Friends: To Have, To Hold

Do you remember your very first friend? I was in first grade. Babs was her nickname for Barbra. We only saw each other at school but she gave me reason to look forward to school each morning. We liked to jump rope, play hopscotch, and swing. Then the hoolahoop came out & we had a new first love. What was it about Babs that attracted me to her? I believe it was the things we had in common.

We also loved to read. Learning to read was an adventure and we read everyday from See Spot Run. I can hear us taking turns in our reading groups. We learned to sound out the words. Ya' know--phonics! We shared our lunch and swapped fruit or cookies. But there was no sharing of my pears. I love a fresh, ripe pear and sharing was difficult. After first grade making friends became my job. Dad had trouble with alcohol and rage as well as my Mom with rage, physical, and emotional abuse when she couldn't control Dad. I moved every school year to a different county in South Florida and two times I changed schools in the middle of the school year. I went to 13 schools in 12 school years. I had no trouble making friends. It came to me easy. Then the trouble came when I grew six and three-quarters inches in the summer between sixth and seventh grade. I started eighth grade at 5'10" weighing 160 pounds. I was hoping I had done all my growing but not quite. I continued to grow taller and when I completed twelfth grade I was 6'1" and 170 pounds. What does my growing so tall have to do with friendship?

I knew that those with whom I made friends from ninth grade until my senior year were lifetime friends. They didn't pick at me with name calling because of my size except in fun. I have had many nicknames like Jolly Green Giant, Alligator Wrestler, and Minibod! Because I had the ability to adapt to change and other difficulties, and my friend making was what I was good at, school became my escape. It was the place where I was the happiest and I excelled at school knowing the whippings would come if my grades fell below a 'B.'

In 1966, I was in the ninth grade and met my lifetime friend. Her name is Mary Lou Anderson Mullis and we have been friends for forty-three years. We spend vacation time together, talk on the phone regularly, and we have a girlfriend journal we pass back and forth. She lives in Florida and I in Georgia. We had the best time from 1966 until I got married and moved away. Then she got married and I had my first child. Our lives were very different but we never stopped loving one another.