“Fifty years," I hackneyed, "is a long time.""Not when you're looking back at them," she said. "You wonder how they vanished so quickly.”

“Make it quick," I said when I picked up. "Okay. Two men from the FBI are here." Cookie said. Quickly. Crap. "Men in black are at the office?""Well, yes, but they're actually in more of a navy."Crapola. I so don't have time for men. In any color. "Okay, two questions. Do they look mad, and are they hot?"After a long, long, pause, Cookie said, "One, not really. Two, no comment at this time. And three, you're on speakerphone."After another long, long pause, I said, "Okie dokie then. Be there in a jiff.”

“When you're on the other side of it," she says, "fifty-two years can seem like about fifty-two minutes.”

“twenty-five years run around so quickly but thirty one years is a long time.”

“Ms. Casey is standing in front of the class explaining how she worked all weekend to get the tests graded so she could hand them back on Monday morning, and you're wondering if you're supposed to be impressed that she did her job.”

“By the time you're an adult, you're used to seeing your friends disappear into their five-year plans. They drop out to get married, have babies, go to grad school, get divorced. They start a band or enter the penal system. They vanish for years at a time - some come back, some don't. Some of them you wait for and some you let go. Sometimes the only way they come back is in a song.”