A Voice From the Past

From the Corona Files

A Voice from the Past

We’re hearing a lot these days about keeping in touch with friends—via social distancing. So I’ve been making and receiving calls. Last week I answered the phone and was thrown into mental gymnastics. “Guess who this is?” I racked my brain.

Mary Anne?

I’d last spoke to Mary Anne maybe 30 years ago. In 1980 when I moved out of the house after high school, Mary Anne was my first roommate in Dayton. So yeah, it’s been a minute.

We took a good while to catch up. We each had gotten married, divorced, had kids, now grown kids. She has grandkids. It was actually hard to imagine. When we lived together in Dayton near UD it was the “bad” side of town. Not exactly a ghetto, but working class in a working class town. Mary Anne told me that the district had gone through gentrification and urban renewal. The house we lived in would likely sell for half a million.

I remember the electrical being so fragile that we couldn’t run an air popper, the seeds just danced around on random bursts of warmish air. There wasn’t enough watts or umph to pop a pimple let alone pop corn.

She surprised me by saying: Every time I pass a church advertising VBS, I think of you. Yes, I answered, I LOVE VBS!

You see, my mom would usually check out during the summers when all us kids were home and out of school. She suffered from depression and that’s when she was usually hospitalized. Neighbor ladies pitched in to watch us while Dad was at work. And, being it was the 60s and there was no such thing as consent, these friends would just drop us off at VBS, despite the religious institute. It could be Baptist one week and the Methodists the next.

Mary Anne reminded me that I ran a bootleg VBS out of our rental house. I mimeographed leaflets and went door-to-door inviting kids to come one day a week for a Bible story, songs, treats, and a craft. Nowadays it sounds creepy and weird, but back then people didn’t care; they sent their kids. We spent time talking and during the week, if I saw them on the street, I’d wave hi!

It seems like a gazillion years ago. I hardly know that Jane anymore, but she seems earnest and nice, tending to her own wounds while at the same time trying to help others.

How about you? Are you getting calls from folks you haven’t heard from in years? How will you be remembered?