Old Friends

Make new friends, but keep the old,

One is silver and the other's Gold.

Those are the words of a sing we use to sing in Girl Scouts many years ago. Many times I think of those words when I think about the friends I have in my life. Those who I've known for years and years and those that I've just met within the last couple of years. I guess I could go as far as saying those strangers that I haven't met yet who will become friends.

Today I spent some time with a Golden Friend, Nancy. She needed a ride to pick up her van which had had some repairs made on it. Seeing it was a Saturday morning we then went out for breakfast.

Nancy and I have been friends for almost as long as we can remember. She is a couple years younger then me and I think because of that, I was always the older kid that had to take care of things. Of course the thing we still laugh about is when Nancy turned five and there was going to be a little party with her family. I decided that seeing I wasn't invited, that I would "steal" Nancy and take her home with me. I lived about a half a mile from Nancy's house which was located at the former "Elma Nursery" where my Mom worked for Nancy's grandfather who owned the nursery. (a little sidebar, my Mom and Nancy's Dad rode the same school bus back in the 1930's)

So Nancy agrees to be "stolen" by me, the big Seven year old. We walked down the road towards my house, very carefully of course as I was a very responsible seven year old and I wasn't going to let anything happen to Nancy. I don't remember how long it took for us to make our way to my house, but then of course we couldn't go into the house! So back into the woods we went to sit and wait to be found out. Little did we know that one of the neighbors had ratted us out having observed us walking down the road. (I sure hope she noticed how cautious we were). As we sat in the woods we could see just about everyone from the nursery walking through the field looking for us. What's funny is I don't remember actually being found, but I know it happened. Nancy made it safely back to her home and the family birthday party. I was told by my parents that I had to apoligized to Eddie and Grace (Nancy's parents) and as little as I remember of that, Nancy remembers that I never could bring myself to say the words. I was allowed to go back and play there again so I guess all was forgiven anyway. Hmm, but now that I think of it, I wonder if Grace kept a closer eye on us after that?

So now all these years later, Nancy and I are still having fun together. There have been years that we didn't see each other much as we went on with our individual lives and even though I live just around the corner from where I grew up and Nancy now lives in her grandparents home on the old Elma Nursery grounds, we could go months and months without talking. But whenever we did get togehter, we would just take up where we left off the last time. It's good to have friends like that! As John Prine would say "that's golden".

There was supposed to be a picture to go with this latest rant, but I couldn't get it to load. I'll keep trying.