Happiness and A Persons

Be an A person. By that I mean a person who says a nice comment to someone he or she has just met.

Perhaps a long lost friend you have not seen in ten years. Look at her and say “ Maggie, so great to see you, it has been so long. We should get together soon and trade happiness happenings to each of us.”

She smiles and replies to you, you look so pretty as always. This makes a person feel good and you feel fine. This is an A person.

An A person calls up someone she only emails to, but it is wonderful to hear each other’s words. I did that a few months ago. I have an email pal who I met about 20 years ago when he read an article of mine in a print magazine where I wrote a monthly column on ballroom dancing. He is and was at that time years ago a dancer as I was. He liked my encouraging articles to inspire seniors and super seniors to continue on dancing regardless of their now age and it is great health habits for your mind and body.

His name is Steven Behr Sr. and he and his partner had gone to Hawaii every year to teach ballroom dance to the people there and they put on exhibition ballroom dancing events. He has been doing that for 35 years and around five years ago, she passed on and he got a new partner and they are carrying on his Hawaii seminars and showcases.

So before he went this year, I called him up on the old fashioned thing we call the phone. He answered the phone and I said this is a person from your life who you never have spoken to. I almost cried and he too had a moment there. It is interesting when this happens. You correspond with someone via email and you do not know what he or she looks like. We did exchange dance pictures of when I danced with my teacher and when he dances with his partner in his town and now in his visit to

Hawaii. We also exchanged photos online of our grandchildren.

This is my saying, do not say I plagiarized this from Michelle Obama. I call nice experiences and I call them my “happiness happenings.”

ELITA SOHMER CLAYMAN FAIRFAX STATION PATCH