A Visit From a Long Time and Very Loved Friend

Thursday night I got a text message from my friend Beth who lives in Seattle.  We have known each other since the 6th grade and have been friends since high school.  She had been offered a free stand by ticket and decided to take advantage of it and come to Houston to see family and well, friend...that would be me.  She texted when she arrived in Houston and we quickly made plans to get together yesterday.  For grins, I decided I would go to her house like I used to in high school.  So I found myself in the old neighborhood.  Muzaks, where everyone went to take music lessons and since this was in the 70's everyone was taking guitar lessons, is no longer anything like it used to be; now it is a convinence store.  An ugly one at that.  The Weingarten's, which hasn't been Weingarten's in eons of time is now a 99 cent store, a huge 99 cent store.  As I took my time driving through the neighborhood I counted off and named the houses where friends and acquaintances lived.  I was a bit surprised at the power of recollection.  It also seemed that the houses that kind of looked run down and ill kept while growing up hadn't moved past their glory days of the 1970's.  I passed by friends houses where we hid in the huge hedges that fronted the house and played Flicka, Fury and whatever other horse stories we could act out from TV.  We had a way to tell if you were a person or a horse while playing, if you talked in the neighing type voice, horse.  Regular talking, person.  We had to play duel roles.  I don't know why most of the boys didn't want to play horse.  Well, they would play basketball HORSE but no acting interest of our game.  My growing up house looks awful.  It is painted a drab brown, no spark or life to it.  Maybe it just was sold or something...because there was stacks of flooring on the front porch.  I would hate to think the stacks of tiles are there all the time as an adornment.  So I began from there my trek over to Beth's parent's.  I went the back way like I always did passing the house and I can't remember the name of the friend, but her father had built her a stage complete with dressing rooms etc instead of a boring old play house.  The junior high kids always were the directors and casting people.  We'd all try out for parts of some play that the neighborhood kids had written.  At the end of the summer we put on our production, charged for tickets, sold Kool Aid and popcorn and had a blast.  Next to that house was Ronnie Hooker's house.  He was just a kid I went to school with but across the street from him lived my best friend in elementary school, Leah Rae Montgomery.  Leah, her brother and I would always get in trouble for playing in the small bayou that ran behind their house.  We got caught every time!  We were shocked that our parents knew when we had disobeyed.  Thinking back, it must have been all the muddy socks, shoes and shorts we had on.  I passed Bonnie Jacobs house.  Went past Mrs. Love's house,  She was the VBS director for all the years I participated as a child in Vacation Bible School.  I can still remember fondly marching into the sanctuary to the VBS song, then waiting for Mrs. Love to say, good morning boys and girls and we would respond good morning Mrs. Love.  Then we were allowed to sit for only seconds because we still hadn't done the pledge of allegiance, Bible and Christian flag and we were instructed to pop back up again for full participation.  I passed a home that held a Bible study that I went to some while in college and I passed by homes of teammates from years of playing volleyball.  Just because the paragraph and thought is long and drawn out doesn't mean that it took forever to get to Beth's.  No, just a few minutes and I still remembered the directions and which house it is.  I got to visit a few minutes before leaving with Beth's mom.  I love her!  She always made coming to her home fun.  After a bit Beth and I were out and about.  She wanted to see our lot and the model home in Katy, so we headed out there and then went to lunch.  Beth wanted to go to lunch someplace cool.  I tried to convince her that Luby's is the coolest place in town, better known as the Hobble and Gobble to Roy and me.  She didn't bite.  We went to Grand Luxe which met the cool factor.  Glad because I couldn't think of place one when we were deciding but of course on the drive home I thought of lots of places we could have gone. 

Our time went by so quickly.  We always have a lot of laughs and we always have the best in-depth conversations.  I may get to see Beth again on Monday and also see her daughter and 18 month old granddaughter.  When did it happen?  When did we get to be the same age as our parents or maybe even older in the season of life?  Beth's kids are all married, grown up.  Gee, yesterday it felt like we were still in high school just driving around, hanging out together, trying to solve the world's problems and  muddle through our own.  It was a great day!  After having acted like an old person this week by taking double medications, it was great to just sit back and laugh with a friend.  A friend and friendship that has spanned lots of stages and seasons, lots of trends good and bad, and again the bad hair styles, but Beth like Marty always chose an elegant timeless style.  I must have been the only crazy one with zany wacky hair a great deal of the time.