Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Six
How can you cover a lifetime of memories in a paragraph or two? Jo and I became fast friends when we first met at HWS. She was the kind of person who just made you feel good, made you laugh until you cried. We had a lot of good times together, a lot of sleepovers, a lot of antics after basketball games, and got into all kinds of trouble together. I think Barbdoll thought I was a bad influence. But Jo was always up to the task of being knee deep into it right alongside me. Oh, the stories we would tell our parents. I think my fondest memory of Jo was during the summer before my senior year. I had a November birthday and it grated on me that I wouldn't be able to get into Flag's with all our other friends who were already 18. Now this is one Jo cooked up all by her lonesome, but one that I was happy to partake in. She threw me a small "surprise" birthday party in June of '75, both of us pretending it was my 18th birthday - complete with cake, balloons, streamers and gifts. We made sure Markie was around since he was a bouncer at Flags. In fact, he was so convinced that he never ever made me show ID when I got to the door, which is what the real plan was, and I enjoyed the summer before college along with the rest of our friends.
We had lots of visits over the years, and Jo's favorite thing was going through our yearbooks together and reminiscing about the good old days. When she lost the use of her hands, she would ask me to turn the pages, and Facebook would let us help her check up on the lives of her friends. We'd almost always, in the last few years, end up listening to Mary Hopkin's "Those Were the Days". I think it made her feel young again, let her laugh again. There was life before MS, then life after MS, but Jo always had a great outlook on life in general. Her cup was always half full. She was loved, and she will be missed. Yes, those were the days, my friend.
