In 1966, when Puamana Crabbe was in fifth grade at Maryknoll School, she struck up a pen pal friendship with a girl her age who lived in a far-off, foreign place — Massachusetts.

For nearly a year, the two exchanged letters. They wrote about what they did at school and how they spent their free time. Crabbe read the letters she got to her family at the dinner table. In turn, she delighted her new friend by sending postcards of Hawai'i landmarks.

The two never expected to meet. By their standards, they lived worlds apart. So eventually, the writing stopped.

Still, little Debra Cook saved those Hawai'i postcards Crabbe sent her, always dreaming she would someday come to the Islands — and maybe even meet her pen pal. Then, last month, Cook — now a wife and mother of adult children — was rifling through a box of travel brochures in her Massachusetts home when she came across Crabbe's postcards.

It just so happened Cook had been planning to visit Honolulu in June, her first trip to the Islands, so she decided to do something a little crazy.

She looked up her long-ago pen pal on the Internet, found her and wrote her a letter.

Crabbe, a Hawaiian Studies teacher at Stevenson Middle School, got the letter a few days later and was flabbergasted when she read it. Once she had composed herself, she called Cook up to talk.

The two have been chatting constantly on the phone and via e-mail ever since. And when Cook touches down in Honolulu Saturday with her husband, she will meet Crabbe for the first time, building on a friendship that began four decades ago.

During the week Cook is on O'ahu, the two will walk Diamond Head together and plan to drive around the island. Crabbe also wants Cook to meet her class at Stevenson Middle School.

The students have been given the scoop on the pen pal story, and some wrote Cook letters with information on Hawai'i and Hawaiian culture.

When Cook got the letters, she was overwhelmed.

"This turned out to be more than I ever would have dreamed or expected anyone to do," she said, in a telephone interview from her Massachusetts home in Tewksbury, north of Boston.

Crabbe, who lives in Mo'ili'ili, said she's excited about meeting Cook for the first time.

But the whole experience, she added, is a little bit surreal: So many kids in the 1950s and '60s had pen pals and none of them ever expected to see each other face-to-face. Most stopped writing after a few months and quickly forgot about the kid in some other state who was once a long-distance friend.

For Crabbe, catching up with Cook has almost been like going back in time and renewing their friendship. It has also made her feel a little bit like a giddy, carefree schoolgirl again.

"We almost kind of picked up where we left off," Crabbe said.

Both Cook and Crabbe say they hope their Honolulu meeting will kick off a long friendship. Already, Cook has invited Crabbe to her Tewksbury home.

And remembering how much fun pen pals can be has made Crabbe want to introduce the concept to her students, many of whom still can't figure out why anyone would want to pick up pen and paper to write to someone, when e-mail is so much quicker. Crabbe says she hopes meeting Cook in person will convince them otherwise.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.