In early summer of '53, this farm kid who until age 17 had never travelled more than 30 miles from home (gas rationed in W W II), got on a freighter in Los Angeles, bound for Manila and one of the half dozen passengers (limited to that number, or they had to have a doc on board) was a more or less middle-aged woman who taught the rest of us to play Mah Johng. We travelled the great circle route, north of Hawaii, not too far from the Aleutians, for over two weeks, during which time we had quite a lot of time to play it. That sight of nothing but water for 18 days (I think that we did see a small island, and a U.S. ship en route back home from Korea just as the Korean War was ending) gave us a vivid awareness of how large this old world is. Just after skirting a typhoon, we arrived at the Philippines. Entering the Manila Harbour on the west side of Luzon, one of the first sights that we had of Asia was the little rocky island of Corregidor, near the entrance to 30-mile-long Manila Harbour, the last part of the Philippines to fall to the Japanese during World War II. I was rather strongly conscuous of the fact that, had our ship been in those waters 10 years earlier, we'd have been interned in Manila, rather than just visiting it as tourists. After visiting Manila, we travelled to Cebu in the southern Philippines, then back to Legaspi on the east side of Luzon, where we got a good view of the Mayon volcano, if we got up rather early in the morning, as the summit was covered by cloud throughout the rest of the day. Then our ship headed for Hong Kong, and travelling in through the narrows just at sunset was rather thrilling. As we entered the harbour, it looked as though we were entering a huge football field, with little golden lights covering all of the sides surrounding us. After that we came back north to Kobe, where we disembarked, travelled by overnight train to Tokyo, then took the first flight of my life to Seoul, Korea, where I spent the next four years, mainly helping refugees get back on their feet. When modern war has swept across much of your country three or four times, it causes huge disruption, impacting business and industry heavily, with many layoffs ... which was exacerbated in Korea, as their business and industry was pretty rudimentary, prior to the war. Resulting in jobs available for refugees being about as scarce as hens' teeth. One feels called upon to admire the generosity of spirit of the Koreans for not hating both the Americans and the Russians, who caused the division of their country, 65 years ago. Imagine some world power drawing a line down the Mississippi, resulting in no cars, buses, trains or any travel, including on foot, to cross it ... and no phoning ... or mail ... or any means of communication ... for a couple of generations. ole joyful P.S. Interesting ... how one small reference to an item can evoke a flood of memories. o j

Depends..a lot... on what the fight was about...if it was a misunderstanding.. then maybe you can help (you are their friend)..if one of them slept with the other's husband, maybe it's best not to try to make peace. The one thing you may find is that some people think a true friend is one who will stand by them -- If you feel one of them really did do something wrong and you don't stick with or side with your friend who didn't, it may be telling a lot more about your friendship than you realize... If you choose not to decide... you still have made a choice.. If it's petty, you can't stay out of it... but if it's not petty, you may have some thinking to do...

It's a form of Canasta. You need a certain number of points in cards to get on the table. All cards have a point value. For example you can't lay down less then a total of 50 points to start. That is pretty easy. But we play in rounds and by the 4th or 5th round you need 150/190 points to get in the game. So at that point we deal 13 cards instead of the usual 11. At the start each player takes cards off the stack and deals out two hands of 11 cards each, one for themselves and one for the person on their left. You tell the person on the left whether the cards you gave them are their hand or their foot. They cannot look at their foot until all of their hand is depleted.

Birthday dates - DD1 was born on my parents anniversary (their first grandchild). DS wasa born on my dad's oldest brother's bday. DD2 was born on DH's parents wedding date - they were divorced at the time, and we did not find this out until years later when DH brought home his mother's important paperwork for safekeeping. Not as interesting as many of your chance encounters: I was in an Army Reserve band of less than 40 people. 20yrs later, I was at a neighbor's house and a man came to measure for interior shutters, so I was going to leave. She opened the door and it was the tuba player. We both couldn't believe our eyes. 20yrs after this, another band member briefly resurfaced when we received an offer on our house (they were outbid). Now I am wondering if in 14yrs (at the 20yr mark) another member will make an appearance.