*** Of This And That
In The Old 1960s North Adamsville Neighborhood-Those Pale Blue Eyes,
Revisited
“…One exchange, the one that matters here, involved the question of where we had gone to elementary school, she to Glendale and he to Snug Harbor. That Snug Harbor response by me brought out the fact that Melinda’s mother, Margaret, had been a swimming instructor down at the Adamsville South Beach during the 1950s summers and had during her career there saved a drowning boy. Melinda, nine at the time, had been present at the event.
I flipped out when I heard that information. See, I love the ocean but I live in fear of it, fear to go too far out when swimming because I had almost drowned when I was nine down at the Adamsville South Beach one summer. Typical boy story: as the ocean was rising I had spied a log, an abandoned telephone pole, and had grabbed onto it. I drifted out for a while and then I realized I had gone too far but instead of holding onto the log I decided to try and swim for shore. Not a good swimmer and just too far out I started going down. My brother who was on the shore called for help and the swimming instructor came out and saved me in a nick of time.
So what lesson did I draw from that today. Anything about fate, karma, or just plain good luck. No. I told Melinda that since we had already “met” maybe we should get together and discuss the matter more fully. And guess what, she agreed. Jesus.”
If Sam had only listened to Lou Reed ....
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Not all
adventures in social networking lead to good results and happy endings,
although don’t blame the Internet or rather the fact of the Internet as a
communication tool for bringing people together on that. People, men and women
in serious and unserious relationships, have been screwing them up without that
technological help ever since Adam and Eve, maybe before, so back off. I have a
story to tell about how the Internet brought two fellow classmates from the
North Adamsville Class of 1964, Sam Lowell and Melinda Loring, together, how
they started out a relationship sparked by the Internet but were able to mess
things up royally as if that instrumentality never existed. Needless to say the
pair are no longer together after a short stormy affair, although they both have
subsequently admitted to me individually that they still believed that it was
written in the stars that they belonged together. But that good hope sentiment
sometimes doesn’t mean a thing if the couple couldn’t survive in each other’s
presence, couldn’t seem to connect the dots. Such situations happen more than
one might think so let’s look at how things unfolded and how I got wind of what
went down.
Despite the
sad story of Sam and Melinda, a story that Sam has bitterly called the damned 50
year never-ending North Adamsville curse that has plagued him since childhood, I
have spent not a little time lately touting the virtues of the Internet in
allowing me and the members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964, or what is
left of it, the remnant that has survived and is findable with the new
technologies (some will never be found by choice or by being excluded from the
“information super-highway” that they have not been able to navigate), to
communicate with each other some fifty years and many miles later on a class
website fairly recently set up to gather in classmates for our 50th
anniversary reunion. I had noted in earlier sketches my own successes with this
website in being able to tout a guy whose photos of my old childhood
neighborhood send me spinning down memory lane, another about an old corner boy
and our Adventure car hop misadventures looking for the heart of Saturday
night, writing a tribute to our classmates fallen in Vietnam, and in answering
a perplexing question about what I saw as my role as a commentator on the site.
I admit I had to marvel at some of the communications technology that makes our
work a lot easier than back in the day. The Internet was only maybe a dream, a
mad monk scientist far-fetched science fiction dream then as we struggled with
three by five cards and archaic Dewey Decimal systems.
I also admitted
in one of those sketches that for most of these fifty years since graduation I
had studiously avoided returning to the old town, having fully subscribed to my
own version of the 50 year curse that Sam’s railed about to me one night, for
any past class reunions but this one I had wanted to attend, the reasons which
not need detain us here. Or I should say rather wanted to attend once the
reunion committee was able to track me down and invite me to attend. Or a
better “rather” to join a NA64.com website run by a wizard webmaster, Donna,
who was also our class Vice-President to keep up to date on progress for that
reunion.
Part of the
reason I did join the class site was to keep informed about upcoming events but
also as is my wont to make commentary about various aspects of the old hometown,
the high school then, and any other tidbit that my esteemed fellow classmates
might want to ponder after all these years. All this made simple as pie by the
act of joining. Once logged in one is provided with a personal profile page
complete with space for private e-mails, story-telling, placing various vital
statistics like kids and grandkids, and space for the billion photos of that progeny,
mostly it seems for those darling grandkids that seem to pop up everywhere. Additionally, there is a section, a general
comment section, the “Message Forum” page, where one and all can place material
they think of general interest to the class as a whole. I have used that page
more than once over the past several months.
