Good Lew, Good Ralph

Betty doesn't like the Internet and uses as little of it as possible. But when she found out, a few years back, that you could look up people's phone numbers on it, she decided to give it a whirl. The first person she wanted to look up was Kent Washburn.

Kent Washburn, along with Ralph Sandler and Lewis White, used to ride on her bus. They were all a year behind us, but Betty thought that they treated her with just the right amount of awe and respect due a senior. Especially Kent. She recalls that he, alone of the three, actually talked to her. The other two were just along for the laughs. She told me that Kent had names for them: they were "Good Lew" and "Good Ralph". Every time he talked about them, it was always "Good Lew" and "Good Ralph".

I said, "What are you going to do if you find his phone number?"

She said, "I'm going to call him up."

But Yahoo! didn't know him. She was disappointed. I thought I detected a touch of maternal feeling in her concern for the younger man. But I'm probably overstating it - it doesn't take much, really, to wonder what might have happened to Good Lew and Good Ralph and Good Kent.