By MARY POLETTI

Herald-Whig Staff Writer

HANNIBAL, Mo. — The old Southwestern Bell building on Broadway is something of a ghost town these days.

Only a few employees of ATamp;T, the company that now owns it, still work in the building. Its locked most of the time. If you need to use the restroom, youd better bring your own toilet paper.

But one afternoon a week, a conference room on the first floor comes alive with friendships formed in the building generations ago.

This is where the Mark Twain Club of the Telephone Pioneers meets each week, maintaining friendships that go back 60 years — sometimes longer — as they make pillows for patients at Hannibal Regional Hospital.

The 10 core members of the club are bound by their former profession: Theyre all retired Southwestern Bell telephone operators.

Back in the lsquo;Number, please days, Gretta Yohn said as she finished stitching a pillow Tuesday afternoon.

Back when you got good service, Betty Quinn added from the other end of the table. Back when you got a voice.

The now-obsolete job was the best job a woman in Hannibal could have in the mid-20th century, Yohn said.

Many of the women in the Telephone Pioneers group held that job for 30 or 40 years — the 10 women have more than 300 years of service to Southwestern Bell.

In a twist, they were trained as operators by the same women who, as retirees, started the local Telephone Pioneers club in 1990.

When you stop to think about it, the whole first groups gone, Quinn said.

Other than the common profession from which its members retired, Telephone Pioneers isnt so different from a church quilting group. The women, all energetic and witty in their golden years, discuss the news, books, families, their health and their lives as they stuff and stitch around a conference table, stopping to sip coffee and eat treats theyve brought.

Their project: heart-shaped pillows, more than 19,500 of which have been distributed at HRH in the last 22 years, said another group member, Jane Calicotte.

The pillows are made in a sort of assembly line. Sandy Brashears cuts out the hearts, which are roughly a foot across. Calicotte sews them together, leaving a small hole. The women stuff the pillows, then hand-stitch the hole closed, finishing the pillows.

The finishing touch: a stamp on the back reading Telephone Pioneers, Mark Twain Club, Hannibal, Mo.

The Hannibal group is a branch of a Southwestern Bell retirees group in St. Louis. That group provides them with funding for the fiberfill. The rest of the material is donated. The group happily accepts donations for all of their materials.

As the women sew the pillows, they reflect on the people who might receive them. Although they use all sorts of fabric, baby-friendly prints evoke the strongest, fondest reaction.

Give that to a mama whos out there waiting to have a baby, Elaine Lippincott said as she admired one such pillow.

Calicotte and her husband drop off pillows at the hospital every two weeks, dropping them off with nurses in surgery, womens care and the intensive care unit. From there, the nurses hand them out to patients.

Recipients of the pillows often dont know where they came from, but thank-you notes find their way to the group eventually, Calicotte said.

One such note was from a woman suffering from bouts of painful coughing. Hugging the pillow was a lifesaver when she was in pain, she wrote.

Besides their service project, the women frequently socialize outside the group, celebrating one anothers birthdays and holding a bimonthly luncheon with their male counterparts, a group of retired Southwestern Bell men who call themselves the Polesitters.

Theyll keep up the group as long as they have the energy and ability, they say. But why?

Because we love each other, Esther Hendren said.

Well, kind of, other group members joke.

Because we have very boring lives, Lippincott said.

When your social life is counting your pills, its nice to get out with people, Yohn added.

All kidding aside, the pillow project gives them a higher common purpose, the focal point for this phase of their lifelong friendship.

Were just a good team, Calicotte said. We know how to work together, overlap.

Lippincott interjected: Theres a new word for that now, Jane — lsquo;multi-task. Were from the old school.

— mpoletti@whig.com/221-3385

In an effort to strengthen friendships and build faith in the community, The Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee and the Sarasota Ministerial Association have partnered to gather Jewish and Christian clergy for a trip to Israel. Members of St. Jude Catholic Church, Goodwill Industries, Concordia Lutheran Church, the Jewish Federation, Unidos Now, the Salvation Army, the Hispanic Community, First Presbyterian Church, the Manatee County Catholic Church Ministries, the Downtown Ministerial Association, the Center for World Revival Awakening, Greek Orthodox, St. Wilfred?s Episcopal Church, the Sheriff Department Chaplain and Bethel CME will be represented on the trip.