A while back,
a few months ago now, I went on to the class website to check out a new
addition to the list of those who had joined the site recently. We can use our
personal settings to be informed of that kind of information on a more or less frequent
basis. The guy who had just joined was a guy I did not know but I had seen
around the school and so I was ready to click off the site (by the way you
would have seen almost everybody in the four years you were there with one
thing or another even though the class had baby-boomer times over 500 students).
Then I noticed that Sam Lowell had
placed a comment in the “Message Forum” section about Melinda Loring and how
she had recently as a result of slipping in an indoor swimming pool up in
Epping, New Hampshire, while exercising
had broken her right hip requiring surgery. We were asked to send Melinda best
wishes messages for a speedy recovery on her profile page.
Now I knew
Sam Lowell from high school, had been a teammate of his on the indoor and
outdoor track teams, and had hung around with him, had been one of his corner
boys at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs” most of junior and senior years.
I had, when Sam joined the website in November of 2013 shortly after I had done
so, sent him some private e-mails and we had for a time maintained an exchange
of messages about the old days and about what had been happening since then. Then
I had not heard from him or seen anything listed about or by him for a few
months before his announcement about Melinda’s condition. Frankly I did not recall
him knowing Melinda Loring back in school although I know we both knew who she was.
I remember that we had both commented at one time back then in some after
school boys’ locker room talk that she was a
definite “fox” in the language of the hormonal schoolboy 1960s
night but “unapproachable” to ragamuffin
boys like us. Sam had not mentioned to me being in touch with her on the site
in any of our communications. I also knew that he lived in Holden here in
Massachusetts and that Melinda listed her home town as up near the White
Mountains in New Hampshire. Most importantly I knew that Sam had been with the
same woman, Laura, for about thirty years. (I was not sure then whether they
were married or if so for how long or not since he never indicated their
status. I did know that he had been married twice before and that the first one
was he said “a disaster.”) So I sent him a private e-mail message asking “what
gives with you and Melinda?” and how he came to be the guy who placed a notice
about her condition on the “Message Forum” page. In return he asked for my
Internet e-mail address because he wanted to explain some things without going
on to the class site. I knew something was up.
I got more,
much more, than I bargained over the course of several e-mail and cellphone
exchanges and at a lunch where we arranged to meet to talk things over as his
affair developed for so hear me out. To start it seems that Sam was really
gung-ho, unlike me, about going to and being a part of this 50th
anniversary class reunion. He had gone to many of previous ones at 5, 10, 25,
and 40 years but last fall he had not heard anything about planning for a 50th
reunion so he, like the relatively few in our generation, what I have always
called the generation of ’68 reflecting the time when many of us came of social
age, New Age or so we thought, who are the least bit Internet savvy these days,
created an event page on Facebook
looking for interested classmates and asking if anybody knew whether any plans
were afoot. Melinda subsequently sent him a message on that event page asking
what he knew of any doings. Sam sent her back a message about what little he
knew and informed her that he was prepared to organize something if nothing was
in the works but in that message he forgot to give his name. Melinda replied
innocently enough, “Who are you?” And that was their start.
They
exchanged another round of e-mails where Melinda mentioned
that, having access to her Manet, her
class of 1964 yearbook, and she had not known him back then she had looked up
his class photo, and said he was “very handsome.” Naturally any guy from six to
sixty would have to seriously consider anybody, any female in Sam’s case, who would
throw that unanticipated, unsolicited comment a man’s way especially since she
sent her class photo as well. He shyly (so he said) returned the compliment and
made comment about her pale blue eyes from a photo on her Facebook homepage. (Sam by the way had long before “lost” his
yearbook as had I and we had made jokes about their whereabouts. I did not tell
him mine was at the bottom of the Neptune River thrown there shortly after
graduation in a fit of hubris, and a desperate need to shake the dust of the
old town from my boots.)That got them started on what would be a blizzard of
e-mails over the next several weeks but just then got them together via Facebook as he “friended” her and she
accepted.
They began by
telling each other about what they had been up to over the last 50 years. Both
agreed after the first couple of exchanges that Facebook with those hungry eyes prying eyes was not the place for
their messages and so they exchanged their Internet e-mail addresses. At first they
wrote of the obvious stuff about work histories, educational accomplishments,
and relevant facts about who they hung around with, and who they didn’t, back
in school. Stuff that was easy to discuss since they had a common pool of
knowledge about people, places and events from the old days.
