Last Saturday some girls from my high school class got together for lunch. This has become an occasion over the past few years. There were only six seven of us there. Sometimes we've had as many as twenty. When I started this blog, I intended to chronicle my life for my children to have some more knowledge of what it was like growing up when I was young, and I've wandered from that, but hopefully today, I'll get back to my first purpose.
One of the ladies there is known fondly to us all as Joey. Her mother was my Brownie leader. Now that goes back a long way...to second grade, I think. There was a troop of us who started out in Brownies together and went all the way through high school as Girl Scouts. Some of the girls in high school became mariner Scouts. I dropped out before that.
What I want to say is that many strong ties were made that remain to this day. We went in diverse paths after high school, but some have found their way back to Bradenton to live. Now, many are beginning to look elsewhere as the cost to live here continues to rise.
It won't be long before we celebrate our 50th class reunion (class of '59.) I used to think that only old people graduated from high school that long ago. But I was wrong.
We girls in Brownies all went to Ballard School, which was the school in Bradenton. There were some other schools in Manatee County, but I don't think I was even aware of them until I got to junior high and began to meet kids from those schools.
At Ballard, we mostly moved from grade to grade together, because we were grouped according to our last names alphabetically. In fourth grade, a new school was built not too far from my parents' house, and the kids that were going to go to that school were moved to a clasroom together, so that when the school construction was finished, they could move in without interrupting the other classes.
Jan. 29...I started this a few days ago, and I've lost my train of thought, or I don't remember where I was going with it, so I'll close this for now. These lunches have been so important in my life, reconnecting with friends from long ago. Bradenton used to be a small town where everyone knew everyone else. It has grown so in the last few years, and I used to say that the hometown feeling had disappeared. When Don died, the hometown was all there. Many of these girls and their famiies were at his service. The hometown is still there, one just has to look a little harder for it sometimes.
2 comments:
My dad was a minister so we moved a lot. My "best" friends are scattered all over the country. I do have contact with one of my roommates in college and my best friend in Roanoke still lives there I think. We don't get back much now that my granparents are gone.
My daughter Nyssa has been much better at keeping up with her friends from school. Of course she is still making new friends at William and Mary.
I have four very close friends from my school years. I call them my forever friends and I feel so blessed to have them. We all know each other so well.. and our memories keep us young.
Post a Comment