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CORRESPONDENT PHOTO / JENNIFER SHEA

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is hoping to use one of Canadas deepest friendships in Latin America to help secure entry into a very attractive Pacific free-trade zone.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership was one of the key items on the agenda Monday as Mr. Harper met Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, the silver-haired leader that many Canadians might remember from his presence during the dramatic mining rescue of 2010.

More related to this story

• Softening tone, Harper concedes drug war lsquo;is not working
• Canada splits with Latin America on Cuba, war on drugs
• Latin America under the radar of Canadian CEOs

EDITORS NOTE: The following is an updated, edited version of a column that appeared a dozen years ago.

A friend and I recently discussed friendship and how it is measured, arriving at the conclusion that the truest friends are those who are there in your time of greatest need, ready to help you through troubled times unconditionally.

If thats a valid measurement, then I am among the fortunate.

Throughout my life, friends (and, of course, family) have been there to rescue me, to steer me in a better direction, to prop up my spirits in times of despair. ( I dont have the space to list names or all the times I needed a helping hand to thwart my inclination to self-destruct.)

My wife and children might argue that there have been times when I gave friends a higher priority than I gave to family, dashing off as I often did to engage in sport, or card-playing, or hunting, or fishing, or barbecuing, or in days long gone by, prolonged bull-shucking over several rounds of brew.

Still others — readers and certain public officials among them — might suggest that with my propensity to agitate, I need to find friends wherever I can.

In my frequent, late-afternoon walks, I am often accompanied by memories of family and friends now departed, as my mind travels back in time.

I see a skinny third-grader racing down Washington Street from Central School to Central Park where Rose, on lunch-break from a nearby dress factory, awaits her son with a hamburger and fried apple pie, to be consumed hastily before he dashes back to school.

I see Dutch, the wonderful stepfather, pushing his lawnmower toward Morganfields Oddfellow Cemetery as his junior high stepson trails along pushing another mower, a jug of gasoline swaying from the handle.

As other images from the past flash across my mind, I see Larry, the high school friend and teammate, as he casts his fishing lure along the bank of one of his favorite, and largely secret, fishing holes in Union County.

I see John Francis, the legendary Douglass High School athlete who became my baseball battery mate and very good friend in the long-ago days of Sunday afternoon baseball.

I see Johnny, the older friend who was a Holloway Street neighbor in my youth and my Alves Street neighbor many years later, pausing from his yard work to chat awhile (or loan me a ladder, a hammer, any number of things) and generally enrich me with a dose of that Irish spirit.

And there is Paulie, who introduced himself to me more than four decades ago by declaring that my newborn Jenny, who I was admiring as she squirmed in a crib next to his newborn Andy, was an ugly little rascal.

Then he smiled and extended a hand of friendship that lasted 24 years, not nearly long enough.

I have kept alive the memories of that friendship, often on my walks or, on occasion, solitary drives along some of the backroads we traveled together, sharing our thoughts and debating this and that, or going in search of mushrooms or groundhogs, or simply seeking escape from lifes busy main highways.

Whether walking, driving or sitting in the front porch swing, those memories provide reinforcement that, in a spiritual sense, friendships with Paulie and others who are gone can, and do, endure.

SANTIAGO, CHILE Prime Minister Stephen Harper is hoping to use one of Canada’s deepest friendships in Latin America to help secure entry into the very attractive Pacific free-trade zone.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was one of the key items on the agenda Monday as Harper met Chilean President Sebastian Pinera.

Harper was warmly received in the Chilean capital with a military honour guard at the presidential palace, La Moneda. He also presented a wreath at a nearby monument to one of Chile’s founding fathers, as soldiers raised the Chilean and Canadian flags.

Canada has had strong ties with Chile, extending to the late 1970s when many citizens sought refuge in Canada from the brutal regime of Augusto Pinochet.

“Canada is one of the world’s biggest economic powers, and Chile is one of the world’s fastest growing countries,” Pinera said in an effusive speech at the presidential palace.

“We have a common world vision. Stephen likes to talk about like-minded countries, and it’s true, we’re two countries that have common values, principles and vision, and that helps with co-operation on all fronts.”

“Over just 15 years, trade between Canada and Chile had increased by 350 per cent, and Canada has been the largest source of foreign direct investment in Chile over the past decade,” Harper noted.

