Returnig to high school

I recently got onto Facebook and since then I’ve found two old school pals and I’m close to hooking up with several others. This is so exciting since we’ve been out of high school for a really long time, 32 years. Ohmygawd, I can’t believe I just said that!! 32 years??? How can that be? I swear in my mind I don’t feel any older then 25, my body tells a different story though.

My friend Patti is still just as beautiful as ever. She was always the girl everyone wanted to dress like; she had the best fashion sense of us all. I was floored to find out she has been running a family business for auto repair. She was always certainly smart enough to do anything; I just can’t merge the fashion plate with the grease monkey in my mind.

My friend Bambi is also still radiant and happy. It’s not surprising that she is finding old friends and staying in touch. One of the things I remember about her is how she made everyone feel special and that she was a great pen pal. She is also still in contact with a lot our old classmates.

This is where my fit of guilt starts. Since I moved away from the old neighborhood very soon after graduation and eventually to the other end of the country, I haven’t kept in touch with anyone, except my cousin’s wife. We moved here together and raised our kids together. I’m seeing pictures of all these grown-ups and I’m desperately trying to make connections in my mind to the teens I went to school with, and it’s not working too well. Last night I went over my yearbooks and that only helped a bit. Some people I remember with amazing clarity, others not at all, and then there are the ones whose faces or names seem familiar but that’s about it. Its all hazy.

Sadly there are two I remember that have passed on and that makes me sad. They are opportunities that are gone forever now.

I wonder who remembers me and what they remember. Now there is a frightening thing to contemplate!

Isn't it funny how high school is only 4 years of your life (OK some of us may have taken a little longer but we won't mention that) and yet such a defining time in our lives that it is present in our minds forever after? I had those horrible dreams of getting up to receive my diplomia naked for almost 20 years after high school!! I'm so thankful that's behind me!!

Family and friends

Today I attended a funeral for my friend Wendy’s mother. I never had a chance to meet her, so I have only known her through Wendy’s stories. In fact this was the first time I had the chance to meet the rest of her family. I was introduced to her two sisters, her father, numerous aunts and uncle and other family members. Now I am terrible with names, great with faces and voices, but really, really rotten with names. I remember things about people. So, basically I could meet you and remember that you grew up in Redding California, have 2 brothers and 1 sister, that you’re the middle child, studied geography in college, drive a blue Honda Civic, and love Jazz, but I will not remember your name. I can’t explain it, and it is certainly a handicap in my profession working in community outreach. What can I say?

So during the service my friend Debbi leans over and points to one the sisters and asks if I can remember her name. I had to admit that in my mind the two sisters have been condensed to “The Wine Drinker” and “The Teeth”. This response caused a very inappropriate laugh from Debbi, and she had to lean over to her mother, on the other side of her, and explain why she laughed in the middle of a funeral service.

Years ago the four of us, all best friends, my sister Danna, Debbi her next door neighbor, Wendy and me, (Debbi’s mom refers to us as the Cat Club) were out for a girls night. Danna and I got to telling stories about growing up in a family with a car curse. We basically prayed that the car would start, prayed all the way to where we were going, prayed it would start again, prayed all the way home and then said a prayer of thanks when we got home. Those bumper stickers that say “God is my co-pilot”, I know you’re seen them. Well, growing up in our family God logged a lot of flight time. We made a joke about being from a white trash family.

Wendy said she could out do us all in that area. She told us about her sister who had a drug problem (now clean), had gotten into all kinds of trouble, lived in a beat-up trailer park, and had lost all her teeth young. For Christmas one year her parents paid for a set of false teeth, and they went to Mexico to buy them. We conceded the point, but it was a close thing. So when I met Wendy’s sister today I couldn’t keep from staring at her teeth. They’re nice teeth.

We told Wendy about it later at the reception. She gave one of her wonderful laughs, and said her mother would have really enjoyed that, and how happy her mother had been that she had such close friends.

The truth is we are all really fortunate to have found each other and become friends. I guess Danna and I have known each other all our lives, but now Debbi and Wendy are as much our sisters as we are to one another. I once heard someone say that with family you get what you get, but you get to choose your friends.

I’ve made some really good choices, and I’m blessed with friends.

My new American friend

Over the last week I have been emailing with a deployed soldier who is of Lebanese decent. He immigrated to the U.S. only 5 years ago. During our emails, I mentioned two people I have known in my life who had also immigrated from Lebanon, one a very fine gentleman who was well educated and well thought of in the community, and the other a girl I went to high school with. He was Christian and she was Islamic. He wrote me back to thank me for saying such nice things about his countrymen. This hit me in a weird way. Can you imagine saying something similar to someone, “Thank-you for saying nice things about fellow Americans”?

America is so strong that we generally expect people from other countries to like us, or hate us, and we don’t generally feel it too deeply one way or the other. Sure we feel entitled when they like us, and when they don’t we don’t really care too much about it.

In the same email he asked what my race was. I had mentioned that when we first moved to the Pacific Northwest from Houston that we were more than a little disturbed about the lack of racial diversity here. The answer was easy, I’m not just white, I’m bright white. I’m glow in the dark white. It’s sad how white I am, but there’s nothing I can do about it. God knows I spent my teen years burning in the attempt to change my condition, all to no avail.

