Photo Pam Walatka/Special To The Town Crier Pam Walatka, left, and friends on the peak they did not climb, above, attend a Peace Corps reunion. The Peace Corps Nepal veterans gather at Sun River in Oregon to prepare a feast at their reunion, right. When group members are not hiking, they like to cook, Walatka said.

Traveling to Oregon for the 45-year reunion of my Peace Corps Nepal group, I thought about my Peace Corps roommate, wondering if I should ask her why she hated my guts. We are 67 years old now, and we still have not talked about what went wrong with us.

p>In 1964, shortly into our assignment in a tiny village in the foothills of the Himalayas, she suddenly said, “Did you ever think someone was going to be a friend and then you realized that they were not worthy of being a friend?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Have you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“What do you do then?” I wondered.

“I just stop saying anything personal,” she said.

Sure enough, she never again said anything personal. Our relationship went downhill faster that the Himalayas. Before long, I was lying on my sleeping bag at night, listening to the rats run under the thatched roof, trying to think of ways I could murder her and get away with it.

As I drove into the reunion site at Sun River in Oregon, I realized that I could guess what went wrong between us: I am a slob and she hated slobs. Imagine Felix and Oscar in that old show “The Odd Couple,” without the humor.

Previously, with my college roommates, my sloppiness and my other annoying traits had created disharmony. Fortunately, time and maturity have healed the most important of those friendships.

Why was it so much worse with “Sally,” my Peace Corps enemy? We were so far away from our culture, so isolated. In Joseph Conrad’s story “Outpost of Progress,” two Englishmen go deep into the jungle to establish a trading post. They end up chasing each other around the post with machetes.

When I arrived at the reunion, I walked in and was greeted by a group including Sally. I hugged them all.

I love old friends. There is no friend like an old friend. I was so glad to see the people with whom I had been through so much, my old Peace Corps buddies. I could not stop grinning at them.

Our Nepal group bonded during training in 1964. For example, our trainers took us to climb Mount Rainer. Halfway up, we were engulfed in a blizzard. They kept us there, getting colder and colder. Jim Thompson said, “It’s a test to see who complains.” We formed three concentric circles and put our arms around each others’ shoulders and started singing “Blue Skies, Nothing But Blue Skies” at the top of our freezing lungs. Nobody complained.

We have been friends ever since. As God is my witness, I love these people, except Sally.

At this reunion, that first night, a surprising thing happened. My hand and arm, of their own volition, reached out and touched Sally on the shoulder, as though in friendship. Later, my arm did it again.

The next day, we went on a series of hikes. This group always hikes.

Without anyone having studied a map, five of us, including Sally, started on a difficult hike. We could see the looming peak, but we could not find the trailhead. When we realized we were going to have to walk back along a flat trail to the parking lot and drive to the peak, my 67-year-old knees were happy. For the second time this year, I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed that a challenging hike dematerialized.

Later, Sally said, “Whenever this group plans a vigorous hike, I feel like I want to be a part of it.”

I said, “Me, too!” We both grinned and looked at the floor.

I felt it might be the beginning of a healed friendship.

I could be wrong.

Pam Walatka is a Los Altos Hills resident. Contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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