My Friend's Birthday

 I think of my friend today, as I often do, but especially today because it's her birthday.

While Phyllis and I haven't known each other all of our lives, we've known each other for a long time - since 1971 when we worked together  in Display Advertising at the  Call-Enterprise, a community newspaper in Downey, California. It didn't take long for us to become close friends, and share in fun adventures and tender moments  that go along with being good friends.

In wishing Phyllis a  Happy Birthday today, it occurs to me we've been wishing each other a happy birthday  for forty years. Another testimony to our many years of friendship.   Through memory's scope,  I drift back  to 1974, and smile.  I was overseas  that summer, and for three months had been touring Europe.   August 25 was my second day in  Madrid - nearly broke, without enough funds to even make a transatlantic phone call.  But that didn't stop me from  walking  across Plaza Cibeles, with its lovely white architecture , to  Palacio de las Comunicaciones to inquire about making a birthday call to my friend.


 Considered one of the iconic images in Madrid, the central post office is  a place  visitors can go to use one of the many telephones.  Upon entering, the private booths were on the wall to the right, protected behind   richly colored  wood doors with a glass window . I remember thinking they were  totally unlike any telephone booths I had seen before - the Bell System ones  usually found on  gas station corners, and parking lots in southeast Los Angeles,  smudged and scratched with numbers and naughty words.  No, the telephones at Palacio de las Comunicaciones were  surrounded by a palatial decor of  marble floors and magnificent pillars that brought a quietness to one's attitude like being in a library, or church.

I  had to quickly decide  about  using the phone or not,  as my fellow traveler, Mary Kay (a friend from high school days) was waiting for me to tour  Museo  del   Prado, one of the world's greatest art museums. I chose to  place a collect call to Phyllis.   Even though it was only 4 a.m her time, and the cost of a collect call  from Madrid to La Habra would be expensive,  I felt pretty confident Phyl would accept the charges, if  only to hear her pal say, "Well, hello?", and   sing Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Phyllis, Happy Birthday to you