Friends

Pajama Breakfasts

Friends are the Glue of Life…people who knew you when, who share your values, and though they may roll their eyes, love you all the same.

This week saw my husband and I traveling to the Whitehall/Montague, Michigan area to the vacation home of friends. In all, there were 6 couples in the house which overlooks an inland lake with an outlet to Lake Michigan.

We have been friends for nearly 45 years.  The husbands were all aircraft mechanics for United Airlines. I’m sure that fact is responsible for the steadfastness of our friendships. Working for a 7 day/24 hour operation, we spent our lives with husbands working through weekends and on holidays. My husband was on the midnight shift for over 20 years.  We needed friends who led similar lives, people who wouldn’t blink at the idea of a party on a Tuesday night, people who weren’t judgmental that you couldn’t make a family event. In that sense the women worked for United as much as the men…keeping children quiet when Daddy was asleep during the day, foregoing  normal weekends, enduring strikes together, joyously traveling on passes, but living through the bankruptcy of the company, loss of big parts of pensions, the horror of 9/11 (no one mourned more than the mechanics who had spent their entire adult lives keeping the aircrafts safe only to see them used as weapons)  and ultimately the merger with another airline.

Above all we’ve had years of laughter, and none more than the last few days.  There we were, generous and giving hosts, men who can fix anything and enjoy a little Jack, women who can cook anything and shop, laughing, playing games, eating, pontooning, watching  for satellites, deer and eagles, eating, and sharing lots and lots of stories and memories.

Things are different now. We’re no longer running after each other’s children or starting careers. All of us are retired. We  walk a little slower, we tend to have to help each other out of situations or sofas, and remind everyone to take their pills. But the concern and love and teasing is there as always.

Now let me tell you about my library friends…!  I am so blessed!