Our Hank

Henrietta Jordan, or Hank as she likes to be called, lived 2 doors down from us in our old apartment complex for about 3 years. She's 87 years old and had a career in working the business of animation. Not the creative side, she reminds us. She worked with the execs. She had no children but absolutely loved all the kids living in that complex. Every week she would bring us popcorn that she got from the farmers market on Sunday morning and would just hug and kiss my kids until they wanted to run away. She's a great lady.

When we moved away, we said, "oh, we'll definitely keep in touch. We'll have you over for dinner and swing by whenever we're in the neighborhood." Cut to 2 years later and we haven't seen her, talked to her or even sent her pictures of the kids. I know, nice on us. Anyway, we all went and had lunch with her yesterday and she told me the most amazing stories about how she met her husband and what he was like before he died in 1976. It was really sweet. Her favorite story was that he was gone for two years during WWII and when he got home he told her that he slept with a girl while he was in Paris. She said "Well, Eddie. I didn't expect you to not do anything for two years...a person could get sick going that long without fooling around." Hmmm. That's one perspective, I guess. His buddies told him it would be crazy to tell her about it, but he said he knew he could tell her and it would be ok. Apparently, he was right. I've always had the feeling she was a very progressive lady in her day. Real spicy if you know what I mean. She didn't mention what was happening on this side of the atlantic during his two year stint.