I’m not gonna lie. It was more like, “Thank God we’ll never pass this way again.”

Just saying.

Recently, a fellow student posted elementary school class pictures of my classmates. These adorable “mini me” photos made me realize that most of the kids in my class had been together almost their entire lives, which made me a little jealous. But if I had been one of them, I probably wouldn’t have bonded with my BFFs and fellow “outsiders” who were also uprooted at fourteen to a new town. Meeting them made the experience – maybe not the thing of wistful 70s songs, but – so much better than it could have been.

Congratulations to my fellow graduates of Newfield’s 1975 class on this momentous anniversary we share with a sobering list of events that put this time lapse into perspective: the movie Jaws; the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (the wreck, not the song); the birth of Saturday Night Live; and the official end of the Vietnam War.

And special thanks to my favorite girls who made this celebratory weekend so memorable and fun, and who always “make me feel like I’m more than a friend.”

I remember thinking in my twenties when a coworker was going to her 50^th high school reunion: Damn, she’s old!

What goes around…

Postscript:
Seeing my fellow high school classmates in their elementary school class photos made me check online to see if I could find any of mine.

Hint: Those are my chubby cheeks in the second row. 

It took a while before we finally received an Amazon box the right size to fit George’s leg.

It had been sitting in the garage since he passed. It was in the house, but it was too sad a reminder of the loss of our friend.

Always the recycler, I found a place online that took used prosthetics for someone in need.

I took the box and the provided label to the UPS counter and asked for assistance. The guy at the counter shook the box a little and could tell there was not enough packing. When he opened the box, he looked at me.

“It’s a leg,” I said. He just nodded and stuffed some brown paper along the sides. It made me think, this guy has seen everything.

“What do I owe you?” I asked.

“I’m supposed to charge for the packaging, but don’t worry about it,” he said.

George would have turned 78 today. I’ve wanted to write about him since his passing in March, but I promised that my blog would be brief, and I don’t think I could ever be brief about George.

The recent (and very good!) Barbara Walters documentary reminded me of a world event that coincided with a personal crisis causing me to miss out on a once in a lifetime opportunity. The upside: It also left me with a very funny memory.

It was March 1979, when I found myself with a mysterious illness that would later be diagnosed as the auto immune disease, Sarcoidosis. I would fully recover with no serious long-term effects, but at the time it was shocking and scary.

I was working for the Secret Service as a seemingly healthy twenty-one-year-old when I was plagued by a weird array of symptoms. After seeing the White House physician, I was sent to Bethesda Naval Hospital.

This just happened to be the same time as the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty between President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel.

Our Special Agent in Charge knew how interested I was in the historic event and had arranged for a coworker and me to attend the ceremony on the White House lawn. Only now I would miss it.

On the day of the ceremony a corpsman wheeled a television set onto the ward and set it up next to my bed. The nurse asked, “What’s going on?”

“The White House ordered it,” the corpsman said. “So she could watch the signing of the peace treaty.”

The nurse turned to me and said, “Who are you?!”

Little did I know that the White House physician had been calling to check on my status, so there was already a curiosity surrounding the young patient claiming to be a clerk for the U.S. Secret Service.

I recently injured my shoulder. You know the drill….no idea how I did it; it hurts when I do this. (I know…..then don’t do that.)

So, I went to an orthopedist to start the routine of X-ray, cortisone, physical therapy, etc. As the nurse is taking my input…and let me say this nurse resembled a young Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson if someone let a little air out of him — just to give you a visual.

Anyway, while The Rock is typing away at the keyboard, he asks, “Have you taken any Tylenol or ibuprofen, or anything for the pain?” I say, no. So, he says, “Old people really don’t like to take medication.”

I almost said, “I know, right?” But then I realized he’s talking about me!

I thought about giving him a stern talking to, but then I thought, well now, might that not confirm…..  Never mind.

Anyway, I decided to let it go and just blog about it.

I always feel a little jealous when people my age still have their parents. I hope they realize how lucky they are. Although I lost my father and mother at 65 and 72, I know that I am fortunate to have had them that long.

I remember a girlfriend calling me when we were in ninth grade to tell me her father died. I can still see my stunned self standing in our kitchen clutching the phone to my ear. And I still regret that in my state of shock, I literally had no words.

Anderson Cooper, who lost his father when he was ten, has a podcast called All There Is about the people we lose, the people left behind, and how we live on – with loss and with love. Cooper says, “Grief can feel so lonely but talking about it, and listening to others share their grief experiences helps.” In one episode Cooper speaks with Stephen Colbert who also lost his dad at ten years old. To hear them discuss their feelings about this devastating loss in such a vulnerable way was palpable.

The episode taught me that quite often it’s better to talk about the deceased rather than stay silent for fear of reminding the person of what they’ve lost. But the greatest takeaway was the reminder of just how important fathers are.

The Irish have a saying, “We never get over our fathers, and we’re not required to.”

Happy Father’s Day.

Twenty-eight posts, 1,700 views and 575 visits later, SusanScribbles turns one!

My favorite SusanScribbles stat, however, is the variety of countries those visitors came from. Germany and the Netherlands kind of make sense, but Turkey? Sweden? Philippines? I love it. Admittedly, they probably stumbled here by accident, but I find this list interesting, nevertheless.

The other interesting stat is that my most popular post – Brooklyn – has five times the number of views than any other post. I would love to believe that my grandniece is just that popular, but if I’m being honest, it could just be her much-googled name.

