Better than "Beam me up Scottie"

The purpose of my blog has always been to show that no matter how difficult the problem presents itself, we can usually find some resource to bring us close to a solution..

There was a school reunion for my class at the end of this month and I strongly wanted to attend, mainly because two of my close friends from high school planned also to go and we all thought it would be the last time we'd see each other.

But the week before we were to make the trip -- which was six hours across the state, overnight at our sons house in eastern Pennsylvania and then another four hours north to Connecticut; it was clear that I couldn't do it.

We called my friend Ruth in Boston -- she is pretty computer savvy -- and got her to load in the Skype into her laptop and tested out between Boston and Pittsburgh. What a thrill to see her face and hear her voice and I think she was pretty impressed too. She and Angela, my other friend, would be staying at the same hotel and we arranged to have a Skype conference on Saturday morning..

Come that morning the phone rang and I switched over to my computer and answered it on Skype. I turned on my video button in order to see my face at the same time as they and hear the oohs and ahs and exclamations from my friends when they first saw my face. I told them to turn on their video through Ruth’s computer and then it was my turn to ooh and aaw and exclaim, seeing their faces talking to me from Connecticut.

What a perfect solution. We talked, the three of us, for over an hour, I had had a wonderful last visit with my friends and afterwards, they, at my urging, went over to the cemetery and had a first view of my stone.

And there I was, at home, and bed bound and talking to my friends like a character from “A Christmas Carol”.