chapter 2

I remember my mom crying in her room. I did not know why at the time, but later realized that she often did not know how she was going to make ends meet. But she never let us know that we did not have much. We didn't know it. I don't recall my brother nor I ever feeling the need to keep up with the "Jones'" so to speak. My mom worked hard. She was a teacher at the high school and she sometimes had jobs in the summer to help pay the bills. Child support was not predictable and to be honest it certainly did not amount to much. She never made a big fuss with the courts when the checks did not come (and they didn't come more often than they did, if I remember correctly). But we scraped by. We lived check to check but we always had food on the table. And we were able to do the things that we wanted to do for the most part. Mom worried about my brother not having a male role model, but she did all she could to be both mother and father. I remember a few times giving her father's day cards :-) But we had a pretty good life really. We took a lot of shoe string budget vacations to Kansas and Ohio to visit relatives - once by Amtrak. We were really pretty fortunate to take some of the extragavant vacations that we did. We belonged to a group called TREK (Three Rivers Explorers Klub). For every so many people who paid to go on the trip, one chaperone went for free, so we had discounts sometimes since my mom was a teacher. We went to Florida and Mexico, and when I was in college, mom and I even took a trip to Europe. She went as chaperone because she is fluent in German and Spanish and I went as a chaperone because I spoke French (well, I at least had taken 2 years in high school). There were some good times. We went to Disney World one year, too, and would you know it, I don't even remember anything about it. I was in high school, but I don't remember anything. Is that normal? I swear I was not drinking nor smoking anything!! Weird.

I had a great group of friends that stuck together all the way through school. I met Sandie in 8th grade. She had just moved in to the neighborhood. She lived a few blocks from us and we hit it off almost immediately. I don't remember how we met, I just do not remember ever not being friends with her. When she made the cheerleading squad, she became fast friends with Lisa. One day a note was passed. I don't remember if Lisa wrote the note or if I did. But basically the note said that since Sandie and I were friends and Sandie and she were friends, we should be friends too. Lisa is my dearest friend to this day. Back in the day before email, we would write letters to each other almost every single day when we were in college. And when I worked on Mackinac Island for a summer I did receive a letter every single day. I wish I had kept them. I see her only once or twice a year, but when we do get together we pick right back up where we left off. We share the same thoughts and ideas about life. Also through Sandie and Lisa I became friends with Deb and Vickie, who were also cheerleaders (I was more the band geek since I never made cheerleading). The five us were pretty much inseparable up until graduation. I still see Sandie and Deb once in a while, but I don't think I've seen Vickie in about 20 years. She moved out of state and despite trying to contact her via email, I have not spoken to her. Then there is Val. Gosh, i don't know how I met her either, but she and I still talk probably about once every two or three months. She has a hundred or so children and grand children by now, so whenever I am feeling overwhelmed as a mother of one, I think of her and sometimes even call her and then I stop feeling sorry for myself... I remember one time spending the night with Val who was dating a guy and she had fixed me up with one of his friends. These guys brought about 10 dozen gladiolas and put them in buckets and put them on the back porch. I am thinking they did not purchase these at the local flower shop, since there is a gladiola farm in the vicinity. I have never seen so many flowers in my life! Then there was my dear friend Scott. He was a band geek along with me. He was my best friend that was a guy. We had a lot of soul searching talks together. I remember sitting in my desk in high school math when Scott and our friend Dave (who died in a car accident years ago) literally picked up the desk with me in it (it was one of those desks with the chairs attached), moved it out into the hallway and set me down. I have no idea where the teacher was, but it was a hoot! When I was married, Scott showed up unexpectedly in his military uniform and totally brought me to tears of happiness that he could be there to share the day with us! Scott was dating Teri which was how I met her. She was a very quiet person though you wouldn't know it now! Actually she and I are best friends in adulthood as we worked together for several years and have been on the same bowling team for several more. Of course there were so many other friends, but when I think of high school, those are the names that first come to mind. I just remembered something else unique about my friendships. We girls would have sleepovers all together. We all either knitted or crocheted or did cross stitch even in high school. We would often sleep at Deb's as her mom was often not there. We would stay up late watching music videos way before MTV.

So I have had some strong friendships and a good family to keep me on the straight and narrow, or at least put me back on the right road when I took a wrong turn. Which of course I did often. But I'll save some of those stories for later posts.