Today is another freezing day. I think my body is trying to hibernate as I tend to sleep until almost noon. Nothing outside is inviting. Even the dogs are quickly in and out. I am so much better, only the short of breath is left, and I can recuperate for another week without missing a thing. My uke leader now has the plague, my name for it, and has cancelled events for the week. The only item left on my dance card is the dump run for later in the week. I still need to put away Christmas, bring sick hampered my efforts because of all the up and down the stairs and my breathing; however, I’m going to start today and see how far I get.

Every kid I knew had pretty much the same childhood I did. My close friends and I and most kids we knew all wore the exact same clothes every day, our school uniforms. I never minded wearing one. It was just what we all did. For my mother, it was less money for a single uniform, some of which could be handed down, than new clothes every year for the four of us. I had all the kid stuff for every season. My friends and I skated together. We went to the Saturday matinees together. We were in school together for eight years. We joined brownies then Girl Scouts. We first joined the junior drill team on Saturday mornings then quickly moved to the regular drill team where we stayed for years.

Over time my friends and I moved in all different directions. I lost track when I was in Ghana, but I ran into a few much later on, many of them my friends from elementary school, those 8 years. Right away we were comfortable with each other. We had a shared history. We shared our childhoods.

I think seeing the dusting of snow we got last night has helped me remember when I was a kid, when cold was no never mind, when the deeper the snow, the better the storm. We raced on our sleds down the hill with our thoughts only on our speed and winning, of course. These friends I have known for over seventy years pop-up everywhere.