"Hey Nineteen"

Dearest Sam,

 

How wonderful of your sweet husband to create this for you.  I only wish I was as eloquent as some others who have contributed and, more importantly, not a technological retard so I could include some old photos.  (One in particular comes to mind of you at Bondos in blessed Northampton with your bi-lateral hairdo.  then came the RED-headed Sam -- the femme fatale.

 

So, Sam, it's been a few years since you made that first tape for me for my 19th birthday, which began with Steely Dan.  Followed by....I dunno maybe Wham, or Chaka Kan or the Smiths or...maybe a song or two from Kimie's Amy Grant collection.  "In a little while we'll be with the father."  (Wait a minute, honey, you're Jewish!)  As you are lying on my bed in the K&G Lounge -- which you OWNED.

 

Time spent with Samantha Goldstein is always UNFORGETTABLE.  (Which reminds me of another tape between the two of us.)  Your hilarious stories (my mother's favorite is at that Thanksgiving when you told some funny tale and Carolyn quietly commented after:  "That was MY story."...."Yeah, I know, but you weren't going to tell it," responds Sam.  Your glorious appreciation for .....good friends, good food, good conversation, but mostly good friends -- which you have so freakin many of because you are so GOOD to us all (I think you know every one of us better than we know ourselves.)  Your biting wit and incredibly insightful observations.

 

I love you, Sam.  Always will.  I'm envious of those who get to spend time with you still.  It was so long ago.  And after so many years gone by (let's see, 22, to be exact, since we first met on the steps of Lamont house, and you said I couldn't possibly be a college student because I looked like Raggedy Ann, and I loved you immediately, while Kimie looked on befuddled by the both of us), it seems incredible that it was just a few years that we really spent together, and most of that time we weren't speaking to one another.  It makes me regret the time I wasted being a psychotic, narcissistic idiot, but, hey, who I was then was part of that strange and wonderful intensity between us.  I never told you this, Sam, but I think I never had a real friend before you.  I think I didn't know how.  You and Synthia (just would feel amiss not bringing her name into this) and my SMITH buddies opened me up (believe it or not) in a way that I had never known before, nor have I ever experienced since.

 

How lucky Jarrah is to have such a HOT mom.  And how lucky you and David are to have eachother, because you're both angels.  (Just would feel amiss at not bringing their names into this too.)

 

So Happy 40th Birthday, old friend.  40 IS the new 30, as it's been said.

 

Grace