Sadness and smiles....

I just learned a few days ago a good friend of ours from my Allstate Insurance days had died...Charley Sullivan https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/hartfordcourant/name/charles-sullivan-obituary?id=36272853. When Allstate transferred me from their West Hartford Office, where I was an Associate Agent trainee, to the Manchester CT Sears booth, Charlie was one of the Agents there and we hit it off right away. Alice and myself, and Charlie and Claudia did a lot together...Long Bridge weekends at their camp in Maine, eventually we both got into sailing and did some cruising together on LI and Block Isl Sound, visiting Block Isl, Newport RI, Cuttyhunk in the Elizabeth Islands...lots of good memories from the social activity as well as work companions. I'm going to miss him a lot. So, here I'm sitting and feeling a bit sad about it all and I get a note from an old girlfriend who had found me on Facebook. It was a very nice note, catching me up on some mutual friends we had, and I sent her back a reply thanking her for making me smile. Of course I told Alice, and showed her the note, telling her I'd been tracked down by an old flame and she cracked up. It was an inside joke of ours that when I got a call from an "unknown" I'd say it has to be one of my old girlfriends, consumed with repressed lust, looking me up. Ya, right! :) Looking back is good though...as you can remember different parts of your life that were important and fulfilling in their own way. Like most folks in their late 70's I have some health issues that are concerning and its good to keep things in perspective. A smile on the past can help do just that.