Arlene Agnew, alias Magnolia

Yesterday my friend Margie picked up the phone and called an old friend who still lives in Erie. (Many of us have moved away.) In no time they were reminiscing about life in Lawrence Park, even though it had been at least 35 years since they had seen each other. You might consider this unusual, even extraordinary, until I point out that we lived in a small company town of 4,000 residents on the east side of Erie. Just about all of them worked at "the GE." We walked everywhere -- to school and back and forth to one other's homes so that we got to know parents and siblings as well as classmates and neighbors. Most of us went to school together for 13 years, if you count kindergarten. All of which means we knew one another extremely well. So these two friends had a good old time catching up on health issues (the hot topic at our age), and remembering classmates and incidents from long ago. Remember when Margie ran home in 4th grade? Remember how Arlene always wore taffeta dresses and adored the art teacher, Mr. Vislosky? He called her "Magnolia" for no good reason at all. Remember painting the store windows on main street at Halloween? Remember? Remember? Remember? We were and are fortunate to have had this set of friends and this community.