The passing of dear friends
Earlier in this blog, I mentioned my dear friend, Betty Squires. Although she was the widow of my father's childhood friend, thus making her more of an age to be a second mother to me than a girlfriend, she became my friend as soon as we met. Our senses of humor were similar, and both of us loved to talk almost as much as we loved to laugh; and, thanks to all the "Central Avenue" memories my father had shared with me, and which she personally remembered, we always had a lot to talk about. In addition to those things, we also loved the library, town history and Halloween. We would always dress up on Halloween, and go to the library. One year, I went in dressed as a pirate, and she came in wearing sweat pants, sneakers, a T-shirt with "Columbia" printed on it, and a string of empty prescription bottles tired around her neck. I cocked an eyebrow in her direction. She said, "Columbian drug runner" as she held up one sneaker-clad foot and point...