(WHDH) — A Florida woman who kept dialing the wrong number ended up sparking a 20-year friendship with a man from Rhode Island.
Years ago, Gladys Hankerson was trying to call her sister who lived in Maryland but instead of dialing the area code 410, she dialed 401.
Mike Moffitt ended up picking up her call and recalled Hankerson saying, “Oh sweetheart, I got the wrong number” before hanging up.
However, Hankerson kept calling by mistake and Moffitt continued to pick up the phone.
“Finally I just grabbed it and said, ‘Wait wait wait, before you go, who are you, where are you from, what are you trying to do?’ And we started talking,” he said.
“I told him, ‘I’m sorry I was trying to call my sister,’ and he said, ‘This is Mike,’” Hankerson recalled. “I said my son passed away and he said, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and he talked real nice to me and I talked real nice to him, and after that, I had his phone number and I put it down on paper and I always called him.”
Hankerson says her blossoming friendship with Moffitt came at a difficult time in her life but that the Rhode Island man always lifted her spirits.
“During that time I was downhearted and he felt my sympathy and everything and lifted me up,” she said. “He was real nice, you know?”
Moffitt and his family came down to Florida for Thanksgiving and he decided to pay Hankerson a visit.
“I just walked in and I said, ‘I’m Mike from Rhode Island,’ and she just threw her hands up and said ‘I’m blessed,’” Moffitt said.
“Oh it was such a great day,” Hankerson said. “That was the happiest Thanksgiving there was. That made my day,” Hankerson said.
Moffitt said his and Hankerson’s friendship has lasted so long that he used to have a flip phone when she first called.
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