Whatever happened to . . . ?

I was talking with my friend Mow (aka Jean) yesterday on the phone. Soon, we're going to be related, if all goes well, that is. I was reporting to Mow that Saturday's ultrasound had indicated 5 or 6 babies, due Nov. 7. Mow was ecstatic but concerned. She wants to make sure that she gets to adopt one.

She has ordered one of Sam's Border Collie pups. Sam is Kiwi's mom, and she belongs to Robin McNall. We have ordered one of Sam's pups also. And, so has Willie. They'll be available around Christmas time, so it's definitely going to be a few dog-day afternoons around here until all the extra little pups go to their respective homes in Boise and Palm Springs.

During our conversation, Mow told me that she and her hubby Joe had house guests and that she had told them "the story." The story, which my friend, also well-honed storyteller herself, had relayed to her guests involved my "Amazing Cross-Country Search" for Mow. I hadn't seen her in 19 years since we both worked at Camp Neewahlu on Lake Coeur d'Alene. That summer she had eaten steaks and told stories around our dinner table. My folks loved Mow.

So while on a trip to Louisiana, poor Bill, Willie and Annie had to endure lots of time sitting in the car while I tracked her down, all the way from Deadwood, South Dakota, to Kansas City, Missouri. I went to great lengths to find my friend. We've kept in fairly good touch ever since. Now that we're going to be related, I have a feeling I won't lose track of Mow.

I'm kinda crazy that way about my friends. I love to reconnect. In the past year or so, I've reconnected with one of my first grade classmates, Shirley Beasley. Every time I'd go through my scrapbook and find her class photo among the piles that have been stuffed together for years, waiting to be tacked down on the pages, I'd always wonder whatever happened to her after high school. The Beasleys came to Sandpoint from Mississippi, and all I knew about her since the mid-'60s was that she'd moved back there.

Later, another long-lost neighbor friend, with whom I'd reconnected on the SHS alumni website, gave me a phone number. She had gone to school with Shirley's older sister. Upon receiving the number, I wasted no time calling Shirley who does live in Southern Mississippi with her long-haul truck driver husband. We've talked a couple of times since; I'm hoping she's okay because she told me she has a fairly serious heart condition.

Listening to Mow chuckle about my pursuit story yesterday, I got to thinking about some of those other folks I often wonder about, especially those from first grade at Lincoln. In particular, there's tiny Patricia Rash who always had pretty laced anklets in the class pictures. I don't think I've heard a word about Patricia since we left Lincoln and headed for junior high.

Then, there's Ronnie Swanson. He had blond hair, and he was one of the squirrely kids in our class. It seems like my brother told me he might live over in the Missoula area, but that's the only remnant of his existence I've heard in nearly 50 years.

I also think about JoAnn Levering. She moved to Pocatello, and I remember her dad Louis was an important businessman downtown. Could he have been the manager of Pacific Power & Light? That's all pretty hazy to me.

What's not hazy, however, is the day that JoAnn came to visit our North Boyer farm to play. My parents were gone. My brothers were home. We were still in grade school. That combination spelled disaster because my brothers were still in their "older brothers gone tormenting" stage. They harassed JoAnn (the fragile city girl) and me so much, chasing us around the place and making snide comments, that she finally went inside crying, called her parents and begged them to come and pick her up.

They did, and she never asked to come to our farm again. I'd love to know whatever happened to JoAnn, and I'd love to assure her that if she came to visit, the Lovestead would be safe from tormenting older brothers. Seems that's one of those childhood incidents that deserves a little correcting.

As a perpetual people person, I never grow weary of wondering what roads my early friends have taken, what they look like now, what major changes they took on in life, and would I feel the same about them now as I did then? It would be fascinating, especially to compare notes about our mutual memories of pre-Wonder Years.

In fact, the more I think about it, the concept is certainly worth a TV documentary series---answering the question "Whatever happened to . . . ?"

In the meantime, I know what happened to Mow and to Shirley, and I have no regrets about satisfying my curiosity. I wonder if Shirley wants a puppy.