A humorous look at autographs

Here’s a fond reminiscence about my oldest friend, Joan, on a topic related to the book. I don’t mean she’s older than any of my friends, sorry Joan. But she was my first friend. We met in kindergarten when I was 4, almost 5. We lived a few blocks from one another. Our parents connected on the first day of school standing outside the entrance doors watching their girls walking into the future. (Photo above, Joan is on the left, Sue is on the right)

Joan and I must have recognized the kindred spirit in each other as we became fast friends. While we are vastly different people, we shared a silly sense of humor even as tiny girls. Back in the day in kindergarten, we would lay towels down on the floor for nap time. Yeah, right… not with Joan and I lying next to each other. I remember the teacher dragging me across the floor away from my newest buddy, Joannie. Or maybe it was her being pulled, but regardless, we needed to be separated. We were giddy girls laughing instead of resting.

I moved after kindergarten to a new school, and a few years later, Joan relocated a few cities away, but luckily our parents kept us connected. Thank goodness they would make the trek to let us visit each other.

I can’t even begin to count the number of hours Joan and I laughed together. As teenagers, we could read each other’s minds. Often, we would bust up laughing without a word having passed between us. We didn’t have much self-control, I’m happy to say. There’s nothing better than a good laugh, better than any medicine on the market. And we remain silly girls to this day, still laughing at the most absurd things. A year or two ago, we went to the movies and spent the better part of the day laughing. Nothing had changed. 

I believe friends likely are God’s way of making up for all the difficult trials and tribulations we will be required to go through in life.

I have been thinking about one particular giggle-fest when we were somewhere between 11-13. For years, Joan and I spent hours writing, practicing our penmanship, and listing as many words as we could think of that started with a particular letter. Who needed the internet? We were satisfied competing with each other, both in the number of words we could come up with and who had the more admirable writing style. Oh, and the pen colors, of course, played a big part. We were fond of lavender colored ink. I’m sorry to say, Joan won, hands down on probably both counts. But being a seriously competitive person, I never gave up trying to beat her. I’m sure my handwriting is much better than it ever would have been had I not spent so many hours practicing my writing with Joan.

Joan accompanied my mom and me on a trip to Nebraska to see my grandmother. It was a big deal. I’m not sure I had ever traveled to see her before, except when I was a baby. And we were flying, which was also perhaps a first for me. Joan and I were in all our glory sitting in our own row, and no one monitoring us. I’m not sure where my mom was. But we were happily left to our own devices.

Back in the late sixties, without the internet or movies, we had all we needed to keep us busy for a three-hour flight—paper, pens, our imagination, and humor. We began to pretend we were movie stars signing our sought-after autographs. I’m sure by the end of that flight, all of the passengers in rows close to us were tired of our giggles. Or maybe they were entertained. But I’m pretty sure there was no in-between.

We each developed our brand name; I was Sue… Malue and Joan was Joan… Malone. The ellipses represented the time when you were signing your name that you would hesitate, head down but eyes looking up at your fan, to give them that thrill of your gaze, and then you would lower your eyes and finish your autograph. Three solid hours of laughing as we each signed our name over and over for our imaginary fans.

I have been asked already about participating in a few book signings. I can’t tell you how exciting that sounds to me. But I can already say that thanks to Joan, I will never take myself seriously when signing my name to a book. Regardless of what I may write on the inside of a book cover, best of luck, keep the dream, never give up, etc., my signature will always be in my mind, “Best wishes, Sue… (dramatic look up at my reader) Malue.”

I learned early with my friend not to ever take myself too seriously, a lesson that has served me well for many years. Thank you, Joan… Malone for being my precious life-long friend.