When I was busy raising a family or working way too many hours and I was much (much) younger, I would have fleeting thoughts of old friends and wonder how they were doing. I’ve been gone from my hometown in Maine (far northeast corner next to Canada) for a very long time. I left there at 19 and have never returned to live. Now that all my family has either passed on or moved away, I doubt I’ll be spending a lot of time there.

I keep up with what’s going on in my hometown through their local online newspaper and a Facebook group called “You know you’re from Waterville, if…”  I’m not actually from Waterville but from across the river in Winslow. I lived on the side with the paper mill and its sulphuric acid smell that we could count on spewing during the high school football games.

We were only 15 & before Nancy had long hair!

You’re wondering if I have a point and I do, sort of. When I was in high school I had a good friend named Nancy Dyment.  Nancy was one of those girls with gorgeous blonde hair and a personality that could fill an auditorium. She oozed self confidence and I so wanted to be more like her.

This will certainly date both of us but I remember we went to the New York World’s Fair with the Science Club and Nancy, Dawn and I shared a room. We shared a room because we were the ONLY girls in the science club. I think the 3 of us were in everything that we could possibly join in high school. I even played basketball. I’m barely 5′ tall but I was feisty!

I headed south and went to university in Tennessee and I lost contact with Nancy except for one brief message several years ago. She was in Alaska and was leaving a job and then I never heard from her again. Every time I hear from some of the old gang I ask about her and get the same reply, “Me too!  I’d love to know where she is and catch up,” so I’m not alone.

I did catch up with Dawn a few years ago and heard about all the things that had happened in her life but she hadn’t heard from Nancy either.

Every once in a while I listen to Cap’n Barney’s (Pat Turlo) radio show MAYFLOWER HILL BLUES  www.wmhb.org playing some single-digit-temp-early-Friday-morning blues. Folks, if you want to hear a real Maine accent, catch Cap’n Barney. Tell him Bubbles sent you and he’ll know exactly who you’re talking about. My high school graduating class had mostly kids who’d gone to school together for 13 years so we knew each other really well.

Pat left school and went to the US Coast Guard Academy so he earned the title Cap’n. He married his high school sweetheart Linda, had a bunch of kids and now has a bunch of grandchildren. He worked as the Town Clerk and Deputy Treasurer of a small town in Maine AND he still does a great radio show. I’ve even called in just so he could abuse me. My husband said, “How can you understand that??” Maine people have a special accent.

My Facebook friends are dotted with friends from my home town. My bestie Anne is now retired from being a principal at a school in Maine so now she can keep up more regularly. There’s Camilla who has moved back to Maine, Julie, Bill, Becky, Betsy, Patrick, Paul, Mike, Pam, Barbara, Ken, Jim,  Eric, Bunny, Jayne, Glenna, Patricia, Peter, Bob, Robert…   and there are more. I try to keep up with what they’re doing and mostly I am envious that they’re retired and I’m not.  🙂

So if you know Nancy Dyment let me know if she still has long, flowing blonde hair? I found a Nancy Dyment in Alaska and she’s going to wake up to a text message from Australia that used a lot of words to say, “is this you??”