Fifty years of friendship add up to a lifetime of memories

CRANSTON – A few years ago, I bumped into a childhood friend from Morris Avenue on Providence’s East Side. We chatted and got to wondering how and where everyone was. The Internet has made the world even smaller than we thought. I did some research and made contact with my immediate former neighbors. I invited them to my summer home in Narragansett. It was wonderful. Reminiscing with old friends that remember you “when” was joyful and yet, at times, melancholy.

A small group of us met again the following November in a restaurant and decided to make a point of gathering at least once a year.

In February of this year, we decided to gather again this summer. Enid Gregerman Cohen offered to host a brunch in her home. At the time, three of us still had at least one living parent. That changed several weeks ago when the mother of Louis and Bernie Widawski and Dorothy Widawski Swajian passed away.

Enid, her incredible mother Ida Gregerman (who is housebound and lives with Enid), Ron and Roslyn (Lappin) Guarnieri, Stan and Debbie (Kahn) Roberts, Louis Hartman, the Widawski siblings and my husband Paul and I, all joined the gathering at Enid’s house on Sunday, Aug. 18; many of those individuals were “Morris Avenue” kids.

Stories were retold and new ones remembered. It was wonderful. Neighborhoods were quite different then … less mobile.  We sat on front stoops with our transistor radios.  Yes, I will say it … much simpler times. We graduated from high school in different years, but decided that, at this stage of life, we are all the same age.

Next time, we hope to see more neighbors in attendance; so many, in fact, that we will have to hold it in a larger venue. We especially hope to see at our next reunion Marla Pearson, Maureen and Frimette Field, Sheldon Malemut and Joey, Ann and Susan Diamond.

Esta Rabinowitz Avedisian (ave26@verizon.net) lives in Cranston.