I am about to become that Boring Old Man at the Cocktail Party*:
1) Second Cousin Alice emailed a link to a video of a book talk about Lisa Wingate’s The Book of Lost Friends, which is just coming out. She sent it in part because one of the women in the video, not the author, just happened to be the wife of a man whose grandmother was her third grade Sunday School teacher back at First Methodist in Lago di Carlo, Mrs. Plauche (pronounced PLOH-shay). And wouldn’t you know it, Mrs. Plauche had also been MY third-grade Sunday School teacher back at First Methodist! Several years later, of course; I was as properly dressed four-year-old in the congregation when Alice was married.
2) Alice’s grandmother Lal and my grandmother Mary Ella were sisters, and they and their sister Kate were very good friends of Mrs. Plauche. They probably all played canasta together.
2a) Somewhere I have Mrs. Plauche’s copy of Lily Daché’s memoir Talking Through My Hats, which in retrospect seems like a very frivolous thing for her to have. But then we still haven’t figured out why or how my Gramma Thorson ended up owning a copy of The Myra Breckinridge Cookbook, so there you are.
3) The Book of Lost Friends sounds both heartbreaking and fascinating, which means it is probably not a book for me to pick up in 2020.
*Certain friends of mine are going to sprain their eyes rolling them over that assertion!