By VERNA BROCK
I believe everyone has had the experience of meeting someone, and “clicking”: immediately. It has happened to me many times over my lifetime. We all recognize that indefinable something when you hit it off, and just know you’re going to be fast friends forever. Call it chemistry, fate, Kismet or Karma. A lucky happenstance brings two people together, and a new friendship is born!
Occasionally, we experience the phenomenon of love at first sight. It may seem like the stuff of fairy tales, but the world is full of people who claim this life changing moment happened to them. They had no doubt when they met the ONE, their soulmate. Sometimes, they even live happily ever after.
I have often wondered how we “just know” who our kindred spirits are. As someone who spent her youth moving from pillar to post, I had ample opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. To this day, I have maintained friendships with people I met as a child. There absolutely is something magical when you discover the spark of kinship in a stranger destined to become a close friend. It’s a mystery how we recognize the inscrutable, gauzy, enigmatic attraction that calls us together. I still can’t tell you the what or why of it, but when I encounter it, I am always excited. It feels like catching lightning in a bottle.
This past weekend we celebrated our friend Robert Manning, who seems to be that sort of friend to everyone he meets. He is universally kind to everyone, and never seems to meet a stranger. Friends and family were excited to honor him, throwing a surprise birthday party that was planned and successfully implemented despite all odds.
It was a great night of feting one of Wakulla County’s favorite sons. He and his wife Kenny are two of the most dedicated public servants you could ever meet, and we gathered with great joy to wish him a happy natal day.
If you see Robert around town, be sure to congratulate him on being another year older. As my Dad would remind me, it beats the alternative!