Peggy in Grand Rapids, Jim and Beth in Silver Spring, Shelly in Indy and John in Chicago keep searching.
Once upon a time, Peggy met Shelly at the University of Chicago. It was a cold day in August in the early Bill Clinton administration. Peggy greeted Shelly using an elbow bump she didn’t know would become all the rage in a couple decades,
It was around the same time that Jim was leading a team of fast-talking high school debaters in Georgetown and discovered, much to his frustration, that John was the source of much of his angst from “work” John was doing in the Chicago area. Jim knew they’d have to meet, but not yet.
While Shelly and Peggy met at Jimmy’s, Jim himself was on a Southwest flight to Midway looking forward to another weekend in the City of Big Shoulders. He landed and meandered to the North Shore where he met with Linda and the crew preparing for the big fall event. Finally Jim met John.
Once time when Jim visited the Los Angeles area for a dose of SoCal sun, in a morning before the marine layer burned off, Jim zipped by Starbucks to grab a New York Times and take an hour with the puzzle. It turned out that John moved to Santa Monica that fall, so Jim met with John and they became even better friends. John got to know the kids, and they started with rudimentary arguments, about Las Vegas, about Utilitarianism and about Critical Race Theory.
John missed Peggy. The time spans in this summary keep expanding. John ended up spending a couple of years in Dallas before returning to Chicago and developing his love of the arts. Peggy moved to Philly, and Shelly moved to Indy. Time really starts accelerating now.
Ships passing in the night have nothing on this gang of four. They crisscrossed the continents expanding cultural understanding and serving those who needed help.
Philadelphia proved pivotal as Peggy grabbed an opportunity to develop friendships mostly at Woody’s that would create excuses for Shelly, John and Jim to visit and develop the kind of deep friendships that only happen in Howard Hawks films starring Montgomery Clift.
Peggy joined Doctors without Borders first in Uzbekistan and then Darfur where she had to be flown out on a United Nations helicopter when the fighting got bad. Her safe return to the US paved the way for this podcast.
Beth travels the world as an activist and fan cultures worldwide. She joined the podcast at the start of 2021, which was hopefully the end of the pandemic.