Melinda told
Sam that she had been a professor of education at various colleges after a
number of years in public school education in various locations in
Massachusetts and Connecticut, most recently at the University of New Hampshire
and was still plodding away at that profession. Sam in return told her of his
rather more checkered resume as he had done many things over the years,
including teaching, but was at this time a lawyer working mainly out of his
house on appeals cases and had been for the past few years. He also kept
referring to a period in the 1970s after he had done his military service when
he had been what he called a “vagabond.” Melinda, who confessed to having been
rather more conventional during that “generation of ’68” time that Sam kept
referring to by characterizing herself as a “worker bee,” was intrigued by
Sam’s reference and kept questioning him about its meaning. He deflected her
comments, saying he would go into that more if they got friendlier (which let
Melinda to make a “flirty” remark which Sam would not reveal to me). During these
early e-mails they both would press the issue of what to do about organizing a
reunion. Melinda stated that she did not have much time given her professional
commitments and distance from the Boston area to help organize anything from
scratch but would help out as best she could. Sam rather quickly through a
separate source that he connected with from the old school found out that there
was already a North Adamsville class website in existence as well as an embryo
of a reunion committee, informed Melinda of that, and they both joined the site
over the next few days.
That settled
they resumed their more personal e-mails. Melinda made Sam privately gulp at
first when she told him that she had been a “Glendale” girl. That word brought
back memories of a bevy of girls around school who were, well, “stuck up” with
their in-style cashmere sweaters and smart skirts and shoes and their total
distain, or so he always thought, for ragamuffin guys like him (and me) from
the Atlantic “wrong side of the tracks” section of North Adamsville. When he
asked her about that Glendale girl stuff and the social gap he perceived between
them then she replied that she had to laugh since her family was as poor as
church mice (his term, not hers), gentile poor in that lowly professional white-collar
way like ministers and such. A lot of their early e-mails were filled with such
reflections about what had really gone on in their very much white working-class
town. Sam, and Melinda too from what he mentioned to me later, began to feel more at ease talking to each
other as they shared cyber-laughs about youthful misconceptions. The long and
short of it was that both of them had come up the hard way, including physical
and mental abuses by parents that turned out to be a lot more common than
either of them had realized back then. They began discussing some very personal
and hard to speak of things about their respective childhoods. In one e-mail
exchange both had noted how they had much in common after all and that they
were at ease with each other in these exchanges. They talked of becoming
friends, although neither seemed to be above being a little “flirty” (Sam’s
term) along the way.
In
one e-mail Sam, after having had a few drinks that night and feeling expansive,
related the following story to Melinda to her delight if disbelief. A story
that I well remember from back in the after school boys’ locker room and so can
verify the truth of what he said. In the spring of his junior year at North
Adamsville Sam had noticed Melinda around school (they later confirmed they had
had no classes together, although having been in the same junior high and high
schools for five years or so they must have run into each other or been in the
same room sometime if only the auditorium, gym or cafeteria) and had an
interest in meeting her after seeing her around a few times.
Of
course in high school, at least back then, maybe now too, a guy didn’t just go
up to a girl and start making his moves. He got “intelligence,” found out if
she had a guy already, stuff like that. Usually this information was gathered
in the boys “lav” (especially the Monday morning before school session when all
the “hot” news of the weekend was discussed) but in this case since Sam was a
trackman this happened after school in the boys’ locker room where he inquired
of two guys he knew who knew her what she was like. Both agreed instantly that
she was a “fox” but told him to forget it because she was “unapproachable.”
Meaning low-rent raggedy guys like Sam forget it. Meaning, as well, that Sam as
is almost always true with the young just moved on to his fantasy next best
thing. And so they did not meet then. Melinda said she laughed when he related
that story to her and in their further exchanges related lots of information to
Sam about what she was really going through back then with an extraordinary
tough family life, lots of low self-esteem, and other problems.
