Then and Now

A lot can be (and has been) said about Google, MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook, and much of it can center on cyber-stalking, deviance and other negative things involving sad, pathetic, creepy, middle-aged men sitting alone in their bedrooms in various states of undress.

This story is NOT about that.

These days, when I think of these Internet-based search and social networking tools is this: reunions. I have been fascinated at how these sites have enabled reunions to happen that I thought would never be.

Take yourself back to 1987.

Madonna was just getting started, Dirty Dancing was at the box office and Baby Jessica was the talk of every news program in the country. Reagan and Gorbechav were meeting for the first time and gas was $.95 a gallon.*

I was 11 years old, living at the end of a hilly street in a safe and friendly subdivision in a suburb about 20 miles northeast of Atlanta. Having moved in at the cusp of the city's boom, we'd watched the neighborhood grow and change. We'd watched as it evolved from a handful of houses on dirt roads on an old lady's farm land to a thriving community of friends and neighbors, over 100 houses, boasting a pool and tennis court facility whose opening was the biggest thing we'd known in the hood.

Life was good.

We played Kick the Can and Ghost in the Graveyard with the neighborhood kids until we heard our parents ringing bells or calling us home for dinner. The street lights were our guides home, and we waved goodbye to our buddies knowing we'd see them on the school bus in the morning. Unless it was summer, and then it would be back in the streets or on the easement playing softball, driveway basketball or tag until dinnertime came around again.

Crickets were our soundtrack and bikes were our mode of transportation.

I was lucky enough to have four or five good girl friends in the neighborhood, all roughly my age, with whom I could enjoy the escapades of a grade-school goodie two-shoes kid. We traded stickers, collected jelly bracelets, braided each other's hair and re-enacted musicals like Annie and Grease in the basement with dress-up clothes and mom's makeup.

We rode the bus to school together, protecting one another from the neighboring bully girls who mocked us out of envy, for our 'hood was nicer and newer than theirs, and so were our clothes. Our moms drove us in their Dodge Caravans to Six Flags, Fuddrucker's or the movies. We cheered each other on in swim meets, and flounced around the court in our new tennis skirts at the beginning of each season.

Life was good. I had friends and we had fun. And, one of these dear friends was Marcie. She was darling and little and sweet and pretty. I towered over her.

(If you're new here, I'll just say it. I'm tall, and have been extraordinarily tall for my age since, well, forever. Read this post and you'll get a hint of what that's like).

I remember doing all of the things I mention above with Marcie (and others) at my side. We played, planned, danced, rode, traded, sang, dressed-up and knocked around. We had good clean fun.

And then she moved. To Texas. Which, to a fifth-grader, felt like she moved to Siberia.

We lost touch, as kids do. We didn't email (didn't exist), we didn't text (didn't exist) and we didn't call (we were 11). We didn't even pen pal for that long, if at all (short attention spans).

And then, about 8 weeks ago, her name came into my mind out of the blue. Like it was planted there, it just popped into my head and I wondered where she was, and how she was doing, and what her life had been like in the 20 years since we were just kids in the south playing games.

So, I looked her up. Yep - I Googled her. And found her LinkedIn profile. And learned that she'd gone to Indiana University, and then moved up to Minneapolis to work as a buyer for a major corporation. Minneapolis? She's close! Then, I went a step further and looked her up on Facebook.

VOILA!

There she was, 20 years later, staring right back at me, with the same smile and freckles and energy as I remembered.

Only hesitating for a second, I emailed her and we started exchanging messages about where we were, what life was like now, and how long it had been. And then, she got offered a job in Chicago. Two weeks after we'd started talking.

And, she took it. And moved here. Five blocks from my house.

So, we reconnected and it was like no time had passed. We didn't trade stickers or share jelly bracelets, but the connection was there. We reminisced at how silly we'd been and laughed about how silly we still were.

Proof is below.

Then.
Now.
This Internet thing is really handy, no? Welcome to Chicago, Marcie. We're glad you're here.

*ouch.

Rotting Peaches?