My new friend also tells me that he speaks 4 languages. I had to admit that like most Americans I am very poorly educated in languages and only speak English, and sometimes that’s debatable. I can make myself understood in sign language, but at points I get pretty frustrated, the signs get really basic, and might involve only one digit.

He worked as an RN before he came to America but was unable to get licensed here and hasn’t able to practice. He hasn’t said exactly what he does for the Army but I know part of it involves interpreting.

So, here’s a guy with better manners and education then I have, who’s family has been here only 5 years, and who is now helping to keep me safe, and representing my country to the world. I just don’t think there’s a way to convey how humbling that is. I think about my ancestors who came here over 200 years ago to make their futures, all the families that have gown from those first ones. Capt. James Davis fought in the Revolutionary War for the Americans. We’ve had family in just about every war since. There is a feeling of entitlement that we often feel from a history like that, until we come across someone like my new friend and think about how our ancestors must have felt when they hit these shores and were the new kids on the block. Am I entitled by what they did? Will my children be entitled by what I do? What will it mean to be an American in the future?

I feel very fortunate to have made a new friend and to be exploring these questions, because knowing him has opened me up to them.

Fantasies and phone books

My gal pals and I have developed some verbal shorthand over the years, as close friends will do in time. One of our more obscure terms is “reading the phone book.” Several years ago we were all in the car together listening to the radio and talking, of course. We were talking about what type of guy really gets our imagination going. For Wendy, it’s a cowboy in Wranglers and boots. Debbi likes a pretty guy all gussied up. Danna and I like big football players. No skinny guys with chests waxed for us. Debbi and Wendy like the hairless look. And of course, we’d all like a guy we can communicate with, who will never make us insane, and will be perfect. These are our fantasy men. Just like fantasy women they don’t really exist, they’re just nice to dream about.

All of a sudden Toby Keith comes on the radio and I have to admit I could look at him all day, and listen to him. I make the statement that he wouldn’t have to talk to me, he could just read the phone book in bed. We have a great laugh and from then on, “reading the phone book” = fantasy sex. When we play Taboo, we award an extra point if you can win with that phrase as a clue.

Debbi had her 40th birthday recently, or as she refers to it her 30-10 birthday. We, her closes and dearest friends, did the expected old hag gifts, but we saved a special gift for her celebration with just us, ….a phone book. Wendy, Danna and I went through and marked suggestive names and wrote in comments across the page. We then marked the page with a sticker tab. We marked over a hundred pages and laughed ourselves silly doing it. When we gave it to Debbi she loved it, and started going through the book reading off the names and comments. At one point I was worried she would stop breathing she was laughing so hard.

We teased her a lot about sharing it with her steady guy. Turns out he’s not such a big fan of the phone book gift. Go figure!

Lucky future

Saturday evening I got together with my gal pals: Danna, Debbi and Wendy. My 17 year old niece was there and a new friend. We gorged ourselves on cheese fondue and then on chocolate fondue for dessert. There were also adult beverages available except to the Harley, my niece. We had a great time, but then we always do. We played dominoes and Crainium.

We caught up on each others’ jobs, families, and interests. We’re a varied group in some ways, and remarkably the same in others. Debbi and Wendy are bankers. Debbi does something with internal services to bank departments and other banks. Wendy is a loan officer of some kind. Danna is a sign language teacher in high school, and a freelance interpreter. I, of course am in community relations. We have all been divorced at least once, Wendy and I twice. All of us have been married at least twice, except Debbi. Danna is the only one married at the moment, and Debbi has a steady guy. Danna and I are sisters and grew up in Texas. Wendy grew up in California, and Debbi grew up here in southwest Washington. We all have children. Debbi has two girls, Danna has one boy, Wendy has one girl and I have a boy and a girl. Our children range in age from 9 – 28. So far I’m the only grandmother, but one of Debbi’s daughters is married. We are all the major bread winners in our households. We are all involved in community service through our neighborhood, local school, and church, but of course not all the same things, but we do support one another’s programs and activities. We all live in the same neighborhood, Debbi, Danna and Wendy all on the same street and I’m a block over.

Now throw all this together and you get a hilarious mix for playing something like Crainium. I can’t sing or hum and I’m hopeless at guessing songs, and I can’t spell forwards, much less backwards. But I’m great at factoids and any kind of drawing or clue giving. Wendy knows nothing about geography or science, but is a wiz at numbers, and horses. She’s a great guesser and she has the most infectious laugh on the planet. Debbi is our pop diva and knows everything about pop culture, 80’s music and food. Danna is a spelling champ, great actor and good at general knowledge. If we could all play on the same team we’d be unbeatable, except when we have to spell as a group. I’d screw that up. Playing against one another we’re just crazy.

My niece was having a good time with us, and we were enjoying her company. At one point Danna turns to her and says, “This is your future!” waving her arm to indicate us all. Harley looked a little shell shocked, and then Debbi adds, “Yeah, this is your future if you’re lucky!” Poor Harley didn’t know what to think about that. We knew it was a very true and profound statement, but we also knew that if we had heard that 17 we would have been horrified.

Here’s to good times, great friends and knowing when you’re in the midst of both!!