"Oh, drat!"

"What's the matter?"

"Never mind. You wouldn't understand anyway."

"Try me."

"Ok, today is the luncheon at the plaza and I'm trying to look my best. I just spent hours getting ready and now as I'm going out the door this has to happen to me. I was looking forward to this event. It's been years since I last saw her. Our relationship didn't end in a friendly manner and I've always felt, you know, bad about it. Over the years, there's been a nagging in my brain to right the wrong before it's too late kind of thing -- and not to let things continue to go on unspoken. Paul? You're not listening. Are you?"

"Yes, I am. I just closed my eyes for a second there. You were saying?"

"I don't know what happened. We were friends for a long time. We worked together, and we shared our lives. She got married, started raising a family, and we didn't have things in common anymore. I guess that was the start. Then, I called to tell her I wasn't coming. I was to visit her at her summer home, miles and I mean miles from my apartment, racking up hours and hours of desolate country driving, and I wasn't up to the long distant drive.

My fear of driving had been with me ever since that one snowstorm where I was stuck in the car for 7 hours. I felt totally entombed in white as I sat inside the car. The interior was white vinyl, the snow all around, piling ever higher was white, and the windshield was being covered endlessly with falling white snowflakes, coming down for hours and landing one by one by one as I watched out the window. That's all I remember...seeing white, nothing but white, everywhere and everything white. I was being buried alive in white.

Left with that, I just couldn't make myself drive the distance to her summer home... summertime or not. I told her I couldn't come. But instead of being honest about being afraid to drive, I made up some phony sounding excuse. Her tone changed. After that when I called it was different. We drifted even further apart as the weeks went on. She offered alternative weekend visits, but I came up with excuses each time until finally saying that I'd never go there.

Friendships come and go and I know that is part of life, but this loss hurt. I tried to get the friendship back on track, but after awhile it was easier to let it go, to walk away. But I never did just let go. The pain stuck with me. After many years, I attempted to reconnect by sending her my annual Christmas letters. At first I got a card in return, then a card with a note, and finally last year a card with an invitation to call or e-mail.

And that's what today is all about ... a possible restarting of that friendship or at least closure to that troublesome left-undone nagging feeling. And this has to happen!"

"Look, Honey, you are making more of this than necessary. First, you have choices here. Call and cancel the lunch, or fix the problem. Second, the return of your friendship is not based on something so silly. And, third, why don't you just go and change your stockings. Put on one without a run. See. It's simple. Now, go do it. She'll wait a few more minutes for you ... perhaps she also has a nagging feeling that she needs to put right."

I have a new friend. I call him Bunny Boy. I don't know why I call him this because I don't know whether he is male or female. I'm just assuming he's a boy.

Anyway, he is a wild rabbit whom I saw sitting or rather crouching just outside my back doorstep. It was a very cold winter night and I knew I had some carrots, so I decided to try and give him one. I went in to get the carrot and threw it out to him. Well, instead of going towards the carrot, he just jumped up and ran licketysplit away from it. I left the carrot there, and sure enough, the next morning it was gone.

Since that evening, I've put a carrot out for Bunny Boy every night and it is always gone the next morning. Sometimes I look out the back door window, hoping to catch a glimpse of him eating the carrot. However, I've only seen Bunny Boy eating one time. I watched while he ate one half of the carrot, and for a moment, I thought he lost the other half, which somehow got behind him. He sniffed and sniffed with his nose wiggling frantically, and I didn't think he'd find it, but he eventually did. It was fun watching him.

Sometimes Bunny Boy comes to fetch the carrot before I've put it out for him. He crouches up under a nearby tree waiting for his carrot, but when I come out the door to put the carrot down, he just runs away as fast as he can. He runs like greased lightning -- it's really amazing how fast he disappears. The next morning the carrot is always gone, so I know he's come back and also know he must still be alive. One night, he almost trusted me a bit, as when he started to run away, as I placed the carrot down, he stopped and posed like a little statue. I spoke to him in a soft voice encouraging him to come back for his carrot, but when he heard my voice, he just listened for a moment and then, well, you know; run, Bunny Boy, run.

I know Bunny Boy isn't running away because he is afraid of me, but he is just following his natural instinct of protecting himself against all predators. When I was a little girl, I often was able to tame wild kittens, but I know I will never tame Bunny Boy no matter how many carrots he munches. I will just be content to catch a sneaking glimpse of him munching away. So I say again, run, Bunny Boy, run -- no matter -- I'm still your friend.

My mother and father had a marriage made in heaven...or so my father admitted. Then he would add that his angel of a mother-in-law set the date. And the story goes like this.

My father had come to America as an immigrant from Italy in 1911 when he was 16 years old. Sent here by his father from their home in Sicily, to an uncle in Chicago, Louis was to find his fortune in the new world. His father's instructions were specific: go to school learn a trade and don't get into any trouble. There were probably many more instructions to go along with the basics but these were the ones Louis took most to heart ... knowing his father's word was law.