They both
agreed later that something seemed to “written in the stars” for them especially
after an exchange when they had asked each other what elementary each had gone
to. Melinda replied that she had, of course, gone to Glendale Elementary (along
with that bevy of girls who stuck, and were “stuck-up” with each other through North Adamsville
Junior High and then the high school) and Sam answered that he had not gone to
a feeder school for North but had gone to a feeder school for cross-town rival
Adamsville High, Snug Harbor Elementary down in the Adamsville “projects,”
before his family returned to North Adamsville where he also attended the same
junior high as Melinda and then North. Melinda freaked at that statement which
Sam wrote about later, later after the flames had died. Let him tell it his way,
or part of it anyway something he wrote and called A Simple Twist Of Fate:
“…One exchange, the one that matters here, involved the question of where we had gone to elementary school, she to Glendale and he to Snug Harbor. That Snug Harbor response by me brought out the fact that Melinda’s mother, Margaret, had been a swimming instructor down at the Adamsville South Beach during the 1950s summers and had during her career there saved a drowning boy. Melinda, nine at the time, had been present at the event.
I flipped out when I heard that information. See, I love the ocean but I live in fear of it, fear to go too far out when swimming because I had almost drowned when I was nine down at the Adamsville South Beach one summer. Typical boy story: as the ocean was rising I had spied a log, an abandoned telephone pole, and had grabbed onto it. I drifted out for a while and then I realized I had gone too far but instead of holding onto the log I decided to try and swim for shore. Not a good swimmer and just too far out I started going down. My brother who was on the shore called for help and the swimming instructor came out and saved me in a nick of time.
So what lesson did I draw from that today. Anything about fate, karma, or just plain good luck. No. I told Melinda that since we had already “met” maybe we should get together and discuss the matter more fully. And guess what, she agreed. Jesus.”
And so it
went. Somehow this blizzard of e-mails
morphed into some insipid cyberspace kindred spirit torch-bearing. Something cosmic
was driving them forward. Eventually the e-mail system became too slow for
their eight million questions for each and their attraction to each other so
the ubiquitous cellphone became their mode of communication. So
they exchanged cell-phone numbers. One cold December night Sam, from his car
sitting in an isolated parking lot, called Melinda and they talked for a couple
of hours. Laughing, giggling and being somewhat shy while they were doing so.
Here
is an e-mail that Sam sent after that first cell phone talk:
“Melinda –Well now I
can truly say that I am “talking” to Melinda Loring and wouldn’t all those boys
in that “phantom” locker room be jealous. And rightfully so. I hope that you
got from the sound of my voice that I was, well, excited to talk to you (after
that schoolboy weak-kneed, and dry mouth, anticipation nervousness).Now we can
go easy with only one more “nervous” thing, actually meeting. I think we are
going to be okay whatever happens. I haven’t felt like this since my last
serious relationship ended about ten years. We both carry whatever baggage we
have accumulated and will discuss that but we shall see. All I know for now is
forward. BTW I am in favor of keeping our “talking” and whatever very private
for now-meaning I am not going to be “boasting” to one and all about what we
are up to-let’s say to the reunion committee or those long-ago locker room boys
as I help prepare for the reunion and come in contact with those remaining.
Later Sam”
And her response:
“Hi again Sam,
Me too, very positive
about our first conversation. You have a very youthful voice, without our
old Boston/North Adamsville accent! Felt
bad you were sitting in your car sorta late in the evening, not even haven't
gotten home; but it sounds like you have a lot of energy, jogging
very early in the morning on those "astroturf "soccer fields.
Okay, no bragging
about our pre-reunion stuff! I did mention our connecting over the 50th to
Kathy before I got that message, but will keep it private from here on in.
So much zigzagging
over our lost histories! Of course I want to hear more about your having been
chained to the White House fence! And these various volunteer groups for
assorted war victims; and especially about how you train for nonviolent
resistance and the philosophies that go with that (King, Gandhi, Thoreau &
those wonderful Irish women from the 70s & you & so many more).
Ha ha, at least we
have sound bodies, and it looks like pretty strong minds too!
Looking forward to
our chat on Thursday evening, and I hope that the 50th committee work
goes well and you have fun reconnecting with some of our classmates too!”
