Forever Friends

The last thing I expected was to hear from Pami...after 54 years.

Especially the way things left off with us.

I mean, how was I to know those were her roller skates?

Who can tell whose roller skates are whose...especially when you're only five years old?

You’d think a person would've let it go after more than 5 decades. And now here she was, from out of the blue, contacting me on Facebook...and all I can think about is...she’s gonna bring up the roller skate thing...I know it!

Well...as long as she doesn’t mention the meat grinder incident....

But that was more her sister Wendi’s thing…the meat grinder.

Don’t ask me…I haven’t a clue.  I just know I had a thing for the crazy ladies, back then…and to be honest, I don’t mind saying…I think they had a thing for me, too.  

It might have been the bow tie…

Anyway, due to the peril of Facebook, my past has been more than catching up to me these last 6 months.

I wrote about running into some of my long ago, fellow grammar school inmat—er, I mean classmates—recently, and how surprised I was to discover how much fun it was to see them.

And, believe it or not, we’re still keeping in touch…mostly so I can finish apologizing to everyone…you know, for the autograph book thing.

But hearing from Pami, like that, right out of nowhere…well, that was really a jolt back to the past…like 1959-60 past.

Think about it…Eisenhower was still president…the Beatles weren’t even named…and I had no clue how to read, let alone write….

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know…I’m still working on the second part…I get it…ha ha ha….

Anyway, we'd just moved into the neighborhood in the late summer of 59 and a group of four young ladies, aged 7-12, lived directly across the street…and one house down, if you’re going to insist on being a stickler for details.

From youngest to oldest, they were Pami, Wendi, Donni, and Cheri.

You think someone had a thing for “I” names? 

Adorable, right?

 And I suppose it was, and I suppose they were, although being all of five and adorable in my own right, it was hard to see anything beyond my own golden glow…even then.

Since Pami and Wendi were the closest in age to me and my older sister, they were the ones who ventured over to our newly acquired suburban lawn, where I was practicing my patented snowless snow angel performance art, and asked if I would like to come down from my cloud and come over and play.

Play…?  

Someone was asking me to come over and play?

I wasn’t used to being asked to play, by anyone, because, up to then, most kids my age tended to shy away from other kids who were fixated on angelic designs, with or without snow.

Not sure why? 

Anyway, I did and discovered that where Pami, being the youngest—although older than me by more than two years (details)—was shy and quiet, Wendi—(older, still)—was not.

Where Pami would indicate through hand gestures and notes, why don’t we roller skate in the driveway…Wendi would strap a pair of roller skates over my Keds and shout, “Let’s tie one leg behind our backs and see how far we can roll down the hill before we run into a car!” 

While Pami would offer up her Play-doh as a suitable rainy day activity, Wendi would place an unidentifiable purple substance in my hand and say, “Here, I made this for you…but you probably shouldn’t eat it…that is unless you really want to…”

And where Pami, taught me how to use my imagination to transform into Robin Hood, fighting off the Sheriff of Nottingham, to entertain myself while the rest of them were in school all day…Wendi would tell me to watch out for Mr. Fang, who lived up in their attic and peered out through the window all day, looking for little kids to eat.

So on it went for a fall, winter, spring and summer of leaf pile diving, snowman building, four leaf clover hunting, firefly catching, Good Humor ice cream eating and of course, the aforementioned  roller skating.

A lifetime of memories, squeezed into a single year that seemed, looking back, at least to be five.

At the end of that long ago summer, on a storm swept, windy day in early September, Pami, Wendi and the rest of their family packed up and moved north, into central Connecticut, which while less than an hour away, might just as well have been the moon, as far as a 6 year old boy was concerned. And while it would be very dramatic for me to sit here and write that as the car pulled away, we shouted to each other through the howling wind, “Forever friends”…we didn’t… but I would like to think we didn’t have to.  

I never saw, heard or spoke to any of them again, after that. New friends replace old friends as kids let go and move on, something, I guess, that served us well, in those days. But, since my mom still lives in the same neighborhood in the same house, as we did back then, I’ve thought of them from time to time, through the years, if only in a disconnected flash of memory triggered by the sight of Mr. Fang, still lurking in the attic window...still Pami and Wendi’s attic window, somewhere in a roped off corner of my mind.

And so it was, until once quiet, shy Pami...now outgoing, funny, adventurous Pam...spied a couple of my silly stories on-line and wondered…then sent me a Facebook message.

My phone beeped as the name “Pam” scrolled across the top of the display…and somehow, I immediately knew, across five decades and a couple of generations, I knew exactly who it was.

The message began…

For the rest of the story, or to just kill a couple of more minutes while you ponder your roller skate key, wondering how to use it, please Click Here... 

Now “Like” The Freelance Retort on Facebook

For more of “The Freelance Retort” visit freelanceretort.blogspot.com/

Follow on Twitter @FreelanceRetort

Google+ The Freelance Retort

Retort to the Retort - FreelanceRetort@gmail.com