Last night I got together with a handful of girls for a lovely dinner on Julia's roof-deck. Julia and her husband live in Lincoln Park, so the view from up there is fantastic—brownstone roofs in the foreground, with the Chicago skyline at night in the back. The planters were overflowing with blooms and the music drifted at just the right volume from the surround sound speakers, providing the perfect backdrop to our girls night conversations.

We settled around the patio table with dinner of grilled steak and shrimp kabobs, fresh summer salads and sparkling rose wine, and finished with a homemade peach pie a la mode (yes, she's an incredible hostess), it was nothing short of fantastic. Catching up with these girls is only a quarterly occasion, if that, as most of them are married with children, and schedules are just hectic.

We recalled fond memories of other gatherings, some to watch the UGA football games (as most of the group are alum) and others to celebrate a new baby or a marriage proposal. Basically, we're a group of Georgia Peaches who are a long way from home.

One evening in particular was mentioned, from about 2 years ago, as someone remembered there being a few "new" girls there that time, but not one of us could really place it. It was a chorus of, "Oh, yeah. Who were they?" and "I think I was here?" and "Was it here at Julia's? Or someone else's house?" as we tried to piece together the story, and recall when/where/who the new girls were. And how they fit in.

While mocking ourselves for being old and already losing our memory, one girl said, "What are we, 80?" and we all laughed. And then sighed in unison, because it is already happening. Details are slipping, events are blurry and memories are clouded. When did this happen? Is it age? Are we too selfish to remember something that was just on the periphery of our life, rather than central to its plot?

Tangent: My mother swears that as she crept (delicately, and of course recently) towards "middle age," she started losing these types of details. She is so good with directions and recalling past clients, but sometimes a name or a word will just slip her mind. Ironically, though, she can almost always, without fail, recall the first letter.

As in, "I have no idea where I know that woman from, but I know her name starts with an M." Or something like that. Her biggest fear is that this will continue, and worsen, as she continues to age. She's terrified that one day she'll walk into a cocktail party at the neighborhood clubhouse and say, "Hi, My name is E. And this is my husband, R."

When she told this story we were all in fits of giggles just picturing it. And acting it out. Wine may or may not have been involved.

Back to the story at hand.

No matter what's to blame, be it nature, time, environment or the alcohol served at the party, we never could recall those women. And, it was a funny realization. Especially when Darby inquired, while scrunching up her brows and thinking hard, "Was that the time that I brought Leroy (aka Leroy Brown, her bulldog) over as a puppy?"

We all thought hard, nodded uncertainly, and honestly, didn't know for sure. The entire memory/lack thereof was punctuated most profoundly when Stephanie piped in with, "Oh! I remember that night! I brought my ham dip."

And, there you have it.

We don't remember the two lovely young women that had joined us for an entire evening's game watching festivities, but we remembered the ham dip.

I couldn't help but chant Leroy and Ham Dip all the way home. It sounded like a dirty joke in the making, or an alternative country band at the very least.

Admit it: right now you have "Bad, bad Leroy Brown. The baddest man in the whole damn town. Badder than old King Kong. And meaner than a junkyard dog." rattling around in your head. No? Well, now you do.

It Still Makes Me Blush

I've been asked to further explain the story about Jimmy Connors that I mentioned in yesterday's post.

As a proud storyteller, I'll expound. And, I'll ridiculously embarrass myself in the process. Be patient, I have to start at the beginning. Heck, grab a soda.

It was the summer before my senior year in college. I was doing the "right thing" and getting a summer internship at an ad agency. During the interview for a boring account service position, the guy looked at my resume and said, "You have an awful lot of sports on your resume. Would you rather be doing that?" I looked around, and half-nodded, insecurely, and asked what he meant. He explained that they had a sports marketing division that needed some help.

Sign. Me. Up.

So, I go to work for this guy John. As his right hand gal. He's the VP of Sports Marketing, and I even got my own little office. Which was big, considering I was 21-years old and an intern. Two weeks into the job, he pulls me into his office and admits that he's leaving the agency.

Uhm, what? Couldn't have told me that three weeks ago before I sacked any chance I had at working in the agency's account service department?

He offers for me to come with him. In the ten-second pause, he then spits out, "I'll pay you three times whatever they're paying you."

Okaaaay.

Sign. Me. Up.

