Creative Connections by Sara Aeikens

After being inspired by an article with a theme of friendship written by a local Albert Lea Tribune columnist, a recent high school graduate, I began pondering what this subject means to me, a half-century-plus older.

I’m not sure who created Christmas card lists in our family heritage. I think the southeastern Iowa backgrounds of my parents encouraged letter writing in our extended family.

As farmers, all of my grandparents stayed close to home. After a stint in Persia — the country now called Iran, not the small town in western Iowa — my Ph.D.-holding father married my high school graduate mother in their hometown area in Iowa. They then moved a distance to North Dakota, where my father became a college science professor.

His brother, with a PhD in chemistry, went to Egypt to do research. His sister edited theology books for her husband who spent many years as head of Yale Divinity School, and that profession allowed the couple to travel throughout Europe.

Meeting and sharing stories with others became a family pattern. I attended college for two years in my hometown of Minot, North Dakota, but my longtime friends remained from grade school and high school, not from college.

Kinship connections had roots in my attending the small school where the college intern teachers practiced making their mistakes on us. Our regular band teacher became a mentor for a group of music students who eventually became lifelong friends. Many of us went to International Band Camp for several years while in high school. A half dozen of us played our instruments in the local college band and later in community bands across the country. We still keep in touch.

The majority of girls also became my hiking partners at Girl Scout camps in my home state. We trekked the winding pathways and challenged each other to cross the long, swinging wooden footbridge without staggering. We enjoyed wildflowers while gathering June berries and chokecherries or identifying the dangerous three-leafed poison ivy and invariably learning how to treat its itch.

Together we chopped vegetables and cooked campfire stew over a fire started with a single match. As we gathered all the necessary wood, we worked hard to avoid wood ticks. Singing harmonious campfire songs also encouraged us to nurture these camp friendships.

By keeping track of earlier friends through letters during holidays and birthdays, I made similar connections through teen church groups. This eventually helped me decide to go to a church-affiliated college outside North Dakota.

It also influenced my decision to become involved in church at regional, national and international levels with ecumenical women’s organizations. With friends joining together to make a difference globally, we continue to strengthen bonds throughout the years.

I attended my last two years of college at Macalester College in St. Paul, and I chose not to take any music classes because of tough history major academic courses. Strangely enough, my major adviser ended up being a 1926 high school student of my father in Teheran, Iran.

I’d often spend weekends studying at the home of my adviser, making friends with the entire family and students from Iran. The mentoring was thus passed on to a new generation and friendships endured because of accepting others’ cultures while exchanging ideas.

Spending two years in the Peace Corps resulted in friends from all over the United States and South America. People with whom I shared outdoor toilets, dirty water of limited supply, a place to put a sleeping bag or hammock, as well as warnings about cockroaches, giant spiders and boa constrictors became trustworthy friends.

We could mutually be of help in handling unexpected experiences during times of crisis. Many of us are still on each other’s Christmas card list and some cross the breadth of the country to share old Peace Corps stories as well as present-day politics, poverty, justice and hunger issues.

My Peace Corps supervisor lost his life because of government between student conflicts while serving his country in Venezuela. As a result, I plan to contact my Peace Corps friends over the next few years to see if it is possible to set up a permanent memorial for the 256 volunteers who have so far lost their lives while in service to the United States.

Back to the Christmas card list. It has become shorter, due to moves, deaths and other disconnects. Yet the supportive phone calls, emails and handwritten letters somehow seem more relevant.

In fact, a longtime friend our age who just lost his second wife to health issues decided to accompany my husband and me on a trip to Mexico, which could provide adventure as well as support for him in his recent loss.

Even though we continue to add names to our Christmas card list from our travels, the half-century friendships are based on learning, forgiving and a sense of humor, all with an underlying foundation of spiritual growth.

 

Sara Aeikens is an Albert Lea resident.