It really is a small world, after all. Pauline and Jan are neighbors at Brookdale Altamonte Springs, but their paths crossed more than 60 years ago.
Pauline, a native Miamian, grew up in her family’s home on 22nd Street. “It was just a small town back then,” she recalls. Two husbands, many Navy moves and six children later, she was happy to be living back in her beloved hometown, where her younger two children attended high school.
Jan, who moved to Florida as a teenager, eventually settled into a position teaching Algebra (among other subjects) at Southwest Miami Senior High. She quickly gained a reputation as a beloved teacher that could really relate to her students. She was known for keeping them all laughing, and learning!
Nearly sixty years later and 250 miles down the road from their former hometown, they found themselves sitting beside one another discussing, of all things: hotdogs. Both of the women remembered their favorite hotdog stand in Miami and quickly realized it was the same one: Arbetter’s, on Bird Road. Before long the two were delighted to find that they had more in common than just a favorite hotdog vendor. They had lived just a few blocks away from one another for many years. Furthermore, Pauline’s son, Charles, was a former Algebra student at Southwest Miami Senior High, with none other than the teacher who “made algebra fun!”
While their paths may have crossed unknowingly so many years ago, since bonding over this shared history, they have now become fast friends at Brookdale. They spend part of every day together on the same path.
