Old Friendships Buck The Isolationist Trend

By Nancy K. Crevier

Proverbs on the subject abound, and philosophers have pondered the parameters of friendship for centuries.

Aristotle is credited with saying, “Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.” Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” George Washington knew that “True friendship is a plant of slow growth,” and every Girl Scout has sung, “Make new friends, but keep the old….”

According to the Encyclopedia of Psychology, those people who foster friendship enjoy better health and a better sense of well-being than do their counterparts who do not have a web of friends. Friends provide emotional support, guidance, companionship, and hands-on help for each other. A friendship wrought of love and caring is a source of strength and can actually add to a long, happy life. The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reported in 2005 that data collected from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Aging, begun in 1992 and which followed 1,500 subjects over a course of ten years, proved that “a strong network of friends and confidants significantly reduced the risk of death.”

Family friends and friends we know through other friends fill gaps in our lives. Friends are brought together by shared beliefs and interests and spark the best in each other.

In a study published in the June 2006 issue of American Sociological Review, sociologists Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and Matthew E. Brashears of Duke University and the University of Arizona addressed “Social Isolation in America.” Reading their findings, one would think that friendship has become devalued in a world inundated by technology and busy lives. The study revisited statistics form a 1985 study on American confidants. “The number of confidants mentioned in 2004 is dramatically smaller than in 1985. Both kin and nonkin ties have decreased, although the change is larger in nonfamily ties,” says one part of the study.

Having a smaller number of friends with whom important information is shared may be true. A sample of Newtowners, however, shows that friendship is still “true-blue” for many, and that it is quality, not quantity, that counts in the eyes of many who cultivate friendship.

Often there is one special friend; someone who has stood by through thick and thin, with whom an exceptional bond has been formed. This is the person who comes to mind when the word “friend” is uttered. Not always the “best” friend, but the best kind of friend, he or she is the one who is there in body or spirit through the years.

Circumstances and where one is in life’s long haul can be the glue that binds one friend to another. Mary Anderson’s friendship with Lisa Armstrong grew swiftly and firmly when the two women lived in Florida. They met 11 years ago at their older children’s preschool, discovered they shared common interests in scrapbooking, photography, and bargain shopping, and before long were talking to each other every day on the phone, even though they lived just a couple of doors apart.

Ms Anderson lives in Newtown now, and Ms Armstrong remains in Florida. “I still call her at least twice a month. Lisa is so easy to talk to. I can tell her anything and we can be silly together,” says Ms Anderson. “We could talk even more. It’s not that we have to, though.”

When Ms Armstrong visited the Andersons last March, the women found that they had to crimp the outdoor activities that they had enjoyed together in Florida to accommodate the New England weather, but even so, says Ms Anderson, “We picked right up. It’s like we speak the same secret language. I can say anything and I know she’ll understand.”

Ms Anderson has found it easy to make new friends in Newtown and anywhere else she has lived, but it is Lisa, she says, who completes her. “Lisa is my closest adult friend.”

Bonds Forged In

Transitions

Transitional periods in a person’s life can also be the tie that binds for some. His “best” friend, to use the term loosely, is his wife of 43 years, Carolyn, but, “My longest, dearest friend is someone I’ve known since 1973,” says the Reverend Lee Moore, interim pastor of the Newtown Congregational Church. “Sam Fogal is also a pastor and colleague. We met when he was a senior minister at a church where I was Christian education and youth minister. Sam was at the beginnings of some difficult personal decisions. He needed an ear, advice; he needed someone to lean on, and I was willing and able to do so.”

In times of need, surmises Rev Moore, there are people who can and will respond. Out of that, he believes, can come long-lasting, loving relationships, such as the one he shares with Sam.

“We have tackled some difficult issues together: his divorces, my cancer, growing older. But I think the key is that we want to be in the relationship, so we ‘keep at keeping at.’ Sam still lives in Connecticut, so we get to see each other every few months. We email, we telephone. We are both very intentional about plugging into each other for four-hour lunches a couple of times a year, plus other occasional outings,” says Rev Moore.

He likens friendship to planting and nurturing a seed. “The seed needs fertilizer and water and care to compete with the weeds.”

Sam is the friend Rev Moore can count on to be straight with him and to whom he turns in times of happiness and pain. “When my mom died, when my dad died, I knew I would get a call from Sam. Likewise, when his parents died, I knew I would get in touch with him.”

What keeps this friendship kindled, says Rev Moore, are the many positive qualities embodied in his friend. “I admire Sam’s integrity in life, ministry, relationships, and love. I know he loves me and has my best interest at heart in our relationship and vice versa. In difficult time and in good times, we will be there for each other.”

Friends Coming Of Age

Another person who holds dearest the friend she made at a transitional period of her life is Jeanetta Miller. “We ‘grew up’ together,” says Ms Miller, of Susan Bell. “It’s that time between 17 and 25, that crucial period in life.”

She and Susan met on the first day of freshman year at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., 40 years ago. “There were some very fundamental things we had in common. Susan is an idealist, but also a pragmatist, like me. I think when you meet someone who shares those same fundamental values, it’s not unexpected to remain friends,” says Ms Miller.

