Friez used to call me up when I was still working the overnight shift at KZZO-FM in Clovis, NM in the early part of 1987. We talked a few times. She was from Muleshoe, TX, which was about 30 miles east of Clovis. There were businesses in Muleshoe that actually advertised on our station because they were in our listening area.
After we had talked a few times, Friez told me she was coming to Clovis to shop with her sister. She said she would be at the mall. I arranged to meet her at Hasting's Record Store. She said she would be wearing a blue dress. I told her I would be wearing my KZZO jacket.
I went over to the mall and walked around Hasting's for a little bit. After I'd been there about 10 minutes, I saw this attractive woman with medium-length blonde hair and a blue dress. She was looking at cassettes. I thought it would be nice if that was her, but she didn't seem to be looking for anyone there, so I figured it wasn't her. I looked around a little bit more. Then I heard a voice from behind me. "Are you Fayd?" I turned around. It was the woman I saw earlier.
We talked for a bit and walked around the mall. We then met up with her sister. She was a little bit older, very tall and very skinny. She didn't really talk to me. If she had something to say, she said it to Friez. Then she said they needed to go get something to eat. Friez said I wasn't invited to come along. "I don't think she likes you." I really didn't care if the sister liked me, but I hoped I would get to see Friez again.
We talked on the phone a few more times. One thing became apparent after a few conversations was that she was one of those teases who had to make up ridiculous stuff about herself for no good reason. One of the things she would frequently lie about was meeting celebrities in Muleshoe. All these rather famous people just happened to stop in Muleshoe while they were touring across the country and would chat it up with the locals. One of them was someone who was notoriously gay. I'm certain that guy wouldn't have set foot in this little town in Texas unless he wanted to get his butt kicked.
But the biggest whopper she told was about this guy in Muleshoe who liked her a lot. His name was Ead. She said he was a professional wrestler. I'd never heard of him, but I was once watching wrestling on TBS and they mentioned his name and showed a short match that he was in. You had to be REALLY into wrestling in order to have heard about this guy. Later, I figured that the person in Muleshoe she was referring to happened to have the same name as the wrestler, which was a fairly common name.
One day, I called Friez. Her sister answered the phone. I asked to speak to Friez. She asked who was calling. I told her and she said, "Oh, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Fayd, but Ead popped the question and Friez accepted." I said, "Okay, then" and hung up the phone. A few minutes later, the phone rang. It was Friez. I asked her why she was calling. "Oh, just to see what you were up to." I told her what her sister said. "What? That didn't happen!" Then I could hear some voices in the background. "My sister says Ead has something to tell me." She sounded nervous. "I'll talk to you later."
A few minutes later, the phone rang again. Friez said, "As soon as I got off the phone with you, Ead threw the ring at me and said, 'Marry Me!' I asked her what she told him. She said she'd have to think about it.
A couple of weeks later, I returned from a vacation with my parents to see my Aunt Cind in Missouri. Mom and I spent the whole week fighting about my hair. Mom said Cind was trying to fix me up with some woman who lived nearby, but decided against it after seeing my hair. Originally, I was going to come back to Artesia with them for the remainder of the weekend, but I decided I wanted to go back to Clovis instead and get ready for working my new shift. Since I had a weekend to spare, I called up Friez and asked her if she wanted to go to Lubbock with me. She agreed.
I drove to Muleshoe and stopped by her house. She lived in a mobile home. She surprised me by telling me that her cousin was coming along with us. I couldn't do anything about that. It just meant this trip wouldn't be considered a date. We drove to the mall in Lubbock and shopped. I bought some CDs. We went to get something to eat at this restaurant where you phone in your order from your table and then go pick it up. We sat down and looked at the menus and saw that everything was a lot more expensive than what were were expecting. We quickly got up and walked out. We ate at Chick-fil-A instead.
I drove them back home. I didn't know it at the time, but that would be the last time I would see Friez in person. We continued to talk on the phone for the next few weeks, and that whole time, she never once mentioned Ead. One day, I tried to call and her phone was disconnected. I had no way of getting a hold of her short of driving out to Muleshoe, which I didn't want to do uninvited, considering the issues I had with her sister.
I did dedications on my nightly radio show. I had this one guy calling up to send a dedication to a "Friez in Muleshoe." His message was that the dedication came from an EMT. I didn't think anything about it at the time. However, a week later, the same guy called in with the same dedication. I asked him if he was talking about her. He said he was, but he hadn't heard anything from her in awhile. I told him her phone number was disconnected, so I didn't know what was going on with her, either. It appeared that she was playing us and there may have been other guys involved.
In August of 1987, I received a letter at the station addressed to me. It was from her, but she now had the same last name as Ead. As it turns out, I still have that letter. Here it is:
In case you can't read it, it says (parentheses indicate my edits for privacy and I did not correct spelling and grammar): "Dear (Fayd) Hi! Remember me? It's (Friez) from Muleshoe. Just thought I'd write, and see what your doing. Sorry its taken so long, but I just moved back. I hope you remember me, and I hope we can still be friends. I know you hate writting, but please write and let me know how you are, I do care! Bye! Write Soon! Please. Love, (Friez)"
At the time, I didn't think much of this. I had a girlfriend, so I didn't waste any more time on Friez. I never wrote her back. But now, I'm kind of mad that she left without telling me, got married to the person she wasn't certain she wanted to marry in the first place and then expected me to be her pen pal. And what's with writing "Love" for the closing? She really was sending mixed messages.
About a week later, I was listening to our Sunday night dedication program "Love Songs on the Zoo." It was hosted by co-owner Mr. W and one of our part-timers, who had a Barry White-sytle speaking voice. I heard Mr. W mention her name as it appeared on the envelope for the letter I received, but I didn't hear the entire dedication, so I don't know who it was to. It wasn't to me.
I'm glad I didn't get involved because I never would have known what to believe. As you will see in the upcoming posts, There were issues with all these teases.
UPDATE (12/12/21): I found out where Friez is now. I was searching on her first and last name and Muleshoe and found an obituary for her brother (which I didn't know she had). She has a completely different last name now. According to her Facebook profile, she studied child and adolescent psychology in college. She appears to now own and operate a horse tack shop in Tennessee. However, her profile indicates she lives in Canyon, TX. Looking at her Twitter account, she's into cryptocurrency, because that's all she tweets about. To be honest, that was one of the last things I would have expected her to get involved in.
I followed her on Twitter with the intention of DMing her with the link to this blog post. However, she recently posted that she's been having issues with a stalker online. She revealed that she was diagnosed with lupus-related dementia and didn't really remember the stalker from all those years ago.
Yeah, it's not a good idea for me to reach out to her.
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