He lived with his uncle Giuseppe and his family for a while and then moved in with a group of young Italians like himself: all working at any jobs they could find. They lived a meager existence but managed to survive and forged friendships that were lasting. Louis became a citizen on July 2nd 1918 and decided to enlist in the U.S. Navy. He was immediately transferred to Great Lakes, IL., beginning his run of good luck.

At Great Lakes, Louis made many friends among his fellow servicemen. One of his closest buddies knew a couple of young ladies and wanted Louis to meet them. Louis agreed and consented to let his friend introduce him to one of the girls. "Is she good looking?" he asked, and his friend answered, "You'll see." The arrangement was made and Louis looked forward to meeting Lillian. He arrived at her house and was pleasantly surprised to find out that she was not only good-looking but very, very beautiful (as he confided to his friend). And so this became the beginning for them. They were immediately attracted to one another and what started as a mutual feeling became a love affair. As luck would have it at this time Louis was called back to his ship which was docked in Philadelphia. They said some sad goodbyes and Louis left Lillie in tears, expecting that he would be going overseas. Fate intervened and the ship he was assigned to actually sank in the harbor and while the crew was waiting for it to be repaired, the Armistice was signed in November of 1918.

The war was over. Louis came back to Chicago, found a steady job and a friend Tony, who needed a roommate to share a small apartment on Orleans Street. Louis and Lillie saw a lot of each other and soon were talking marriage. Well, at least Louis talked and Lillie quietly listened and happily agreed. At almost the same time, Tony's brother came back from the service and Louis had to vacate the bedroom he shared with Tony. Although a date had been set for the wedding, this was a disastrous turn of events.

After the initial shock, Louis came up with a perfect solution. Why not suggest to Lillie that he move to her family apartment since they were planning to live there for a short time after the wedding in March, anyway. He could easily bunk in with her brother Harry, who was unmarried at the time. And besides they were engaged, weren't they! That night he shared his stupendous idea with Lillie and she agreed. But they would first have to sell their idea to her mother. And Louis could plainly see that his run of good luck might be over.

Of course, the answer was a loud and decisive, "NO! What will people say? And the priest, he would never allow such a brazen thing before you are married in a proper church ceremony". Well, that was that. Louis could almost feel the hard bench he would soon be sleeping on in the park.

But it did happen ... with the good priest coming to the rescue. "Move the date of the wedding," he said. Because weddings were not performed during Lent in the Catholic Church and the Lenten season was to begin on the first Wednesday of February that year, the wedding date had been set for the first Saturday after Easter...March 31st. The good priest consented to perform the "proper ceremony" on Monday, February 16th, 2 days before Lent began ... just under the wire.

Now Louis was delirious. Lillie was ecstatic. And Mama was satisfied.

And they did live happily ever after.

Many, many years ago when young people and even their parents had no cars, their means of transportation were walking or streetcars.

Irv had graduated from Tuley High School but I was still a third year student there. On Friday nights we would go to various events at the school and Irv would walk me home through Humboldt Park. The school was one and one half miles from home. We would usually get to my folks home by 9:30 P.M. Irv would say "good night" and take the one mile walk home to his folks' home. There was no streetcar yet crossing the park in that area at that time although eventually buses started to travel down Division Street.

No one worried about crossing the park after dark because there were very few people in that area of the park. So on our dates Irv and I would walk that way rather than walking down Division Street which was a little farther trip.

On one particularly beautiful night we stopped and sat on the grass in the park. We rested and talked and didn't notice the man approaching us. He grabbed Irv's arm and said, "Give me your money." I was just petrified. I was only 16 years old and at that time we were not trained to cope with thieves as kids are today. Irv emptied his pockets and the theft netted $1.00 but that was big money then. The thief took off in a hurry with the cash. Irv and I discovered we could run and we ran the rest of the way home.

Needless to say, we didn't take the park route after dark if we were just the two of us. And if we did go through the park we ran, running seemed safer.

After we were married we decided running was good exercise and we did a lot of that.

Run, a three letter word, according to Webster's Dictionary has 16 meanings.

Run to move your legs more quickly then when walking, which on a bright spring day ones body wants to run for miles with joy, to feel the soft breeze in your hair, to feel the heart quicken and the lungs expand, and to thank the lord that once more the piles of snow and freezing pathways are gone for at least this year. To run without care into the fresh breeze never wanting to stop, to train for that summer run that you may never achieve.

Run also means to run away from the woes and worries of daily living, but what's the use of running for they will only run with you or they will be here when you return.

The word also applies to a tenor as he runs up and down the musical scale to loosen the vocal cords before starting to sing his aria.

And to a messenger who runs errands with haste and to you to run life's course as God intended for you.

To trip and fall along the way, to pick yourself up brush yourself off and smile until your last race is won.