Friends, Fate, and Phones

Ferris Bueller was right when he said life moves pretty fast.  Does it ever.  That realization hit me square in the face when I recently saw a  Facebook post from one of my lifelong friends, Jane.  She was electronically celebrating an important milestone in her life.  Fifty years ago, Jane and her husband Wayne had their first date - a blind date.  In the text she mentioned that he still had the original piece of paper with her telephone number.  As I read it, I smiled, and a flood of memories washed over me.  Because a half century ago, I was the one who gave Wayne her phone number. 

Jane was my high school girl-friend.    Every boy needs a girl-friend.  Not to be confused with girlfriend, a girl-friend is a confidant and advisor, especially in matters concerning the opposite sex.  I didn’t always take Jane’s advice, but I always sought it. 

Besides, I knew that she was already someone’s girlfriend.  She had been dating a buddy of mine for a while.   Fortunately, he understood our friendship.  I was the boy-friend, and he was the boyfriend.  

I have a number of high school memories that involve Jane. For example, I clearly remember the day I tried to teach her how to drive a manual transmission using my Dad’s Volkswagen.  She was doing reasonably well until we made the turn into her subdivision at about 40 miles per hour.   I’ll swear the car was on two wheels.  Amazingly, the VW did a 360 degree pirouette, finishing up undamaged and perfectly aligned in the correct lane of traffic.  I felt like I was in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  We sat in silence for a few seconds, listening to the engine idle, until she spoke. 

“Ummm, maybe you should drive the rest of the way home,” she said flatly.  

“Probably a good idea.”, I replied.  So we switched sides, and I got behind the wheel, even though we were only about a quarter mile from her house.  

When fall came, Jane began her senior year of high school and her boyfriend left town for college.  This effectively made her a “Hometown Honey”, a situation that rarely works out.  The newfound freedoms and temptations of campus life make it difficult for almost anyone to maintain a long distance relationship.    

Of course, they were technically still dating, but had agreed to see other people. And I knew first hand how things were going because her boyfriend was now my college roommate! I tried to mind my own business, but I could tell from the things he said and did that he was hurting her, and I didn’t like that.

There was an idea that had been rolling around in my mind for a while. I thought that in the not to distant future I may put that plan into action. But, I had no idea of how soon that was going to be.

On my next weekend trip home, I went to see Jane. It wasn’t long before The Topic came up. Without warning, she broke down and began crying. Like most 18 year old boys, (and most grown men), I had no idea what to do about a weeping girl. But I did know that I wanted it to stop. Immediately. So, in desperation, I blurted out, “Don’t worry. I know someone you might want to go out with.”

I was referring to Wayne, a longtime friend and golf companion. For over a third of my young life we had hung out on the golf course and cruised around in his extremely cool ‘57 Chevrolet. Wayne was genuinely a good guy. For a while I had thought that Wayne and Jane would get along. Now it was time to find out.

So that’s how her phone number got on that little sheet of paper. After fifty years, 3 children, 8 grandchildren, and 1 great grandchild, we can safely say things worked out between them.

It’s hard to imagine that one slip of paper could lead to all of that.

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