Despite being separated over the years by distance, Betsy and I have been close friends for over 30 years. We met at the Lewiston Peach Festival when we were about 18/19 yrs old. Brian Edwards and I were walking around the festival and Betsy was just comnig off the fairis wheel with either Reenee or Sue Cothran, when all of a sudden I hear her yell "Half-Time"! Not knowing what the heck she was talking about, I said yeah sure, we're Half-time. Half-time was the bar over on Ontario Avenue. From there, Betsy dated Brian Edwards for a bit, whom she loved, but her and I became life long frieds.
I take resonnsiblity for Betsy moving to Houston. I had gone there in the early 80's to work. I called Betsy and said, why don't you come and visit. In the end, I retuned home and she stayed, where she went to work for NASA. In hindsight, I don't know if her moving to Houston was good or bad. Good from her standpoint, because she stayed there for 30 years, but bad for the rest of us, because it kept a really great, fun person from being a part of our daily lives.
Betsy and I had lots of fun together. She loved the disco days and frequented the rusty nail, the continental, and the late show. Betsy also got me started in disco retail sales. I worked for Merry go round and comming attractions just like her.
Betsy had an unmistakeable chuckle and laugh, that I could always trigger whenever I wanted, becuase she always laughed at my stupid sarcastic humor. I was lucky that way.
I used to meet her and her mom and dad at Howard Johnsons for fish fries on Fridays. I think Mrs Brown (Nina)would have liked to see us together, but that wasn't the basis for our relationship.
Just recently, Betsy reached out to me. Just during the recent holiday. We spoke on the phone for about 15-20 minutes. we exchanged a couple of voice mails afterwards and had intended to hook up, but that never happned. About a week later I got a call with the very bad and sad news that Betsy was gone.
Despite many years of spearatation, I always thought about Betsy and I think she aways thought about me. We were really good friends. I'll miss her quite alot, but I'll always have a great number of memories to reflect on to hold me over until we meet again someday.
