Back to the future

Lounging around with longtime friends and talking about everything under the sun is one of the great pleasures of life as a FOF. That’s what I did for hours this morning with Lois and Eliot, close pals for 40 years.

We sat in their semi-circular living room in South Beach, FL, coffee cups at our sides and a sweeping view enveloping us—the ocean to the right, the bay to the left and downtown Miami straight ahead. We talked about our 28-year-old daughters (neither of them puts on a stitch of makeup), about our businesses (from employees we love to accounts we lost), about the great people at their party last night for FOF (from Williams, a psychotherapist specializing in sex, to ultra-talented photographer Betty), even about the history of South Beach (our grandparents spent the winters here in the fifties, now it attracts models, artists and Europeans).

Later in the day, we drove to Marsha and Brian’s splendid new home, further north on Miami Beach. Marsha and I were best friends in high school. The two couples started to become acquainted, chatting about people they know in common and about what brought them to Miami (everyone grew up in New York).  My old friends were making new friends.

I thought about how relaxing it is to reminisce and how rewarding to see where we’ve come. Also, about the promise of the future.