Adele and Steve

I found directions to Carol Nash's house while going through some 25-year old stuff.  I have no idea who she was.   I'm guessing she was one in a chain of associated friends in dogs: Oh, you're going to the Framingham show?  Would you mind taking something to give to Barbara who'll give it to Peggy at the Gorham show next month?  These would be scrapbooks, pedigree charts, etc.

Another something lost from memory.

On the other hand, an old ATT and bill had a phone number in Connecticut.  Probably Adele.  What the heck, I had just unearthed a cell phone with over a thousand hours.  Why not dial and see who answers?  When he recorded message said calls without caller ID were blocked I was pretty sure it was them.

And sure enough.  Steve answered.   We spent 28:35 catching up on 20 or so years of stuff.  Verizon made him an offer he couldn't refuse about 10 years ago.  Adele's story was less happy: she was forced out of her teaching position.  She's got a nice pension, but she loved teaching.  The adjustment's been rough.

Many years ago, when I first met met Adele she had a boyfriend who worked as a prison guard and seemed to spend most of his time on the second floor of her house talking on the CB.  In the first few years I knew her Adele had an anxious way of sucking her breath in through her teeth.  She said she was looking for a man who would keep her in chain link. 

Several years later day when I dropped a guy I never saw before came out to greet me.  "Hi, I'm Steve."  Seemed nice enough.  I didn't ask about the boyfriend.  Adele appeared a few minutes later.  (It would have been hard to sneak onto the property - they had, and still have a 3 dozen dog siren.)  She was smiling and for the first time I knew her seemed relaxed.

I said to myself, I don't know who Steve is, but he seems good for Adele.

About a year later I drove up and saw a change in the kennel.  As I related to a friend who met Adele when I met her, "Adele's found the man of her dreams."  It only took my friend a beat: "Chain link!"

Life was simpler then.