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New friends, 30 years in the making

By S.K. Bardwell
Posted Monday, March 24, 2008

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I have a neat story for you this week, of an intricately woven tapestry of meetings and knowings that, after 30 years, has resulted in new friendships.

I’ve mentioned before that I worked with Laurie Heath (I think she was still Laurie Shepherd then) at the late Angleton Times, although I believe I said she filled in for me when I left to have my first son, and that’s wrong—she was filling in for another reporter, Rhonda Moran, who was off having her first son. Anyway, Elaine Manes rounded out our crew, which was overseen by Marie Beth Jones, and we had the best time—you should have heard us laughing and carrying on in the newsroom. I think the correct word is “raucous.”

Over the next couple of decades, Laurie and I saw one another now and then, at the grocery or elsewhere around town. When The Angleton Times was shut down and The Angleton Observer was born, she lent her writing and photography skills to its pages. Her business, Wonderfully Made Portraits and Cards by Laurie Heath, is now one of the Weekly Journal’s family of advertisers, and her photographs occasionally grace its pages.

But I never met her parents, David and Jane Shepherd. Both teachers, they left here in the eighties and moved to Vashon Island, Washington, having fallen in love with the northwest on a trip. There they taught many children, including the two sons of Mary Litchford-Tuel, who majored in journalism, became disillusioned quickly and quit to become “a hippie singer and songwriter,” and settled in Vashon Island.

Now, fast-forward many years: I quit The Houston Chronicle and came home to work first on the Observer, then (and now) on the Journal; Laurie started her business and helped us with both our papers; David and Jane retired and Jane pursued her interest in acting, taking classes and getting parts in commercials and the like, enjoying enough success to prompt them to move to Los Angeles; and Mary began writing a clever, articulate column for The Vashon Loop, as well as keeping an entertaining blog at http://spiritualsmartaleck.blogspot.com/.

So, one week last summer I wrote a column about getting caught by my dogs, while trysting with neighbor Ron’s dogs in his back yard. Laurie thought it would amuse her parents, who like to stay in touch with this area, and sent them a link. David and Jane thought it would amuse Mary, whose column and blog help them stay in touch with that area, and forwarded the link on to her. Mary sent me a column- and dog-related note, I answered, we discovered we had much in common besides columns and dogs, and have been fast friends since last August.

Earlier this month, David and Jane Shepherd returned to Texas for a few days, to visit family and friends, and I got to have lunch with them and Laurie. We talked, among other things, about Mary, who agrees with me that the meeting sort of “solidifies” all these friendships. The friendships were very real before, but sitting and talking to people is more real, somehow. Now I enjoy reading their blog, at http://home.mindspring.com/~shepherd2/sheptrek/index.html, more than before I met them.

It’s a simple and oft-repeated story—hundreds, thousands of people become friends every day over the Internet. But if you consider what went into this coming-together of friends, over so many years, it’s mind-boggling. I think so, and I’m not easily boggled, except by math.

That’s all for this week, except for a caution about all the windy days we’ve been having: When these big winds occur on trash pick-up days, the emptied trash cans seize the opportunity to dash for freedom—well, roll and scud for freedom, anyway. They convene in gangs in the middle of the streets, rolling about furtively and occasionally attacking passing cars.

I’m pretty sure they’re up to no good.

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