Best Friends Forever (BFF)

Over the years I have made many friends no matter where we have gone. I have co-worker friends from the various places that I have worked and some have lasted--some haven't. We have great friends that share the common factor of having raised our children together through schools and extra-curricular activities. Then there are neighbor friends, church friends, and friends that don't fit in any category except they are fun to be with. However, perhaps the most lasting friends are those who fit into that special place in our hearts and in our memory known as our former classmates sometimes as far back as elementary school. They are those who have known us longer and perhaps better than anyone else. They have seen us at our best and sometimes our worst and like us anyway. They are the ones that we have sometimes neglected for a lifetime and are still glad to see us and take us back to share whatever time we give them again.

Against my will, my parents moved my brothers and me to Childress the summer before my sophomore year. I was so distraught and being a 15 year old girl, I was certain that my life was over. I honestly can't remember how it all evolved, but some how that summer, I found myself embraced by a group of girls just my age who welcomed me into their world. The next three years become some of the very best of my life. I will never forget the slumber parties with Bettye's tuna fish sandwiches, reading all the "good" parts of Lady Chatterly's Lover and other books not to be found in our school library, dragging main, hanging out at the Dairy Mart, and the drive-inn. Somehow, even though I can't remember all of the details of those times, it is still pretty easy to conjure up the feeling of belonging that made my high school years a time to cherish. Sadly, I am well aware that not everyone had my experience of being part of a group and feeling accepted. For some of us it just didn't happen like that for whatever reason, and I know I was one of the lucky ones. I don't know why but I am eternally grateful to Clara, Bettye, Dian, Pat and Arlyna. Thanks guys and I love you!

Someone recently told me that because she had not been able to keep in touch with people from Childress that they had all become strangers. This gave me something to ponder so I went to my pondering partner, Jim. I asked him what he thought about this and I like his answer. He said that for some reason when he sees former classmates from Childress, it is as if it is 1960 again and that becomes the starting point for going forward. It is as if he picks up a conversation from the past and all is right with the world. So, now is our chance to pick up the conversation, share the stories and step back a bit to a very different time in our lives.

Stepping back to that time in 1960, when my parents dragged me kicking and screaming to our new home in Childress, they stopped in at the Highway Cafe that very first night for dinner. Sitting in the booth across from my family was a man who sold insurance that my dad had previously met on a trip to Childress . Sitting with this insurance man was his son. Introductions were made and I was grossed out that my parents had introduced me to a BOY FROM CHILDRESS! Would the horror of that day never end! I suppose I was a bit dramatic. That was the night I met Jim Wilcoxson and the rest is history.

My mother loved to tell that story until the day she died. That was how I met my "BFF".

Nicki