This is just too good to keep to myself.
I received an email last week from a friend that I have not spoken to since 1974! The last time I saw Shelley, we were fifteen years old. (I will be 42 next month!) Thank you Classmates.com! (LOL)
I can't tell you how wonderful it was to be reunited with her and hear her voice again.
We were really close for the second half of eighth grade and all of ninth and we hung around with the same crowd of about 30 kids.
Sometime during the summer between ninth and tenth grade... Shelley disappeared.I never knew what happened to her. She informed me that her mom was afraid of all the bad influences of city kids in the 70's and whisked her away to Amish country in PA for her high school years. It was really hard on her as she considered herself a "city girl". She is now back in our area.
Anyway, we talked on the phone and caught up on all those lost years. It was amazing how we reconnected and still had our friendship in tact. We had a lot of memories that I thought only I remembered, especially since my cousin Debbie, who was like a sister to me, passed away 10 years ago. But Shell did, too --that was special.
Those must be important years psychologically, because while they didn't actually last that long; they seemed to last forever and the memories are still very vivid of that time period, 14-18 years old. (The same ages my oldest kids are now!)
Shelley is an executive chef at a Country Club and a caterer. She is married with children. We will be getting together in April.
That is not the end of the "long lost friends" story... Shelley and I went through the "Where are they now" list of other classmates. I decided to pay for the Classmates.com service when I had found another name on the list of a long lost friends... Annie!!
I emailed her that night, she emailed me the next day and then she called....another marathon two plus hour phone call. I am just over the moon reconnecting with my old buds! Annie is doing great! She is an inventor, her brain child is the Comfy Wipe Warmer, (necessity is the mother of invention) and in 1999 she was featured on Sally Jesse Raphael!
It's so funny... Annie is a successful business woman now, but when I think of her, I see a teenager, sitting cross legged on the grass, wearing hip huggers, desert boots and an army jacket, (with contraband in the pockets) playing Stairway to Heaven on the guitar she always carried around with her. Time warp! LOL!
Back then in the 70's, it was called Junior High, now it's called "Middle School". We went to Eastern Junior High in Silver Spring, Maryland... any other old friends out there that wanna reconnect?
I have a feeling I might soon be updating my 70's pages...
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