Postcard brings friends together

Reporter's Notebook

 

Last updated 4/13/2022 at 2:13am



In my column I have often mentioned what good neighbors I have. I particularly mention Dave and Dorothy Stiegelmeyer, who frequently are doing little things to make life easier for me.

I received a postcard recently from an old friend asking if he was a good neighbor when living next to us in Nampa, Idaho when we were both attending college.

That was in or about 1957.

I assured him that he was.

Earl Tromburg and his wife Velma lived right next to us in the Vetville apartment complex made up of about a dozen apartments for students attending school there.

At the end of our college days, we went our own ways — Earl back to the Midwest, while I was making my way to the Seattle area.

While in Nampa, Earl worked at a meat packing plant nearby and followed this up with a career in the meat industry. Earl was a salesman and could convince you that a live chicken was a cut of beef.

While in Nampa, I worked for his father, Henry, who supervised the night watchman. That was me; the campus had only one.

When Earl retired, he made his way back to the Northwest where most of his family lived.

The four of us got together occasionally to renew our friendships and to share a laugh or two.

While in Nampa, Earl and I did a little fishing together.

On this one occasion we went deep in the woods north of Boise, set up our tent and started to fish. I remember we got distracted by a few huckleberry bushes, put our rods down and picked about a cup of berries. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to find Earl eating the huckleberries. This produced a laugh whenever we got together.

I read his postcard and called him last week to assure him that he and his wife were, indeed, good neighbors.

He explained in his postcard that he reads my column online and always gets a chuckle from The Star’s Coulee Cops column.

It was nice to renew old friendships. However, Earl advised me that Velma had passed away from cancer. When my wife’s dementia got worse, it was not possible to maintain friendships as before.

So we kind of lost track of each other, to my regret.

 

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