Old Friends

Who are these people?  And when the hell was  it?

The bride is Laurie Abbott Lamson, my sophomore-year roommate at UC Santa Barbara.  The groom is Joe Lamson.  I was her bridesmaid.  The time is July 1970, and the setting was the patio of her parents' condominium in Orange County.  It  was definitely a wedding of its time, small, low-budget and not wardrobe-scripted, except that I had to wear yellow. 

This followed quite a school year.   We'd survived three lengthy and  often violent student uprisings, witnessed the burning of the Isla Vista Bank of America, and endured Reagan calling out the National Guard.  We'd been tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed, and we'd lived under curfew in our student apartment.  My nerves were shot.  I was happy to be transferring to Berkeley in the fall, away from UCSB forever.

Laurie and Joe went  on to graduate from UCSB, and for years they've lived  Helena, Montana,  where they had three sons, and now--I just found out--a  baby granddaughter.  I haven't seen Laurie in 20 years, maybe more, but  we've kept in touch, mostly by Christmas cards.  Today I got a card from her; I'd sent her the address of my blog, and she's caught up with my life that way.  Now I have her e-mail address, and we can be back in contact without getting writer's cramp.

A remarkable synchroneity of skirt lengths