Friends….they come in all sizes, shapes, colors, and years.   I find in my case, most of my friends, didn’t start out day 1 being, what I call, a ‘friend’.  I knew them in grade school. Their desk was beside mine.  It didn’t matter if they were male or female. Either we clicked in second grade, or we didn’t.  Maybe we shared recess and that was all…..never knowing anything else about each other.  It wasn’t really important, was it?  Maybe we played musical instruments together in the band….remember those ‘flute’ things we all started on…..before choosing the ‘instrument of choice’.  Maybe we walked to school together and then went our separate ways to different classes. I remember how we would meet “at the corner’ and share our lives, as we knew them, til we got to school.  Yes, we did walk to school, a mile one way, and we came home for lunch too.  How wonderful it was, and still is, to grow up in a small town.

My grade school friends have become my life long friends……there were birthday parties, slumber parties, and chili suppers, and basketball games. We  marched together  in the band on the coldest of football Fridays, and sweat up a storm in the July 4th Parade.

In our neighborhood we had all ages of friends….some were 5 years younger and some were 5 years older.  We all had come to the neighborhood at the same time when the little National Homes were being built in the early 50’s. Everyone had younger brothers and sisters, who were definitely in the way, so we  girls had our private times sitting on the curb under the street light, taking walks around the block, sitting under the maple trees catching lightning bugs, and laying on a blanket underneath the stars before the dew fell.

From late spring til late fall we played ‘kick the can’ until our parents called us in…..or in my case, rang the bell.  My mother had a school bell and we all knew that when the bell rang, that ment ‘come home and come home now!’  I think if someone would ring a school bell now, at age 68, I would suddenly become 12 again.

 Later on the friendships seemed to solidify, and we all felt comfortable venturing outside our town to Girl Scout Camp for 2 weeks and then to church camp for a week where we met ‘boys’. I don’t know who was the most scared.  Oh, thank goodness for friends.

As I continued on this journey, thru school, and jobs, and marriage, and kids, and divorce, etc, etc…..there are many acquaintances who have come and gone.  The neighborhood I grew up in, transformed to the first apartment, and then house I shared with 4 other girls.  My marriage brought me to a new town with our first  home, and, as if in some  large orderly plan,  a friendly street, where my children would come to repeat the process.  And so it goes.

My Christmas card list is full of friends. Even today there are those I meet who may become part of this precious list.  As I address each card,  thoughts of how we came to share our lives, some by mere coincidence,  come to mind. Our babies are long gone, our work in the Jaycees,  long forgotten, our church suppers and Sunday school teaching, turned over to the young adults, but our friendship, our memories, our defeats, and our successes, remain as bright and clear as if it were yesterday.

 Friends…….I am so blessed they came to enrich my life….