Harry Harrison, sci fi author, and dear friend, died last Wedneday at age 87. I just found his obit by chance because periodically I look on The New York Times obituaries list. I am truly saddened. What was more poignant as I read the details was that his wife, Joanie, died in 2002. OMG, I am thinking, Ed and I were just getting ready to move to Florida. Why didn’t I try to look her up – they were living in England I knew, and that made it harder to find them – but why did I procrastinate?

On my first night in New York, with one phone number, Harry and Joan’s, and no place to stay, I called them. I had swindled my way into a YWCA apartment complex – the only room available was the penthouse – they gave it to me so that I wouldn’t have to sleep on the street, but I was to have it for only one night. I called Joan. Come right over,” she said. “Where are you?” I told her. She said, “Take the Lexington Avenue bus and get off at 15th Street and walk West.”

I got on the bus and asked the bus driver how much and he snarled at me and I timidly said, “I’m sorry, this is my first night in New York,” and he turned into mush and said, “okay, okay, 15 cents,” and tried to hide that he was touched. Joanie gave me the address and I got there. With Joanie’s help, I got a room at the East End Hotel for women on the upper East side. It was a rather restrictive place, but it kept me off the street.

In the years to come, Joan and Harry remained staunch friends and the night Jay and I married, theirs was the apartment we went to. It was New Year’s Eve, 1956. As time wore on, Harry and Joan became expatriates – we drifted apart. I shall never forget them. I am devastated that I never found them again.

xx, Teal.