My friend

[Warning: Long Post Ahead]

Not many of you, I'd venture to say, can boast of a friend that they acquired while in the single-digit years of life--and with whom they remained friends for the years to come. I am lucky enough to have had just such a friend since we first met in Mrs. Johnson's 1st grade class 25 years ago. Eek: seriously, 25 years ago. Her name is Melanie.

A few weeks ago, Melanie and her kids came to Texas for a visit. I intended to scan a few photos of us from our formative years, by way of introduction/sentimental journey; but once I got started, it was hard to stop. So this post has evolved from a Family Update to a Tribute/Memory Lane Stroll.

Melanie has been my dear friend for so long, that I can barely remember a time when she was not there. We hunted Easter eggs together in elementary school. She was subjected to my family's loud and obnoxious teasing and rough-housing for literally decades. We spent countless nights chatting endlessly, downing bowls of chocolate chip cookie dough, prepping for nights out, and watching Gone With the Wind in our junior high and high school years. Though we haven't lived closer than 500 miles since high school, we have kept up with each other. These days, Melanie is a home-schooling, wheat-grinding, diaper-changing, household-running Wonder Woman. For this year, her husband is in Baghdad with the Arkansas National Guard. I personally cannot begin to imagine how hard that would be, for so many reasons, and I know that it hasn't been a cakewalk for Melanie. Yet she has such resiliency, and she's getting through it. She doesn't complain, and she stays positive about the whole thing, and I admire her so much for that. I am amazed by all that Melanie handles and accomplishes, especially with her husband gone, and even when he's not.

And now for the memories...

So here we are boarding the bus for a school-sponsored trip to Washington, DC in 7th grade. We coordinated our outfits ahead of time, so that we were a perfect set, down to the underwear and socks. Notice the handkerchief headbands, curled hair, and sporty nylon jackets..

These weren't our regular clothes--actually, they're my mom's old threads, saved for our dress-up stash. We put on a concert for my family, with another friend Cristi. Here are a couple more. I just couldn't resist posting several. They make me laugh.


In the group shot, you'll see my brother Scott (in the Celtics shirt), brother Brian (in Hawaiian shirt), and Sam (who will show up later in this post as my prom date!). We made microphones out of tin foil and I believe we belted out a medley of songs from The Little Mermaid. My apologies to anyone who thought I was cooler than this. Ha.

We actually rented these dresses and wore them to school. I remember bundling my whole pile of southern belle hoops onto my lap so that I could squeeze under the desk in keyboarding class. Heh heh. I can't believe I had the nerve to wear that in 8th grade. We were really into GWTW at the time. If you don't know what GWTW is, then you probably wouldn't understand.

On one of Melanie's birthdays, we dressed her up and surprised her (here with Jocelyn and Cristi) with a moonlight boat ride with bubbly drinks (read: dangerously and hilariously tippy inflatable rafts in Woolly Hollow lake with sparkling Welch's). Notice Melanie has chosen the same dress from Mom's closet as on other occasions!

I'm realizing all these photos involve dressing up in one way or another. I shouldn't be surprised, perhaps, at Ava's fascination with dressing up. This one is from junior prom. For those who know me from my Arkansas years, the line-up goes like this: me, Sam, Casey, Jeannette, Jaren, Cristi, Chris, Melanie, Danny, and Buffy. For our meal, we went to Cadron Settlement Park and had Chinese food at park tables, all set up fancy and catered by a few of our parents. We hot-tubbed at Cristi's, and there was some smooching. But I won't say who. Very fun night.

Here we are, feeling all grown-up, spending the day in Memphis. Beale Street.

A cleansing splash at Cedar Falls after eating mangoes, on a graduation camping trip with the two of us and Erica. Most memorable moment, other than eating deliciously ripe juicy mangoes, was when we barricaded ourselves inside my little Renault because there was a menacing raccoon scavenging around our tent.

Our trip to Boston after high school graduation. Here we are on the steps of the Widener Library at Harvard. Ha. Never thought then that I'd end up there one day.

And us at Cheers--the obligatory tourist shot.

Melanie's 18th birthday, right before starting college.

This was after Melanie was married; I was in college trying to grow out a bad-mistake perm. Yeah, a perm. And it was the mid-90's. No excuse.

Visiting Melanie in DC with baby Ava. I guess we had stopped dressing up by then. She had 2 boys at this time, who you'll see below, plus a darling little girl who is not pictured in this post, though she is cute as a button.

So, to Melanie, I apologize if you object to this array of images from your past being posted on the whole entire world wide web, but..umm..it's too late now.

Most of the week she was here, Melanie's older son was at a camp for children of deployed military parents in Central Texas. Her younger son was with us, and her little girl was back home in Arkansas with the mother-in-law.

And that brings me to the travel narrative portion of this post. Congratulations if you're still with me on this one. Here are a few highlights of our week:

Our little bugs at the toy library (yes, dressing up)

Shopping (Melanie captured a classy shot at IKEA that I'm sure will be much appreciated by Ava in her later years)

Sea World sweatiness

Cruising the river in San Antonio




Remembering the Alamo (See how morose Ava was at the memory. It haunts her to this day. Or maybe she was just disappointed that we didn't see the basement.)


Remembering the other missions of San Antonio that we never knew existed, which were even better than the Alamo: no crowds, gorgeous haunting music floating from mass (Derek almost became a Catholic on the spot), spacious grounds to run around on; edu-historical (just made that word up) spots such as the working flour mill; enthusiastic rangers. Truth be told, it was 100 degrees and a bit miserable out in the sun, but the missions were really amazing, and we want to go back as soon as we get some more visitors (hint-hint).


Also remembering that we need a new camera.

And, naturally, bumming around at home

Thanks for coming, Melanie and company! We miss you.