The morning is lovely. It is already 61°. The sun is bright, the sky mostly blue. The dogs stay outside longer, even Henry. I think I might join them later.

Sometimes I think about the friends I had when I was a kid. One friend from my neighborhood and I walked to school together every day for most of grammar school. She lived up the hill in the house where we used to live. I remember she told me her aunt had died because she choked on a chicken bone. That has stayed with me. We went to separate high schools after grammar school. She went to the local high school while I went to a Catholic high school a couple of towns away. We didn’t see each other much after that. 

When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I joined the drill team, the junior drill team. We had practice Saturday mornings in the armory. We learned all the steps, all the drills. Maria and I became friends, a friendship which continues today. She reminds me all the time of when we were fooling around, and I spun her, and she hit the floor. She got yelled at. I stood innocently. To yank her chain, even now I say it was her fault. It drives her crazy. She always says I got away with everything which also drives her crazy. 

When I was in Ghana, I lost track of most of my college friends. We wrote for a while, but then we didn’t. I was living a different life. Ghana had become my norm. I had good, good friends in Ghana. We met in Philadelphia during what Peace Corps calls staging. We trained together. After training they were posted down south almost a whole country away from me because my friend was pregnant. I visited them and we traveled together, the two of them, their baby and I. Now, we marvel at how well we stayed in touch. It was during the days before phones so we wrote each other. The mail took five days. They moved to my school our second year, all planned through the mail. We had the best time together. We still do.

I am lucky to have good friends, some of whom have been with me as far back as I can remember. Others are newer friends. After my accident, my uke friends fed me, checked on me and drove me where I needed to go. They still keep watch.

This entry was posted on April 24, 2025 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.