And now, back to Wanda

Okay. Only one dog-related reference in this post. Honest. I promise.

That’s Wanda and me.The two of us are always happy to be together, can you tell? Photo courtesy StoryCorps.

Because here’s the thing. We are wayyyy overdue on news about Wanda Bridgeforth. If you’ve followed our Safe & Sound blog for a while, you know who Wanda Bridgeforth is: she’s witty, she’s talented, she’s 98 years old, she’s been attending the memoir-writing class I lead in downtown Chicago for over a decade now, and guess what? She’s in the news again.

This time it’s The Streeterville News, a Chicago neighborhood paper. She was profiled in a story called Chicagoan Ready for Round Two of the Roaring 20s! The story explains that the year 2020 gives us another opportunity to celebrate the Roaring 20s,and Wanda still remembers growing up in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood during the 1920s. She especially remembers yearly visits to downtown Chicago to see the Christmas decorations during that decade. “We got dressed up to come downtown with gloves and hats!” As a kid, Wanda saw neighbors stick together through thick and thin. “The Depression came when I was about six or seven,” she said. “That’s when everybody’s life turned upside down. We had a closeness and a strong community spirit that we don’t have now.”

Wanda credited that same togetherness for helping her when her husband was stationed overseas during World War II.

“When he went overseas it was 56 days from Chicago to India,” she said, explaining that she wasn’t allowed to know exactly where he was stationed, she just knew he was far away from home.

I was interviewed for Wanda’s story, too, and when the reporter asked me how it was that she and I hit it off so well from the minute we met, I told him the truth: everybody hits it off with Wanda right from the start. When he pressed me for more about our enduring friendship, I tried my best to come up with something brainy and important, you know, to make me sound thoughtful and heady. I pointed out to the reporter that Wanda has been profoundly deaf since childhood, and I am totally blind. Maybe our disabilities contribute to our bond, I said. “We both acknowledge our disabilities without letting them defeat us,” I told him. “We both are resourceful, we have to figure out ways to do certain things that others do with their ears and eyes.”

And now, dog-reference spoiler alert. When the reporter asked Wanda that same question about our special bond, she told the simple truth. The story ends like this:

Bridgeforth said there was another reason she was drawn to Finke. “We clicked immediately,” she said. “Primarily through Beth’s guide dog. I love animals.”