The two young women had as many differences as they did similarities, but it did not stand in the way of their relationship. Ms Bell majored in history, Ms Miller in French and then English; Ms Miller grew up in the Midwest, Ms Bell in Albuquerque, N.M.; they shared few classes at school and did not room together until their junior year. “She’s broad, and I’m deep,” explains Ms Miller, as to why she connected with this woman and has remained connected for so many years.

“Susan is one of the most generous people I know, and really good at being a friend. She’s the kind of person who has a knack for keeping in touch. It’s always about the pleasure she can confer on others, not herself,” Ms Miller goes on to say, and adds, “When I hear her voice on the phone, the years just melt away.”

Susan, says Ms Miller, is a woman of eclectic interests, and that keeps her interesting. From history major to the owner of a fashion store in the San Francisco area to jewelry designer, she has dabbled in many areas since their college days. “Susan’s a serious reader and has been for longer than anyone else I know. With her guidance, I’ve become much better informed and better read. We’ve also inspired each other to read and share with each other what we think each would be interested in — sort of a minibook club of two.”

Because both women remained in the San Francisco area for nearly two decades, their friendship continued to grow during that very developmental period of life, says Ms Miller. But even when life eventually led Ms Bell to New Mexico and Ms Miller to Connecticut, “I never really felt I left Susan behind,” Ms Miller says. “She can say to me what I need to hear when it is needed. She is wise and compassionate.”

They email and telephone each other frequently during the year, but sometimes it is two or more years between face-to-face visits. This July, Ms Miller drove five hours each way to visit her friend who was at the family camp on Ellen’s Island in Lake Winnipesauke, N.H. There is never any worry about awkward moments when they do get together.

“I think of my husband as my best friend,” Ms Miller notes. “He and I can talk about any topic. But I can’t imagine life without Susan. It would be a huge hole.”

Friends From Childhood

Sometimes, roots put down in childhood friendship thrive through the years. Karen Pinto’s oldest, dearest friend is Patti-Jo Provenzale. “We’re very different,” she says, “Patti-Jo gets all dressed up for the business world, gets her hair done, wears high heels. I’m the hippie!” laughs Ms Pinto. She has known Patti-Jo since the two were sixth graders in Bridgeport. “We went through grammar school and high school together and lived three blocks from each other. We ate dinner at each others’ houses all the time and were really more like sisters than friends.”

Ms Pinto and her friend went separate ways after high school, one into the business world and one off to college. They do not see each other or talk to each other every day, as Ms Pinto does now with many of her daily friends, “But we still stay close friends,” says Ms Pinto. Patti-Jo is the friend with whom Ms Pinto can pick up right where she left off and never miss a beat. “I think knowing each other since we were young kids, you can carry that memory with you. I think that bond was formed early.”

Their friendship is a personal one. The two women meet at least once a month for lunch, but they don’t do “group” things with each others’ families. Nonetheless, they have shared the important moments in each others’ lives. “I know she is there for me and vice versa. We’ve helped each other through various traumas in our lives. We have our siblings and parents in common, too,” Ms Pinto points out, as another commonality that binds them to each other.

“She’s honest and fun loving, fairly energetic, and hardworking,” says Ms Pinto, of Patti-Jo’s qualities. “We complement each other.”

When Dolores Allen met Sheila Steck in her junior year at Newtown High School in 1948, she knew she had met a kindred spirit. Both young women had moved around during their elementary and early high school years and had recently transferred to Newtown High School. Both participated in a lot of the same school activities, including chorus, Glee Club, foreign languages, and English, and loved to spend their lunch hours at either the Maryland Grill across from the school, then located on Church Hill Road, or at the Village Coffee Shop, which stood at the site of the new Church Hill & Queen Commons.

“Juniors and seniors had the privilege of going to lunch off-premises,” remembers Ms Allen, “so we would go together with the same ‘lunch bunch’ every day.” They talked on the phone and gathered at dances and the movies and when both enrolled at the University of Connecticut, the two became roommates. Eventually, both found themselves in possession of elementary education degrees, and not long after college, married life and children came along.

Post college life found Ms Allen and her friend on opposite coasts of the country, but still they continued to keep in touch. “If you go through life on a parallel course,” says Ms Allen, “you share the same experiences, so you always have something to talk about. We share information and philosophies, but really, no whining,” she says. “We’re both nurturers, and Sheila gets along with everyone. She’s very adaptable.”

A true friend can be counted on, and this is true of their friendship, says Ms Allen. “I know that if I ever needed a place to stay, I could pick up the phone and she would say, ‘Fine! Come!’ And the same is true if she needed it. She is like family.”

The women try to see each other every few years, but even when more time goes by, they just pick up where they left off, as if the years in between never happened.

“Maybe it’s that we both grew up in a rural area and we put down roots here,” Ms Allen says of their enduring friendship. “Around Sheila, it’s like I’m home.”

A new friend today could be an old friend in 50 years. “Nurturing needs to happen,” says Rev Moore. Perhaps the next study on social isolation will reflect a return to quantity, as well as quality, in relationships in America.