Happy Birthday, Cindy

That’s what I said the first time I saw Cindy Burnham. She was a civilian employee of the Air Force, soon to be a staff photographer at the Fayetteville Observer and Fayetteville Times. (There were two then.)

She was sassy, stylish and supremely confident, blowing like a blonde whirlwind through the newsroom. I was quieter then, new to the job and most definitely unsure of myself.

“I’m gonna stay away from HER,” I thought.

But it wasn’t long before we went on an out-of-town assignment, to the Outer Banks in January. The 5-hour drive gave us a chance to get to know each other.

She was driving the original Tri-X, a white Toyota Celica bristling with antennas and loaded down with photo and communications equipment. All that extra wiring had caused a problem with the radio, which periodically faded out. We took turns banging on the dash to bring it back.

It was 1981, and the Rolling Stones “Tattoo You” was burning up the airwaves. When we heard the first guitar licks of “Waiting on a Friend,” and the radio started to blip out again, we both pounded the dash simultaneously, and a crack opened up from front to back like the San Andreas fault.

“SHIT!” we screamed in union. It’s one of our favorite songs to this day.

By the time we got to Nags Head, I was feeling more at ease. We checked into the only hotel open on the Outer Banks in January and proceeded down the highway to find a place to eat.

In those days, there weren’t that many restaurants to begin with, much less ones that stayed open in the winter. The highway was black and most places were shuttered when we saw J. Fleming Munde’s shining like a beacon in the night.

We ordered one carafe of wine and then another as we ate dinner and started to open up even more, sharing secrets (and opinions) about the men on the paper’s staff with a fair amount of uproarious laughter.

We were pretty much oblivious to anything else, so we were surprised when the waitress arrived with another carafe of wine.

“We didn’t order that,” I said.

“No, the gentlemen at the next table ordered that for you.”

Uh-oh.

It was a table full of Coast Guard newbies, so young they made us (at 22) feel old.

“I heard you mention Durham,’ one of them said. “I’m from Durham.”

“You’re from Durham? I’m from Durham,” I said. “What’s your name?”

He told me, and I recognized it immediately.

“You have the hots for my little sister!” I declared. That was the moment I realized I had drank enough wine for one night. Cindy and I did that telepathic thing that would become standard operating procedure: We were drunk and these guys were 1) entirely too interested and 2) entirely too young.

We told them truthfully that we had to work in the morning and beat a hasty retreat. In the car, we laughed hysterically all the way back to the hotel and all the way up the elevator of the high rise back to our room.

As we got ready for bed, I started feeling not so good. We had to be in Rodanthe, 15 or so miles down the beach, by 8 a.m. the next day to do a story on Old Christmas.

“Just think,” Cindy said. “We’ll be up smelling an oyster roast tomorrow morning.”

Oh God. I got up and dashed for the restroom, where I retched for what seemed like hours. Then I crawled to my bed and prayed for sleep or death, whichever came first.

The next morning, I was still so sick, I was shaking. What did Cindy think of me, barfing the first time we ever went on a job together? At breakfast, I managed to choke down a cracker and some water.

“You got sick last night?” Cindy said. “I thought you were making a joke when you ran to the bathroom. I fell asleep until those guys came by.”

“What guys?”

“Those guys from the restaurant came banging on the door after midnight.”

“What did you do?”

“I told them we were sleeping, to get lost.”

“I can’t believe they followed us to the hotel.”

“I’m gonna give the front desk hell. They gave them our room number.”

“Wow.”

Cindy paused.

“And then, well, I wasn’t going to tell you because I thought you might not respect me anymore. But I got sick, too. After I yelled at those guys, I came back and sat on the edge of the bed. I said, ‘Susan, I don’t feel so good.’ And I threw up in the trash can.”

“Ugh.”

“That’s not all. There was a bag in the trash can, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want to leave it in the room. And then, I saw the balcony door. I went out on the balcony, looked both ways, then I heaved it over the side.”

Despite my pain, I was laughing again. And we rushed back upstairs to see the evidence of the crime. We stepped out on the balcony in the frigid wind, and there it was – a dark gray trash bag, sad and deflated on the patio below.

“You just barely missed the pool!” I hooted, and we were hysterical again.

Suddenly, two heads appeared around the wall from the adjacent balcony.

“Hey, want a Bloody Mary?” said a bearded man.

We jumped in surprise and nearly ran back in the room. As we talked to them, we learned they were in town for a boat demolition. Demolition, you say? Yep, a boat called the Coral Breeze had run aground near the Oregon Inlet Bridge, and the only solution was to blow it up. And what time was this happening?

That’s how we ended up on the beach that morning before our real assignment even began, interviewing Art LePage of LePage Diving and Salvage, as he blew up the Coral Breeze.

By the end of that trip, we had done five stories in three days.

And that, as they say, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I would follow Cindy on some great adventures, traveling all over the world. She would introduce me to some of my favorite people, all still friends to this day. We have shared marriage, birth, death and one very scary near miss.

Things have changed. Instead of hot legs, we have hot flashes. Brown sugar? Try Splenda. These days when we talk about a joint, it’s one that’s aching.