How strange life is.  When we were young the technological advance of transistor radios represented a huge break-through into modern communications and mass entertainment.  Fans of science fiction might have read some leap of the imagination conjuring up the absurdly impossible supposition that one day in the not-too-distant future human beings would be able to communicate as though magically, through something called cyber-space.

But that is precisely what has occurred; the hard-to-imagine become reality.  Back then, when we were teens, communication was strictly conducted at a remove by mail or by telephone or telegraph.  Now, we can reach out to one another through great physical distances, instantly with the use of the Internet.

And through its magic we were able to make contact with friends we hadn't seen nor heard of in almost 60 years.  For me, a close girlfriend with whom I'd lost touch long ago.  Communicating with her by email led me to other friends upon whom at one time I relied for companionship and friendship.  One of them we were close to until that time she became a young mother, and shortly afterward, so did I.

The physical distance of living at opposite ends of a large, populous and traffic-busy city, along with the pressing requirements of looking after very young children created an eventual distance between us and we simply lost touch.  That old childhood friend isn't comfortable with the Internet or the use of computers, and with her, and another, old-fashioned, mailed letters were exchanged.

In one of which we received neatly packaged a handful of old photographs of ourselves, my husband me as young adults still in our mid-teens, we had no idea even existed.