Goodbye Friends

 I'm no good at obituaries, so let me tell you a story.  I had kind of a rough week.  My best friend was out of town, and I lost two women who featured heavily in my youth.  I had a loving family and the best friends in the world, but I was a painfully shy kid.  I had a significant stutter that made it difficult for me to talk in front of people unless I was cutting up, and a reading deficiency kept me in constant fear of being moved to special education classes.  Finding a way through that prickly shrubbery made it difficult for most adults to reach me, but there were two who made it effortlessly.  

If you're on my list, there's a good chance you knew both of these women.  The first was Sarah Jones Nelson.  Sarah was our perennial class mother.  When you're small, most grown-ups treat you like children, but Sarah treated us like friends, like somebody she knew, and that made a huge difference.  She was with us on field trips, camping, and cross-country journeys by bus to the nation's capital.  She helped us through the rough years between childhood and the universe of teenagers.  Sarah ended up moving next door to my sister and her family, where she spent her final years.  I'll be there Friday when we say goodbye to Sarah.  I probably won't say much, but I'll be there.  

I never met the other woman, but I saw her every Saturday night.  Her name was Annette Stutzman, and every Saturday night when I was a kid, she drove to the WAPT studios between Jackson and Raymond, where she played the role of Scarticia on Horrible Movie.  In 2009 I wrote an article about her on my blog that, even now, is the most viewed page on the blog:  https://boydslife.blogspot.com/2009/01/jacksons-horrible-movie.html

I was a devoted Scarticia fan, even though she was something of a mystery in those days.  Through people who read my blog, I would learn that her name was Annette, and she was the secretary for the station manager at WAPT.  She was a few years younger than my mother and involved in what was then known as Hinds Junior College.  She loved music and participated in coral music most of her life.   Annette retained several friends from Jackson but made her way to California, where she made a living in television production and raised a family.   I never knew her, but she has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  

I commit these friends to the hearth of memory.  You made life much better for a frightened little boy, and you live in the hearts of my generation.