Off we go, into the Jerry McGuire-like situation that entailed a fancy schmancy office space in the King Plow Arts Center in Atlanta. We frantically furnish the place and get started.

We were scheduled to bring the Nuveen Tour of Champions to Atlanta. The tournament, held nationally now under another name, featured senior men's tennis stars like Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, and others, was coming to Atlanta and we were in charge of promoting, selling, and running the event. It was nothing short of a HUGE FREAKING DEAL and it was just me and John. I even flew to Pennsylvania to train on the Ticketmaster program. It was my first business trip, and John made me GO ALONE.

I survived, and the event week arrived.

The hardest part, physically, of the job included what I affectionately called "schlepping ice." This was code for all of the event operations that had to be done that week—driving a golf cart, wearing a walkie-talkie, holding a clipboard, and moving heavy stuff from one location to the other, telling people where to put things and where to hang signs and where to park your huge food van and where to NOT park your gigantic beverage truck. Oh, and moving ice from one tent to another in the blistering Georgia heat.

The event was fun, though not sold out, and Jimmy Connors won as he was expected to do. The Atlanta Athletic Club was a beautiful host site, and the weather cooperated. My favorite player was Mansour Bahrami, the Iranian entertainer on the court. His mustache alone was worth taking a photo with him. I did. I'd show it here, but my bad haircut makes it look like I have a mullet, and I can't bear that on top of what is to happen next.

Jimmy wins, and heads to the clubhouse to sit and relax. As the crowds leave, my operations cohort and I (there was another company on hand to help facilitate the event, aka "schlep ice" with me) go into the clubhouse to check on the players and see if there was anything they needed. Mostly, we wanted to mingle with them. On the job, of course.

I'm in front of my operations cohort (we'll call him Brad), and Brad holds the door open for me and I enter first. Masking my shyness (that I've since overcome), the 21-year old Colleen says, with a smile, "Can I get you guys some beer to celebrate?" before I notice that Jimmy is sitting with John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, two of the other three most famous men's tennis players. Ever.

They all accept my beer offer, of course, and ask for me to bring it to them as they had their aching knees elevated. Brad and I exit the clubhouse, make our way in the pitch-black dark (now that the tennis stadium lights were off) in the parking lot to the beer truck. Brad hoists me up inside, and then climbs up after me. We don't have flashlights, and walkie-talkies don't do much in the way of illuminating the truck's inside. I fumble around for beer, find a case that still feels cold, and push it towards the truck door. Brad does the same with his case. We jump down, and schlep the cases towards the clubhouse.

Brace yourself. You're going to be embarrassed FOR ME.

I jimmy the door open with my foot, hold the door with my butt, swing the case around into the door frame, and walk in, leaving Brad to fend for himself. He makes it inside just in time to hear Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe bellow, "YOU BROUGHT US NON-ALCOHOLIC BEER?!?!"

I look down, and lo and behold, I'm holding a case of Sharp's beer. At that age, I didn't know MGD from PBR from Natty Light (I was a pretty lame drinker) and wasn't aware that the brand I found in the darkened truck was sold to pregnant ladies, old men who just "liked the taste" and others who didn't imbibe in the real thing anymore.

I blushed purple. Stammered a dorky explanation. Set the case on a nearby bar. Turned around, mumbling that I'd go find something else.

And, proceed to trip down the stairs leaving the clubhouse.

Yep. Insult—meet Injury.

I must admit, when I returned from the beer truck with a replacement ALCOHOL-FILLED case of beer, the guys were really nice, and made me feel marginally less stupid for the double whammy of embarrassing moments. And, signed a bunch of cool stuff for me.

And, asked me for my phone number at college because "we really would like to come to a UGA football game this fall." And, Jimmy Connors did actually call me and ask for tickets to the Georgia v. Tennessee game that fall. I hooked him up, and he didn't show. Sent me a basket of food and alcohol-filled wine to apologize for the no-show.

I saved his number on caller id the entire year.

Sore, Exhausted, Ready & Proud

Since my brain is a tad bit mushy today, I figured I'd take the lead of Sass Attack and just post about Four Things.

