Reconnecting with old friends | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Kathy Manos Penn is a native of the “Big Apple,” who settled in the “Peach City” – Atlanta. A former English teacher now happily retired from a corporate career in communications, she writes a weekly column for the Dunwoody Crier and the Highlands Newspaper. Read her blogs and columns and purchase her books, “The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday” and “Lord Banjo the Royal Pooch,” on her website theinkpenn.com or Amazon.

    I've just returned from another trip to Black Mountain, NC where I enjoyed several fun-filled days with friends I made at work in the 90s. When you spend 32 years at one company, you're bound to make some friends. If you're lucky, a few will become lifelong friends no matter the time and distance that separate you.

    Through the years, two or three or sometimes four of us gals, have gotten together in various locales. Getting all four together is a challenge, and this time it was just three of us who headed to Black Mountain. We drove in from Atlanta, Smithfield, VA, and Charlotte and arrived Friday evening in time to enjoy wine, cheese, and a home-cooked meal. We walked, we talked, we laughed, we ate out, shopped and talked some more-just like we've always done.

    Two of us are named Kathy, and I refer to my size two petite friend as Little Kathy. Little Kathy and I became friends back in the early 90's when our Leadership Development team held a meeting in Tampa one Spring. The trip bumped up against the weekend at a time when staying over a Saturday meant you got a cheaper airfare. I had an idea that Little Kathy was single like I was, and I suggested we ask if our boss would approve a weekend stay for us since the hotel expense would be a wash with the reduced airfare.

    Much like we did in Black Mountain, we walked, talked, laughed, and shopped; and our friendship grew. Because we constantly traveled between Charlotte and Atlanta for meetings, we extended our trips with weekend stays. Stephie and Kelly were also part of the Charlotte team, and soon we all became fast friends as we traveled around the country facilitating Leadership Training programs. It helped that for the training programs, we always shared rooms.

    As my female readers will understand, when we get together, it's as though we've never been apart. This weekend was no different. Little Kathy headed home Sunday; Stephie stayed another night, and then I was on my own for a few days to revel in the solitude and write.

    As it turns out, though, I wasn't completely on my own. I saw on Facebook Sunday night that a Las Vegas work friend was visiting yet another work friend in Black Mountain. I hadn't realized that Laneece lived in Black Mountain. Mike and his fiancee were staying with her and her husband just up the road from my sister's cottage. Naturally, we wanted to meet up.

    Monday night, we had dinner together and reminisced about the bank and how our past co-workers were doing. Mike still works for the bank, but Laneece and I are happily retired. How serendipitous that we were all in Black Mountain at the same time. To my amazement, I learned there was more serendipity afoot. Laneece and her husband John had known each other in high school in Concord NC, lived in different cities, and reconnected years later. Mike and Melissa had also known each other in high school in Las Vegas and then reconnected just a few years ago.

    Serendipity, coincidence, fate? You decide. For me, reconnecting and laughing with old friends is always a treat, no matter what cosmic force causes it to occur.

    Kathy Manos Penn is a Sandy Springs resident. Find her latest book, "Lord Banjo the Royal Pooch," and her collection of columns, "The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday," on Amazon. Contact her at inkpenn119@gmail.com, and follow her on Facebook, www.facebook.com/KathyManosPennAuthor/.