Shelley Minor was my best friend in college. We met in the sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta, and stayed close close friends for about fifteen years. Then she moved to Bainbridge Island. We both had kids, and as things happen, we drifted without communicating much. Shelley was lovely, peaceful, kind, curious and creative. We grew together and I gained so much from being around her.
While we were close it was 1968 to about 1985 or so. We went to the UW, moved out of the sorority together to live in a house of five near Herfy’s, and continued to go to school/work/have friends in common for a few years. We took weaving classes and batik classes and she taught me to macrame. In 1971 I went to Norway in September to use my Norwegian language skills and to work. Shelley travelled over by herself in March, found her way from England to Gudbransdalen, arrived at my sewing factory job, and we both burst out crying. We proceeded to travel from Norway to Germany by train, then getting more relaxed, France to Morocco by hitchhiking, then around Morocco on the Marrakech Express and with some guy in a VW bus, travelled back through Madrid to England, and came home. We developed our common philosophy about travel together:
Observe a lot, and don’t judge,
Stay together always for safety,
If either one’s antennas say No, then we both get out of there,
Eat and sleep and travel as cheap as possible,
Learn about the country you are in.
Here are the firsts we experienced while traveling:
Slept outside in remote pine woods to awaken with a train roaring five feet past our heads…
Saw the movie Shaft at Wiesbaden Base courtesy of Steve Sprenger…
Bought cookies daily from the toothless cookie man outside of Tetouan…
Had my 21st birthday in Barcelona, and Shelley ventured out alone in the crazy wild streets of Palm Sunday to buy me a fat birthday pastry that looked like a big breast…
Set out our campsite in a Spanish forest, had a young man inadvertently walk into it, and watched Shelley threaten him with a knife…
Stayed at the youth hostel in Avignon and tasted French bread and butter and caffe au lait for breakfast…
Went to the Louvre…
Got picked up hitchhiking near Alicante by a Mercedes driven by a Canadian boy; the owner was an ailing WWI vet who took us all to his villa in Alicante and had swordfish and sangria for dinner…
Went by bus to Casablanca for the day with Mohammed and Mohammed to buy stock for Mohammed’s souk in Tetouan…
Slept outside in the mountains of Norway between Bergen and Otta, where there were so many hungry mosquitos we tied our pink shirts over our heads for protection…
Shelley was such an integral part of that three months I cannot imagine it without her.
That we drifted apart was my fault much more than hers. She tried, and I was just so busy, so busy. And now she is gone and I did not get to tell her how she strengthened me and enriched me.
Shelley, you spread peace and joy in your wake. I still use your rhubarb cake recipe, written in your handwriting. And we still use a pot you made me to hold our sink sponges in the kitchen. About 45 years later. I think of you every single day when I do dishes. God bless you, my dear friend. Rest In Peace.