But even more attractive to Canada than more bilateral trade is the prospect of tapping into the proposed TPP, a zone that would include countries on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

Chile is among the members of the core group of nine nations. The United States, Australia and New Zealand have been opposing Canada’s entry into the negotiations because of the government’s supply-management system protecting dairy, egg and poultry farmers. The Conservative government has said it is willing to discuss the issue, but not before it is at the table with the other nations.

Chile and Peru, meanwhile, are supportive of Canada’s efforts to join the club.

Harper used Chile five years ago to announce his Americas Strategy, a policy of focused engagement in the hemisphere. His government is now seeking to revitalize the strategy, which has been criticized even within the Foreign Affairs Department for lacking direction and resources.

The Canadian Press

Irish dancers have lives outside of class, competition and conditioning. Yes, it is true! However, Irish dance becomes such a big part of an Irish dancer’s life, that many form their closest friendships right in the close-knit world of Irish dance. Friendships are formed in Irish dance school as the students see the same dancers in class week-in and week-out over years. You’re in the same space and doing the same things, and it’s natural to like, hang-out and spend additional time with those same people.

Sometimes, we become so close to family or friends that we know far too much about each other, find we differ too much, and yes, familiarity can breed contempt.

Sometimes, despite all the knowledge and differences, we end up accepting each other, relying on each other?s strengths, sharing an abiding affection and mutual respect.

We?re blessed if we get that.

I thought of this after spending a day with my lifelong friend Wendy and her significant other, Marc, our friend since we three were teens.

They flew in from Colorado to spend Passover with Marc?s family in Morris County. On Good Friday, they drove down to the Shore, where we met for a few hours.

What a day ? sunny, warm but windy, a sky whose sharp blue caught Wendy?s artist?s eye.

I saw them before they saw me and was struck by the quiet grace of her walk, of her presence. It made me smile, as though seeing it for the first time.

Browsing, lunch, then a walk to the beach to share an oceanfront bench. Sitting next to her, talking, I had the sense of having last seen her yesterday, not two years ago.

Marc wanted to give us some privacy, but we told him there was little we wouldn?t talk about in front of him, and talk we did. No gossip or small talk, always something ? real, if that makes sense.

It?s been that way since we met, she the teen artist and I the teen writer, 51 years ago.

Still, as always, I was easily distracted. If anyone went by with a dog, I had to talk to them, pet the dog if I could. Wendy never teased me about it as some would, and I realized how much that simple acceptance meant to me.

But she has little sense of how special she is, how she knows when to speak and when to be silent, how she nurtures others, how she has an inner core of strength and insight that will not fail her.

Me? I know all that about her and more. Despite different paths or disagreements, we have chosen to be a constant in each other?s life, and she has been a comfort, a calming force.

Hugging each other as we parted that day, I thought: When we have friends like this, we really are blessed.

Global connection is totally possible with Iddin Live. This web chat app is known for its quick and larger base of connection. It is also free and very easy to use.

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) April 12, 2012

The value of friendship has been stretched further with the help of the Internet. Cultural and racial barriers do not matter anymore, especially if people are connected through global chatting. When it comes to fostering global friendships, Iddin Live has a considerable ranking. Its developers have realized peoples need to undertake web chat every now and then. Now, Iddin improved traditional chatting with a mix of spontaneity.

Iddin is under the niche of random chatting. Some may deter from random chatting, but it is actually a nice way to make new friends. In fact, it is a challenging way to meet people. Random chat has been around for quite some time already, and Iddin carved a change by offering a faster and more user-friendly platform.

Many people chat online using random chat engines because they feel more secured. In a random chat, chatters dont need to input personal information to the website. They can begin chatting and have fun right away. In Iddin Live, privacy filter is high. However, it is still the decision of the chatter to give out private information. The chatter can also upload pictures.

In Iddin, there is no such thing as cultural barriers. People chat because they want to, and they can talk about any topics imaginable. According to an Iddin study, famous topics are about dating, friendship, hobbies, fashion, trends, current events, and finances. Using Iddin is also relatively easy. The user can gauge where the stranger will come from. He can input a specific country or let the application search for anyone all over the world. The connection happens in just few seconds.

Iddin IM chat has been recommended by a lot of chatters lately. In fact, Iddin has over one hundred thousand noted user chats almost everyday. Because of this high demand, developers are working round the clock to make sure that Iddin runs smoothly.

