Facebook is amazing. You can share videos, photos, jokes and news, send party invites and instant-message everyone from the mayor to Mark Spitz.
You can also play Farkle, Mafia Wars, Sorority Life and about 24,129 other games. (My husband, Widdle Baby, is having a boom year on FarmTown. Last week he built an outhouse and hired a new hand for harvest.)
Maybe the best thing about Facebook is how it connects us to our past. Three weeks ago, I spent a day on Lake Marion with a friend I haven’t seen in 20-plus years. (Twenty-six years to be exact, but we refused to acknowledge the quarter-century mark. That’s like pointing out your varicose veins—why go there?)
Shelley and I waited tables at the same greasy spoon in Wrightsville Beach, N.C. I was there for eight years; she stayed until she went off to college. Our older siblings, Stacy and T-Bob, also worked at the restaurant, which was operated by a married couple. Thus it was one big family affair—and a cultural melting pot. Timmy, a laid-back surfer with a business degree, ran the kitchen. The head cook, Mike, was an Irishman who went to mass every day, and the hostesses were twin Asian sisters. Everyone dated everyone else—you needed a scorecard to keep up with the hookups and breakups.
I was one of the less worldly employees: At one memorable Christmas party, I drank two beers and lost the power of speech. The co-worker who held my hair back and patted my clammy forehead was Shelley, who didn’t drink at all. I’ll never forget her saying, “No, I’m not pink. Your eyes are just really bloodshot.”
A devout Christian, she volunteered at the local homeless shelter and knitted booties for sick babies. She also happened to be hilarious, beautiful and smart. We went to the beach together and traded tables when things got really hectic on Saturday nights. She was a tall, graceful blonde, I her little Munchkin pal.
Then—whoosh. As so often happens with friendships, it ended not with a bang but a whimper. There wasn’t a dramatic goodbye scene; life just pulled us in different directions.
About a month ago I looked Stacy up on Facebook. There are many with her name, but I got lucky on the second profile. She responded the next day, and wrote the magic words: “Shelley’s on FB, too. You ought to friend her.” So I did.
And two weeks later, Widdle and I went to see her, her son, and parents at their vacation home. Her mother, Rachel, hollered from the front porch, “Julie’s here! I’d know that walk anywhere!”
We hugged and ate and talked as if two lifetimes had come and gone. There was not a moment’s awkwardness. She looked exactly—I mean EXACTLY--the same, and kindly claimed I did, too.
Between us we had two divorces, four careers, eight homes and at least a dozen dogs. She has a master’s degree and I have five goats, which struck us both as hilarious.
For our next reunion I’ll drive to Raleigh or she’ll come to Charleston. We’ve plenty of time to figure out the details.
And until then, there’s always Facebook.
Julie R. Smith, who waxes sentimental in her dotage, can be reached at widdleswife@aol.com.