Path to Happiness (thanks to loyal friends)

May 19, 2021

Author: Christina St Clair

Where would we be without our friends, especially our women friends?

When I was going through a painful divorce, two of my dearest friends, Kitty (from Pittsburgh where I lived) and Kathy (from Houston in Texas), insisted that I must go with them to a writers' conference in Hindman, Kentucky. I really didn't want to go, feeling too depressed to participate in much of anything. But as good friends do, they knew I needed to be dragged along. So off we three went to Hindman.

Kitty had told me not to "run with the poets!" Hah! I had no intention of finding any man. But the universe is a mysterious place. I did in fact meet a poet by the name of Philip St Clair and before long I was living in Ashland, Kentucky. It has been very good!

On our way back to Pittsburgh, Kathy wanted to visit Huntington, WV., so we got off Interstate 64 and drove down Fifth Street where a particularly striking house got our attention. It was large and modern and quite unlike the other beautiful old houses.

But, we didn't stay long because we suddenly realized we had to get Kathy to the airport or she was going to miss her flight back to Houston.

I was glad to be in the backseat as Kitty drove like a maniac to Pittsburgh Airport and we dropped Kathy off in the nick of time. It was scary but a lot of fun too. We laughed the whole way!

Little did I know then, that this wonderful house on Fifth Street in Huntington would become a regular part of my life. I married a poet that I'd met at Hindman Writers' Conference (more about that some other time:-)) and moved to Ashland, a town close to Huntington where we regularly visit some close friends whose house is opposite this mansion.

I never pass that house without remembering that hair-raising drive to the airport.

Yesterday evening, we were were with our friends when Bonnie told me that the house opposite theirs is called the Radcliffe House, named for the doctor who built it back in the early part of the twentieth century.

Those loyal women friends, Kitty and Kathy, started me on a path back to happiness and walking up this path to Bonnie and David's front door is always the beginning of fun and good food and lots of laughter.