About Iddin

Iddin is a free web application that specializes in generating random chat with strangers. Users can choose the locations of the strangers, or they can have the engine to search the whole world. Random chat is encouraged to protect the identity of people and also to empower spontaneous connection that is fun and interesting. Users can visit www.iddin.com to discover its features.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/4/prweb9396554.htm

Last week, I had coffee with a friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen in 15 years, when we were both sophomores in high school.  Amazingly, it felt as if little time had passed.  Of course we indulged in our fair share of reminiscing.  But what was truly gratifying about the reunion was the opportunity to realize just how similar out paths have been over the last decade and a half.

My friend and I have both struggled with disordered eating and body image issues.  We have both turned to meditation, therapy, and yoga to help us through out insecurities.  And we have both come to understand the value of authenticity and personal growth.  We were 10 years old when we met, and we had no way of knowing that we would grow into adults with such similar value systems.

In fact, I have been amazed at the resilience of many of my long-term friendships.  To be sure, friendships that develop in adulthood are extremely valuable, as well.  But there is often something very intuitive about friendships formed in childhood and adolescence.  At that age, we are likely choose our friends simply because we enjoy their company.  We do not choose them based on their professional accomplishments or the fact that they are willing to be our gym buddies.  At that age, we are often simply drawn to particular people because it feels good to spend time with them.

I realize this is not always the case.   Many people drift away from their friends as they grow into adulthood.  And many children and adolescents have their own less than authentic reasons for choosing their friends.  What’s more, many people, myself included, develop amazing friendships in adulthood.  But when we are young and our lives are not as busy, we have an opportunity to listen to our hearts and choose our friends because something about them resonates with us not because their cubicle is next to ours.  And when we are in school, we are able to spend eight hours a day with them time in which we can relate to them as real friends, not co-workers.

For those of us who are lucky enough to have found authentic friendships at a young age, it is worth maintaining those relationships into adulthood because they are likely to be based upon an intuitive impulse that led us to those particular people because something about them with which we connected a deep level.  In turn, these friendships provide a unique experience that nourishes the spirit.

Related:
Friends to Avoid, Friends to Keep
The Health Benefits of True Friendship

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER? Not if we can help it, say some school officials.

According to a 2010 New York Times article, many schools separate best friends in an effort to break up cliques and encourage kids to build a wide circle of acquaintances.

Many Boy Scout troops take a similar approach. For several years in Troop 746 in Fullerton, Md., Scouts were placed randomly in patrols so that no boy would feel left out. The result? “Meetings turned into a hodgepodge, as it was impossible to keep the Scouts in patrols with people they didn’t really want to hang out with,” says Assistant Scoutmaster Kathy Holmes.

Results like that don’t surprise Dr. Brett Laursen, a psychology professor and one of the defenders of friends in the Times article. The first problem, he says, is that adults mistakenly assume it’s automatic that kids will form good relationships when they’re assigned to a new group. “You break up a friendship, and you’ve got a kid there who’s shy and anxious and that nobody else wants to be friends with,” he says. “How does that make the group better?”

Dr. Laursen says friendships are a critical component of youth development. “I’m not going to say that every single child needs a friendship,” he says, “but most kids need them and most kids benefit from them.”

Friendships offer several key benefits, Dr. Laursen says. They ward off loneliness, buffer the effects of bullying, offer support when parental relationships are strained. What’s more, friendships teach kids how to maintain and nurture long-term relationships with peers who–unlike parents–can walk away at any time.

Scouters who break up friends may cause Scouts to rebel or leave Scouting altogether. “I have had boys hide out in the back of troop trailers to get with their friends and avoid work,” says David Smith, a counselor and Scouter from Jacksonville, Fla. “If they were with their friends working together on a project they wanted to do, they would have less reason to bail on the rest of their patrol.”

That’s why Smith recommends letting boys form their own patrols. “You set up a structure–six to eight Scouts–and let them figure it out,” he says. “Boys are going to want to stick together. If you can use their friendships to put together a team,

I believe you’ll have a stronger team.”

That’s what Holmes’ troop does. It now bases patrols on age and existing friendships. “For the first time we truly have patrols with members that actually care about the patrol,” she says. “Heck, for the first time we have patrols of members who actually know who is in their patrol.”

What do you think: does your troop allow Scouts to choose their own patrols?

Want to build better patrols in your troop? Check out these stories, below, for additional patrol-building practices:

• Five secrets to building patrol spirit in your troop, by guest blogger Gregg Hilferding
• Qualities of the best patrols, by Green Bar Bill