The trip to Louisiana was somewhat whirlwind and did involve a fair amount of driving. It was good to see people though. I think I posted before about how I reconnected with the three high school friends, but that’s been a while if I did. Most people who read this blog realize there was a time with no email, no cell phones and no social media. You wrote letters and called long distance at an extra price. When I left Natchitoches almost immediately after college graduation, it was to go to initial training in Alabama, on to the next level training in Maryland, then on to my first assignment in Germany. The time I had in between meant bouncing from parents to grandparents, once again driving different distances to do so. One of my three high school friends stayed in Natchitoches, but my parents had moved up to Minden while I was a senior in college. The second friend was already in Shreveport as she moved up there in our junior year for the other part of the nursing program. The third friend left to go somewhere in Texas I think it was. Since I was never assigned back in Louisiana, it was easy to lose track of people.
Anyway, they decided to hold a combined junior and senior class twenty-year reunion one summer. One of my friends called Daddy to find out how to get in touch with me. That was sweet, but where the coincidence comes in – or not depending on your view – we were being reassigned to Germany that summer. We shipped one automobile out of Baltimore as we were assigned in Maryland. We went up to Maine to visit family, then drove to Louisiana to visit other family with the intent of shipping the second vehicle out of New Orleans. In almost the exact time, the reunion was not only planned for that weekend, it was to be held at a hotel we literally had to pass on the way to New Orleans. The only adjustment I had to make in order to attend the reunion was stay one less night visiting some of the relatives. We did go, reunite with my three friends, and kept in touch at least each Christmas. Email and social media has of course made it easier once we had such things.