Wrong number sparks 20-year friendship between Florida woman, Rhode Island man
A misdial to a Nextel flip phone 20 years ago led to an enduring long-distance friendship between a Florida woman and a random man in Rhode Island young enough to be her son.
It started when Gladys Hankerson of Delray Beach repeatedly dialed area code 401 instead of 410 when she was trying to call her daughter in Maryland.
The first few times Mike Moffitt answered, Hankerson would apologize and quickly hang up.
Eventually, as she kept misdialing, Moffitt finally told her, “Hey, if we’re gonna talk like this we might as well get to know each other,” he posted on Facebook last week.
Thus a tradition began. The two have talked on the phone every few months for the past two decades, said Moffitt, now 46.
“For years she was just Florida Lady in my phone,” Moffitt wrote.
Their friendship helped Hankerson when she was going through tough times in her life: divorce and the loss of her son, WPBF reported.
They never met in person until last week, when Moffitt showed up unannounced the day before Thanksgiving at
Hankerson’s modest ranch home just east of Interstate 95.
“I brought her flowers for Thanksgiving and finally got to meet,” he wrote.
The visit wasn’t planned. Moffitt happened to be in the area for the holiday week and was looking at colleges for his daughter, USA Today reported.
The first thing a shocked Hankerson, 80, said was: “I’m blessed!”
“I wish more people could be like that you know, that would be so nice, the world would be better too, people would be better,” Hankerson told WPBF.
Moffitt says their long friendship has enriched his life as well.
“There are incredible people in this World that are a wrong number phone call away,” Moffitt wrote.