When I started writing many moons ago (before the word blog was even a word), I heard that you should always have your mother read your writing because creating something and baring your soul creates a real vulnerability. I experienced this early on when one of my first pieces in writing class was, shall we say, not received as well as expected. I boo-hooed all the way home telling myself you better toughen up, Missy, or give this up right now!

Even though I remain a self-proclaimed mush, I learned to deal with the rejection and soldier on. Hubby has always been my number one editor, but sister Carol always enjoyed reading anything I wrote. Now, when I’m considering what to write, I always consider what Carol would think. I’m sure of one thing, she would love knowing that her new grandbaby’s post is by far the most popular.

Thanks for all the support over the past year. It’s appreciated more than you know.

I think it’s safe to say my first year of retirement has been a success since I haven’t considered going back to work – even for a minute – nor have I gotten divorced. Only joking on the second part, but admittedly it was an adjustment as our house is small and our personalities are not. I anticipated as much, which is where the “She Shed” dream was hatched. (One woman described her She Shed as a “Mini me version of my home.”)

I learned that building a house – even a tiny one – comes with frustration. Alas, after almost a year the She Shed is finally a reality. Of course, when I was schlepping a dustmop out there recently, I thought, now didn’t I just add another room to clean? Then as we enjoyed a lunch on the patio with a construction-type friend, he gazed out at my “perfect” little shed and said in between bites, “Are you gonna put hurricane shutters on that thing?”

The year has gone by surprisingly quickly and like many people I wonder how I ever had time to work. The part of being retired that I have yet to perfect is the slowing down part. I am doing my best to embrace the motto of hubby’s longtime friend (who just happens to be retired Air Force). When he came to visit and we were rushing him about, he said: Cool your jets! Great advice yet easier said than done as fifty years of dashing here and there makes for one deep-rooted habit. This is where the She Shed really shines as the space in which I continue my attempt at meditation, as well as play piano, both of which seem like good ways to cool one’s jets.

When I started my blog I figured it would be for a small group of friends and family, which it has been – for the most part.

Except, after my first post I received an email from someone I did not recognize. The subject line read: Dear Miss Scribbles. The email simply read, “Cute dogs.” I replied by sending a smiley face. After all, I didn’t really want to put people on the spot by asking questions. I had welcomed anyone on my homepage to “feel free to email me,” and I am on Facebook and LinkedIn. Strangers could easily stumble upon my page and read a post or two, which I know they have because I can see where my traffic originates. No biggie.

So, I thought.

Then a couple of weeks later my Puppy Love story posted. My mystery reader’s email said, “Donny’s loss.” It was silly and funny, of course, but still I was taken aback and just a little bit curious. I did not respond. I did not hear back from him/her/them, so I kind of forgot about it.

Months went by and many posts with no mystery emails. I knew there was nothing to worry about. I was mad at myself for – even for a second – buying into the paranoia.

In January, six months after I started my blog, I posted, One Snowy Day in Washington, D. C. I remember the dread I felt as I hovered over the message I received after that post. The emails had always been the same: short, normal font, no greeting or salutations inside the mail, just the same “Dear Miss Scribbles” in the subject line. This one was no different. It read: “I’m just glad you found your way to Florida.”

I immediately got a weird feeling and quickly closed my laptop. There was nothing really threatening. Was I just becoming the paranoid person I had been resisting?

I’ve always prided myself on not bringing my phone everywhere I go – even on long walks. After all, as I’ve said a million times, I lived for fifty years without a cell phone. But now, I was bringing my phone on walks. And I found myself looking over my shoulder a little too much. I even started to position my fingers on each side of the phone to be able to quickly access “SOS Emergency Call.” I hated what I was becoming as I’ve always been someone who likes to trust folks.

With overprotective loved ones who watch a little too much Forensics Files, I didn’t dare mention this because I knew they would immediately go all Defcon on the situation.

When I started replacing my outside walks with treadmill walks in the gym, I could no longer stand it.

I drafted and redrafted a response email to the mystery person and repeatedly resisted hitting send.

When my curiosity and paranoia finally got the best of me, I settled on a reply. It was short and succinct, “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

The answer to the mystery was simple.

sloof lirpa

I couldn’t tell you how, why or when our family mantra came to be. But, if you’ve spent any time with my family, you’ve heard the expression, “I thought they’d never leave.”

I remember my beloved patriarch uncle telling me that after a day-long love fest with the entire family, my husband and I left for the evening and he heard the mantra for the first time. He told me he almost died laughing.

Recently I had the joy of hosting a group of friends for the weekend. I have a few different groups of friends, but these are the OG, my childhood friends. The kind of friends with whom you have shared everything from broken hearts to weddings, from births to deaths – and everything in between. Friends who have seen you at your best, and your worst.

I was asked, will you take them to the beach? Will you do the theme parks? Nope and nope. That’s not what this weekend was about. Basically, it was a three-day slumber party with plenty of food, laughs, reminiscing, and no shortage of wine or coffee. Family members dropped in and out throughout the weekend adding to the nostalgia and blurring the lines even further between family and friends.

It was all I hoped it would be.

I’m writing this in my head as I drive home from the airport after dropping them off thinking about our family mantra, the irony of which – obviously not lost on my uncle – is that the less it is meant, the funnier it is.

 I thought they’d never leave…

NOTE: I’ll be going to posting every three weeks. Of course, I reserve the right to change that at any time. 😁