“How have you stayed friends for forty years?” the waitress asked.
Three of my college roommates pointed at me.
“She’s the glue.”
I wish I could say we never lost touch, but we did. This was before email, cell phones, and the easy little “thinking of you” text messages we send now. There were marriages, babies, careers, divorces, sick parents, and years when life simply took over. Yet here we were, forty years later, sitting around a table together.
A few weeks later, while planning a reunion for my old DC work family, someone remembered that when he first moved to Washington, he was told to find me. Apparently, I was the office cruise director.
And when eight of my travel friends got together in New Jersey for a mini reunion, they all said the same thing—Juju is the glue.
And apparently, I’m still doing it at home—sending friends a heads-up when tickets go on sale for a show at the Fisher Theatre, asking who wants to join me for canasta lessons, or rounding up the Friday mah-jongg crowd at Temple. There’s always something to do, and I like having my people along.
Maybe being the glue doesn’t mean keeping everyone in the same place. Maybe it means that, when the chance comes, you’re the one who says, “Let’s get together,” and starts finding a date.
And right now, the RSVPs are coming in for our DC reunion. Every familiar name makes me smile. In a few weeks, we’ll be sitting around a table together again—and you know I’ll have a story to tell.
Are you the cruise director in your group—or are you lucky enough to have one? 
From Juju with love 💙
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