It's Urgent.

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When I was nine my parents moved us into a huge old house on top of a hill. It was maybe 2 miles from our other house, but far enough to mean a new neighborhood, new friends, and a new school. As we were moving in, I realized that this street was filled with kids. To the right of us was a brand-new playground that had been built where a very old hospital had stood for 50 years before (yeah, we're gonna go there eventually). Total kid magnet and I was so close to it that I had tennis balls come flying over the fence and into my yard several times a day. The end of our yard faced an alley that was also lined with kids my age, so at a glance, this looked like a pretty good situation for me.

We moved in at the beginning of summer intentionally so that once school started I'd already have friends. If you walked to the very end of my yard, on the left was another backyard, on the other side of a silver fence. As my parents first carried boxes into the house, I met Jennifer, a girl my age nosily lingering near that fence, and a new best friendship was born. I mean we were absolutely inseparable for far more than just that first summer.

Jen quickly became the sister I needed, thank god, because at that age I was still not just an only child- I was an only child now living in a really scary house with parents going through their own stuff. I needed her and I needed her family because, thank god, once you got through their door, you were an honorary member. 

Jen had an above-ground pool and so after lunch most days that's where you could find us. It was the summer of 1981 and her mom's Foreigner 4 cassette eventually melted into the tape player while under the hot sun, but before that happened Jen and I listened to it nonstop. Playing Marco Polo was better with "Urgent" blasting in the background, until it couldn't be.

After swimming I would run home to eat dinner and then get either my Strawberry Shortcake Dolls or Barbies and bring them back over to Jen's. We spent hours each evening either on her porch or else with dolls all over the living room watching Richard Simmons and PM Magazine with her grandmother, whom I loved. I can say looking back, I really developed a knack for choosing friends with great families. I always ended up being treated like a daughter, something that probably means more to me now than it did even then.

Anyway, it was a summer of Chinese jump rope, TV tag, Dairy Dan ice cream, The Buggaloo's & so much more. "Urgent" was the soundtrack and Jen and I still connect the song to it.

Jump ahead 35+ years and Jen's husband was hospitalized with a serious illness and in the room next to him was a member of Foreigner. This person ended up being her husband's biggest motivator in recovering and their families are forever linked because of it. As Jen was living this nightmare (and shocked by who was bringing her covered dishes and toys for the kids) I was working behind the scenes on interviews with the band. Once again, our now very adult conversations and situations had "Urgent" as a common thread to link us.

I still have Strawberry Shortcake Dolls, Jen still has her Barbies, but we both have Foreigner's 4 on vinyl, cassette, and CD.


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