Along with
that new communication arrangement Melinda began to inquire more fully about
Sam’s marital status. She had been married twice for relatively short periods
but was now free and single and had been for a while although she was still
hopeful about meeting the “right guy.” She had noticed on one of his Facebook photos what looked like a
wedding ring except it was on the wrong hand. Sam quickly deflected her question
by (truthfully) telling Melinda that ring, a ring given to him by old
girlfriend who got it from her grandmother, was worn by him for symbolic
reasons which he did not want to disclose. But, no, he was not married. And,
yes, he had been married twice when he was younger and they were both
short-lived. Sam kind of, no, he definitely fudged on that question though saying
he was “separated” from Laura in order to see which way the winds were blowing
with Melinda. Melinda accepted that explanation at face value, then. During
this period they began discussing meeting in person somewhere for dinner. The
long and short of it was that after a blizzard of calls they finally arranged
to meet for dinner in Portsmouth and discuss things. But before that meeting
Sam had a pang of conscious, had to tell Melinda what the score was about
Laura. Hell, let him tell the story the way he wrote it in an e-mail just
before they were to meet:
“Hi Melinda –Well we have been on a
roller-coaster so far and we have not even met in person yet. That is what is
so surreal about this whole thing that had developed between us. That business
from last night about me tracking your record down got me thinking though. Kind
of has forced my hand about something that I had intended to bring up tomorrow
as the first order of business to clear the air and give our friendship a
proper footing. I was struck by the way you said you have been honest with me
and that got me motivated to write this now instead of wait until tomorrow. I
have, unlike you, not always been honest in the past. For example, not to brag
or anything like that but to deal with the honesty question, a couple of times
way back I have had five girlfriends at one time so there was no way I could be
honest and juggle all that. So I was lying to beat the band. I have gotten
better and tried to be honest with you and have been doing so. But sometimes
you can be honest and still omit things and that is what this e-mail is about.
I take it as something that we will work through as we go along and I hope you
agree.
You know as well as I do that we both
carry a lot of baggage, busted marriages, affairs, and so forth. On the other
hand we are both old enough to have whatever level of friendship we want from
just friends to an affair because we both as far as I know have no ties that
would prohibit that. And even if we did in this day in age we could still have
whatever relationship we wanted. As long as we both have our eyes open and know
the score. That “know the score” part is what I want to talk about. It is
nothing bad but it is a complication. And even if we decide to be just friends
it is part of what is unfolding. I have decided to do the rest of this as a
narrative so here goes.
Up until a few weeks ago for the past
ten years or so since the end of my last serious relationship I was just
rolling along writing, doing legal work, doing politics, playing golf and all
the rest. Doing all of that while living in the same house as the woman that
was my last serious romantic relationship, Laura, who is still my closest woman
friend. I have known her for over twenty- five years and about twenty years ago
we bought this modest house in Holden. As time went on though we had, as
couples will, our problems until about ten years ago we decided that it wasn’t
working. But we both wanted to keep the house (and the cats, Willie Boy, my
Willie Boy and her Sasho) and be friends (I won’t go into all of that but you
can ask me about it). So that is what we did. And nothing wrong with that
people make such arrangements all the time. And so time moved on. I did my
thing-she did hers and we do things together. For example we still go out to
Saratoga to Laura’s family for Thanksgiving and Christmas since I don’t have
family that way. Stuff like that. At some level we have deep affection for each
other but it is just easier and more comfortable to be friends.
Then out of the blue you came along.
You know how we “met” and all so I don’t need to go into that but what happened
is that I was not sure where we were heading (at one point if anywhere) and so
I made a point of keeping that information to myself. Remember I made a point
about just concentrating on us and not on other baggage stuff. Part of it
obviously is that if we were not going anywhere then such information didn’t
matter and if we were then that would just be an awkward situation that we
would deal with. That is what a lot of my concern about expectations, the way
we have met and all of that has been about. I have told her about you in
general terms (the only way to put it since we still have not met) and since
this whole thing has been topsy-turvy that is where things stand right now.
If all of this seems like too much then
so be it-but as for me I still say forward- if you don’t that is okay and we
can work on some other way to be friends. I think we both strongly want to be
friends and should be damn it if that is what we want. Later Sam”
That issue
momentarily resolved they met at a fancy restaurant in Portsmouth, restaurant
of her choosing since she knew the area. Sam was attending a conference in
Portland, Maine so that town was symbolic half- way point. They met and some
spark began right from the first, hands touching and smiles glowing immediately
as they chatted away like two magpies. Maybe it had been that they had gone to
the same high school together, maybe it had been the same tough growing up poor and hungry
profiles which they exchanged, maybe it had been the six million things they had in common like
an interest Russian literature and history, maybe it had been their connections
in the education field, and maybe knowing Sam it had been Melinda’s pale blue
eyes but a spark had been lit. They agreed that after fifty years of “missing”
each other they had to play the thing out.
