Why Are We Supporting Ukraine’s Fight? (And Why Did my Childhood Friend Go There?)
My mother used to love telling me how I met Will. We were new neighbors in a spanking, brand new, post-World War II subdivision in Southern New Jersey. We were both four. Will was mad about something only preschoolers care about and was throwing clumps of dirt at me — the streets hadn’t been paved yet. Will’s mom saw what was happening out her front window, and raced into the street, her house dress flapping in the wind, and grabbed her wayward son, marching him into the house amid a cascade of loud admonitions.
I don’t remember any of this, but it was a drama that cemented a long friendship between my mom and Will’s. Unfortunately, a prickly relationship developed between Will and I during our childhood years. One minute we’d be playing puppet fairytales with stuffed animals with his sister Melinda (my best friend), and the next he’d be throwing colored water bombs in Tupperware at my feet. My relationship with this oddly inventive, yet excitable boy ended when he left for good to live with his dad in California in seventh grade. I have to say, I missed him.
Many decades later, Will and I picked up our lost friendship on Facebook when we were both way past middle age and into our golden years. Will had forged a gratifying career in the U. S. Navy on active duty during Vietnam…
