High School Buddies.....

I absolutely love getting together with gal pals from high school.

Please pardon the helmet hair. I rode the Harley to Terry's parents' house, and since there is a rule against high school pals judging you, I didn't bother to do anything to it.

I think the double chins were caused by the motorcycle also.

If you don't know which one I am, please just pick the prettiest one out of the bunch and pretend that it is I.

I hate being grammatically correct.

I just misspelled "grammatically" the first time I typed it.

If you pick the prettiest one you will have picked the wrong person, but it will make me feel so much better about myself.

Amanda brought her sweet girl Emma along. She was so well-behaved. (Emma too.) The poor kid had to be bored to tears, listening to three old women gab about high school and college and men and children, but she never complained once.

Terry is visiting from Germany, where she now lives with her hubby. She will be depositing her youngest son at college in Connecticut before flying back to Germany. I tried to assure her that an empty nest is a GOOD thing, but I don't think she's buying it. Yet.

Terry and I have been friends (when we weren't fighting like cats and dogs) since we were six or seven years old. Her family lived in a house across the road and up a ways from the trailer park where my family lived. We were told ALWAYS to walk from her house to mine or my house to hers by crossing the road and walking on the bank, never the road. It wasn't that busy a road, but still.

One day we decided to be brave and rebellious and walk along the road anyway. We were at her driveway and had yet to cross the road when a car passed us, went up the road a little ways, then turned around and came back. It stopped on the side of the road right next to Terry's driveway, and on that side of the road. The man driving opened his door and exposed himself to us. I don't think I had ever seen one of those before, and I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to see his. I yelled, "Run!" to Terry and we scampered to her house. I could have been a track star if I could have based my entire career on that episode. We told her parents, the sheriff was called, and somewhere along the way we were threatened with death if we ever THOUGHT about walking along the road again.

Terry and I had a huge fight in the seventh grade because I thought she called me an elephant. By the time I realized she was talking about the elephant belt buckle (or some other ornament) on my clothes, I was too embarrassed to say so. The feud went on for a long time. Because I am such a gracious person, I can now readily admit that I was wrong and apologize for our feud. Thirty-seven years is long enough to carry THAT particular burden around.

Amanda didn't move to our county until eighth grade, and I don't really remember what made us start hanging around. We went to the same church, and I'm guessing we had some of the same classes. We did a lot of things together, some of which should not be mentioned in this blog. We were skipping school together one day and driving to the next town (probably to get something to eat) when we passed her mother on the road. Bad timing.

I always envied Amanda because her parents trusted her, and my mother just ASSUMED the worst about me. Amanda's parents were forever going out of town and leaving her home alone. Man, those were some fun parties. My mother, on the other hand, made me go spend the night with one of my sisters if she ever needed to go anywhere, including the night before I got married. Just kidding. I think. I guess that's the difference between being the oldest child (Amanda) and being the youngest of five (me). Especially if you have to follow two hell-raising brothers (me).

Amanda and I both worked for my mother, and she probably knows my mother better than any of my other high school friends. And yet she still chooses to be my friend. She was the one I wrote about in an earlier post who went way above and beyond the call of friendship on the day of my wedding. That still brings tears to my eyes when I think about it. Oddly enough, thinking about the ending of the marriage leaves me dry-eyed.

I was with Amanda once (EVERYONE could drive before I could) when she had an accident. We were trying to find a parking place so I could go in and pick up my brother's birthday cake. I take full responsibility for the accident.

We went through a couple of yearbooks that Terry had on hand. We laughed at what some people had written, and we just laughed at some people.

Terry and I were cheerleaders together in the eighth grade. Amanda and I were on the drill team together our junior and senior years. I played in the marching band my sophomore year, but I abandoned band for the drill team because I, too, wanted to march in those white patent leather knee-high boots. Plus pompoms weigh a lot less than a glockenspiel. And balloons - we did a balloon routine once, where we popped the balloons at the end of it.

I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Unless it was with MORE of our girlfriends and we had an old-fashioned spend-the-night party. Maybe next time Terry comes to visit we can swing that.