. She was assigned to stay with my family in Louisville, Kentucky; then I stayed with her family in Aberdeen, Scotland. Luckily, we took to each other instantly and kept up a lifelong friendship, only interrupted by a few decades or so.
In 1976 I visited her in Redding, England where she had moved with her husband Pete and their two little boys. When I moved to California, we lost touch for many years. I found her and her husband again (through Google) when Bob and I were planning to make a trip to the UK in 2002.
"Are you the same Pete who lived in Redding with Margaret and your two little sons?" I enquired via e-mail. He replied that he was indeed the same person, but the two little boys were now over 6 feet tall. So we visited them, this time in the north of England where they'd moved. We had a great time.
We had just as much fun this time. More than forty years have passed since Margaret and I first met. Our lives have taken very different paths since then, but we still get along well. Fortunately, Bob and Pete get along with each other, too. There was much chatting and drinking of black tea, interspersed with visits to the redwoods, the Pacific Ocean, and a Mexican tacqueria for burritos, which they'd never eaten before. Nobody wanted to try sushi, though. "Raw fish??" Margaret asked dubiously whenever I suggested it.
No comments:
Post a Comment