About a month ago, I did something and experienced something that was fun, exciting, and very special. I met a friend.

I've known Clara since early in 2000. We met in the chat room section of a Keno game room on Pogo. It started with the usual chit-chat that goes on in a game room, but little by little, we could both sense each other's genuine niceness and friendliness as more than gameroom buddies.

Just from the expressions she used, the feelings that could be sensed behind her words of kindness and concern, the real wit behind her humor, and her quickness to defend anyone who was being unfairly teased or offended got me to recognize her as someone I often agreed with, often laughed with, and often shared the same feelings about things. It didn't take too long for us to share our email addresses with each other, and the correspondences were more than just jokes, cartoons, email cards, and chain letters. We actually wrote letters to each other and really started getting to know each other better and better.

Over the years, our friendship has grown immensely. We chat on the phone, sometimes for a brief few minutes when there's a specific reason for calling and sometimes for an hour when we feel like gabbing up a storm. We've sent gifts to each other at Christmas and sometimes there are little trinkets for no reason at all. She's rather a computer genius, as far as I'm concerned, so there have been numerous times that she has walked me through solving problems I encountered, and she has done some things on her computer for me and then sent the paperwork or CDs to me. I have taken care of some things on the computer for her, too, especially when she and her husband went away on trips. We've shared books and magazines and have exchanged recipes.

Clara and I became real buddies. We know an awful lot about each other, each other's families and friends, and we've gotten to know a few of each other's mutual friends and some of each other's relatives. I've talked on the phone with her husband and one of her sisters and I've communicated with that same sister and some of her friends via computer. She had met my best friend, Debbie, and has talked with Edie on the phone quite a lot. However, for no better reason than things never working out, Clara and I had never actually MET each other...not in the face-to-face way. It's a good thing we've shared pictures over the years or we wouldn't even know what each other looks like!

Well, Clara and I finally did get to meet each other IN PERSON! She and her husband had gone on a schooner cruise off the coast of Connecticut and had a few days left of their week's vacation for doing something else, so they came to RI so we could finally meet, get together, and hang out for a couple of days. I am going to post another piece about some of the things we did while they were here, but this post is only about the most important thing...the most important part of the visit; after all these years, Clara and I finally met for the first time! And, it was wonderful!