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Evidently, the man in the pickup truck in front of me had never been schooled on what to do when a woman was blowing the car horn and blinking her lights at him. “Life’s too short to fish with a dead cricket” his bumper tag read. Was that some kind of philosophical statement or was it an ad for a bait and tackle shop?

“Life’s too short to fish with a dead cricket.” That stayed in my head like a broken record until I found a photo that brought understanding it.

Dinah and I were friends during late adolescence and close friends during our teenage years.

She had moved to Montgomery by the time we started “over fool’s hill” as Mama would say. We stayed close by writing letters, that we signed Toothpick Tillie (me) and Fat Fannie (her). We later switched names for obvious reasons.

On weekends, Dinah would catch a ride to Brundidge with a teacher at her school who was from Dothan. I’d wait for her on the front porch and she’d jump out of the car with her suitcase ready for the weekend.

We’d spend the time sharing secrets, laughing and “cuttin’ up.”

We’d go to parties and play “spin the bottle” and fall in puppy love. We would listen to Ricky Nelson and the Everly Brothers on the record player and dance with teddy bears around the room.

When we got old enough to date, double dating, was the only way we would go. Sometimes that meant one of us going out with a “creep” so the other could go with her heartthrob. We’d do that for each other.

But drive-in movies and marshmallow roasts soon gave way to college and careers.

Dinah went off to Auburn University and then became a stewardess with TWA and flew all around the world.

Every now and then, she would come home, very cosmopolitan and trendy, and I got a glimpse of how the rest of the world was “stepping out.”

Dinah had an exciting, adventurous life. She was going places and doing things that most young women our age could only dream of. As Mama would say, she didn’t let her coattail hit her.

She married an orthopedic surgeon and moved across the country to Washington State. We stayed in touched through letters and phone calls every now and then.  We didn’t see each other often but in the spring of 1972, she and her husband came “home.”  She was expecting her first baby and I was expecting my third.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could have our babies on the same day,” Dinah said hopefully.

Not a chance I thought.

But just before midnight on  July 11, 1972,  I had a baby girl.  A few ticks later, on July 12, Dinah had baby girl.  We laughed at how “close” we still were.

Then, the laughing ceased.

Dinah fought a valiant battle with cancer.

Then, too soon, she was awaiting a bone marrow transplant.

“This is my last chance,” she told me. “This is my last hope. Pray for me.”

Dinah Armstrong Kukes died at age 41. A life far too short. But let it be said that she never fished with a dead cricket.