And so they
did meeting for dinner many times, going to Washington together for a few days,
and fatally winding up at Melinda’s house in New Hampshire one night, one cold
night, one night when the wine flowed and, well, you can figure it out. But for
Sam, almost from the start there was always that nagging lie about his
relationship with Laura (and also the need to lie to her about his whereabouts
on many occasions when he was with Melinda) which as time went on he began to kind
of half tell Melinda about.
Needless to
say Melinda, a woman according to Sam, who was serially monogamous and sought
exclusive possession of her men became furious about Sam’s more complicated relationship
with Laura. As Sam gave more details to Melinda while both developed strong
feeling of affection for each other Melinda more and more pressed the issue of
Sam’s fully leaving Laura. He would hedge, saying he needed more time. Then
Melinda’s pool accident and subsequent surgery occurred and hence the notice
provided by him on the site.
That is
where I entered the picture and contacted Sam. But as I learned from Sam later
as things unwound this recovery time was also a time when Sam, who would go up
to New Hampshire frequently (telling Laura he was helping out an old classmate),
to help Melinda out around her house, take her to appointments and get her out
of the home felt more like a care-giver than a lover. He made what became the
fatal mistake of telling Melinda that change in feelings and she because
furious despite her condition. Here is the fatal e-mail which Sam claimed was a
“love letter” and Melinda declared in no uncertain terms sounded like nothing but
a closing argument, a way out for him:
“Dearest Melinda -Where have those hands grabbing at each other across
the table in delight/need/want at Moxy’s (and elsewhere) gone. Where has your
hand grabbing my arm while walking outside of Rudi’s (and elsewhere) and me
glad to have you do it gone. Where have the little stolen sweet kisses of
Portsmouth parking lots gone. Where have those endless phone calls where we
hated to sign off talking about great adventures ahead gone. Where have those
roundabout hours of blissful silliness gone. Where have those shy but
meaningful moments when our feelings for each other blossomed gone. I could go
on with a million more examples when were on the same page and were relaxed and
confident about our relationship and where it might head but you get the idea.
I sensed from this e-mail that you are beginning to get the feeling like
me that you/I/we are not in a good place these days. Think about the first time
at Newburyport in precious December and last week. I had already spoken about
this last week and now I think you sense that too from your side. Our talk
today where we got all theoretical about the future without any sweet talk kind
of epitomized that. Frankly, and you can speak for yourself, I am unhappy with
the drift of things now. I/you/we spent too much time thinking about the future,
future plans, about the relationship itself and not enough about how to get out
of the rough patch we are in. How to get the romance back and just relax with
each other. Why don’t we take a step
back, maybe two, today and tomorrow and think about things we can say and do
when we meet on Thursday to break the impasse. Why don’t we step back and just
forget about the future for a little bit and just think we are “dating” for
right now with all its sense of mystery in the now with no future goals. Or maybe
that we should think about just being friends for a while. I always want to be
friends with you that is for sure. These are only suggestions. The main thing
is that you/I/we think about this and not rush into a blizzard of e-mails. This
rough patch requires thinking not writing-
From a guy who misses those delighted hands across the table, that
grabbing hand on my arm, those endless funny phone calls waited for in
anticipation and nervousness, those sweet shy stolen kisses, that bubble
silliness when the outside world didn’t matter for a bit, those intimate
moments when you and I both blushed a teenage-like blush at how close we were,
those all night talkfests, those candles flittering in the dark, serious
Melinda and Sam just being foolish and off-guard, the kindnesses we did for
each other just because we were special to each other, the sense that our thing
was written in the wind, and lots of other things you remember as well as I do.
Sam”
See Sam also
told me he was getting cold feet about his future with Melinda who was talking
more and more about them living together. Shortly after Melinda had recovered
enough to be able to drive on her own they agreed to meet one night for dinner
in Newburyport and discuss where they were going. That night the sparks flew,
there were acrimonious arguments, and finally Sam walked out furious at some of
the things Melinda said. That was the last they saw of each other in person
although there were a few bitter e-mails and cellphone calls before Melinda
closed the curtain
down on the affair. So there is the story, the sad story and no happy ending.
War
and Pentagon funding continues to make up nearly half of U.S. discretionary
spending. That fails to represent our values and creates budget shortfalls for
job creation, education and other human needs.
