GYB's - Golden Years Besties!

Jannifer and I attended the same K-12 Secondary School on Easten Long Island in Eastport from 5th grade through high school graduation. After graduation, we set out on very divergent life pathways. Our paths intersected in 2013, when she was organizing a class reunion and happened to email me. I was on the southwest coast of Florida at the time, and discovered that she was also living in Florida on the south east coast. Though I didn't make it to the reunion on Long Island, we continued to stay in contact. We had participated in many of the same extracurricular activities, like, the shool paper, the senior yearbook, and the school chapter of the National Honor Society. We had also been active with basketball. I was on the high school team, and she was a cheerleader. We were the Eastport Ducks, which may explain Jannifer's affinity for duckie and duck this and that's. We had so much catching up to do!

Here we are back in the day. High School Senior Photos.

Here we are today. I guess these are still considered our Senior Photos.

Jannifer became an instant fan of Kaspar, my 1970 VW Westfalia. Having been a flower child from the Sixties, how could she not take to a vintage VW love bus/campervan. I had come to call her by a nickname I assigned to her following our late life reunion - hippie chick. Why? Because she was, and still is, a hippie chick in my mind.

Recently, I installed an 8-track stereo cassette player in Kaspar, which started a conversation between us over the phone. One day, she texted that she had a surprise for me. While shopping out on the east end of Long Island this past fall, she happened upon a few 8-track cartridges in a vintage record store, and bought a couple that she would send to me.

I received the package this past week. Packed inside, along with the 8-track cartridges, was an assortment of little what nots: rubber duckies, a patriotic duck sticker, an artfully painted shell, a Christmas ornament, a box of candy cigarettes, a naughty novelty note pad, and a bunch of tiny wobbly thingermajigs, oh, and a bird feather. What fun!

I called to thank her for the fun gift box. She said she was really hoping that I would put the duck sticker on Kaspar. I said I'd take it a step further and find a home in the campervan for the rubber duckies, and the feather, as well.

Hardly a week that passes where we don't chat at least once. And when we do, before long, we realize it's been hours...again! It has been such a blessing to have rekindled a friendship after so many years... okay, okay, so more like decades! Hey, better late than never. Right?

I'm looking forward to the day when I will get the opportunity to sport around town and down to the beach in Kaspar with my GYB hippie chick riding shotgun. Now, wouldn't THAT be something groovy, man!