The four things in the title of this post are how I'm feeling today. Sore is from yesterday's charity walk, exhausted is from the entire weekend of festivities, ready is for my trip to Costa Rica, and proud is for the new account we just won at work. Mush brain is partly attributed to the celebratory champagne.

Now, on to the subject at hand:

Four Things I did ten years ago (1998):

1. Pulled a "Jerry McGuire" when my boss at the summer advertising internship up and quit 2 weeks into my gig, and took me with him. We started a tiny sports marketing agency where I proceeded to help him plan, market, promote, host and manage the Atlanta stop on the Nuveen Tour, a tennis tournament for the senior men's circuit. I met Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, and in a moment of total weakness and embarrassment that will live on forever, almost gave Connors a case of non-alcoholic beer to celebrate his tournament victory. Needless to say, at 21 years old, I wasn't that savvy with the drinking just yet. McEnroe had a field day with that one.

2. Attended my final season of University of Georgia football games as a student in Sanford Stadium. Looking back, we didn't even know how good we had it when the student tickets were $5.

3. Planned a European backpacking trip for the month after graduation.

4. Got my first real job at The Atlanta Hawks where I would begin work the day after I graduated. It was the inaugural year at Philips Arena, and I got to wear a hard hat a lot as I toured the season ticket holders through the construction site. It SOUNDS much more glamorous than it was, I assure you.


Four Things I did 5 years ago (2003):

1. Worked my first full year in healthcare at a firm dedicated to the subject, and learned all sorts of things about renal care, hospitals and how difficult it is to work a photo shoot inside a hospital and make a MRI machine look "cool."

2. Enjoyed living in my first brownstone apartment here in Chicago with my lovely roommate Jill. Great memories, fabulous backyard (thanks to Jill!), fun parties and a terrible landlord.

3. Realized I could pull off an impromptu speaking engagement to a large group of professionals who were much older, wiser and more confident than I. Thrown into the mix, I survived, and loved the rush. Shook the whole drive back to Chicago from Milwaukee, but was proud of myself.

4. Had a poem published in a creative journal. It was about being stuck in a quarter-life state of confusion, and the entire collection had to answer the question, "What's for dinner?" How 'bout that for a thought starter? Mine was called "The Reality Buffet." I am pretty sure the journal only sold 34 copies, and that includes the 3 I bought. But it felt good.


Four Things I did yesterday:

1. Walked 5 miles in the American Cancer Society's Walk & Roll; took amazing photos of the skyline, lake and the spring flowers in Grant Park as we went. Yeah, we were not really in the speed walker division.

2. Experienced bathroom envy as I showered at a friend's house—she has a really amazing wide tub and I was jealous.

3. Destroyed a plateful of chips and garlic dip at Katie and Jess' BBQ. Oh, and a few beers, too. Which may explain why I tackled my friend Laura in the long spring grass.

4. Competed, but did not win, in the "nut toss" game, which sounds far dirtier than it actually is. A version of the "corn-hole game" that is popular in the Midwest, this one involved a wooden box, round metal discs, and a hole in the center. One point for in the box, two for in the hole. It was a riot, and I wasn't too terrible.


Four TV shows I love to watch:

1. The Office. I love Jim Halpert, and his "at camera" faces are classic. My favorite episode has to be "Conflict Resolution" in season 2 (I think?) where he tortures Dwight and gets in trouble with HR for his antics.

2. Brothers & Sisters. I'm a sap, and it is a great cast with a complicated, interesting storyline. However, if I spent that much time at my mother's house, at that age, I'd be worried.

3. American Idol. Don't judge. It's addictive.

4. Divine Design. See #3. Also addictive. Candice Olsen is a genius. They also don't discuss budget, which makes me think that her design budgets are through the roof.


Four Things I love to do:

1. Write. Obviously.

2. Travel. 12 days until Costa Rica!

3. Plan things. I like to get people together. I enjoy hosting, but almost enjoy the process of bringing groups together even more than the whole "cut up food and serve drinks" thing.

4. Take photos, and share them. It goes with the above, but I do enjoy a great photograph, capturing a moment in time. I still print the best ones and file them in chronological photo albums. Hide your surprise.

That's it FOUR now.

(Jenny: I'm sorry for the not-so-funny-punny ending).