Hair Appliances

Of course, I remember these fondly. In my never ending quest to make my hair look like a normal person, this particular appliance was my best friend through high school and college. Hot rollers had not been invented. Or, if they were around, I had not heard of them yet.

This is me as a freshman in college. I washed my hair and put it in a Pebbles-type 'do and strapped on my hair dryer. If a group of people decided to study in the lounge or in another room, I unplugged it, transported it and set up shop elsewhere.

This other photo is me as a sophomore in college. That's the 'do I wore under the hairdryer. I find it hysterical that the background of this photo is a gigantic Valentine's Day card taped to the wall. It's kind of hard to imagine that anyone would feel the urge to send me a V.D. card after seeing me in that get up.

Recently I was trying to make my hair calm down and running through my various brushes, rollers and curling irons. I had serious longing for my old dryer.

We Don't Change

Yesterday I had lunch with three friends:

One I see regularly and talk to multiple times a day.
One I see occasionally but we have enjoyed a reconnection of our friendship.
One I had not seen in 25 years or so.

Maybe it's a problem with my eyesight but they all look the same to me. Their voices sound the same. The sense of humor is intact. Yes, I realize we've aged but I had a couple of "Oh My Gosh" flashes. We could've just as easily been sitting in our high school instead of discussing children who are in college.

As you know, I'm not big on organized reunions. I prefer the smaller ones.

In this microcosm yesterday, I admired each of them. But it also made me wonder:

Did the girls who were the most popular in high school maintain it?
Did the jocks keep up their studly appearance or did they become people with big bellies?
Did the druggies survive? Are they still druggies?
Did the brainiacs go on to do something brilliant?
Are the nerds conquering the world? Or just wearing pocket protectors?
Did that cutest couple in high school stay married?

I have detectives on the case.

Peggy Lynn

There is a fourth goldie. Or, she was supposed to be. The goldies call each other, text and email. We are not afraid to say, "I am in my closet and I am scared about my life" Until the other night, I had not spoken to Lynn in 25 years or so.

So I answered the phone to hear, "Hi Sher, it's Lynn." (Very few people call me Sher." Just hearing her voice sent me over the moon.)

I couldn't put a sentence together or gather a coherent thought. I kept picturing us in high school. I was so busy with memory lane that I could not concentrate.

She was the smartest person I knew in high school; she skipped graduation ceremonies.
She was the first person I knew to get a tattoo.
She was the first person I knew to have a baby out of wedlock, even though I personally took her for birth control.
She was the first person I ever knew to steal a car (her parents) and wreck it.
She left a toilet on my parents' lawn. Her sense of humor was contagious.

In our brief conversation, she still managed to shock me:

She does not have a computer, therefore no email.
She does not have a cell phone.
She only gives her phone number to trusted people. (I have it.)

Here's the kicker: she told me she named her second son after my father. For someone who did not spawn a boy, he seems to have a lot of people name their sons after him. She also asked, by name, about my mother. I could not tell you her parent's names if you threatened to pluck my fingernails out.

Jan and I are having lunch with her on Sunday. I cannot wait. I wish Deb would get on a plane and come along.

Losing Touch

When the daughter was in high school, she had many friends that were the center of her life. Sometimes other things, like studying, took a backseat to whatever was going on with her friends. The husband was the voice of reason and explained that she wouldn't know or keep in contact with most of these people within five or ten years. I agreed with him but I had a hard time with these conversations because two of my dearest friends have been in my life long before high school.

Not that I don't have experience with losing touch with people.

I grew up in a neighborhood of friends. I probably wouldn't recognize most of them today. I had a core group in college and we were inseparable. I haven't seen many of them in years. My life is rich with friends but there are some other people that have disappeared and I miss them.

In a magical twist of fate, this blog has rekindled a friendship with some.

The oldies moved here from Mississippi. The first year, they received constant calls and letters from friends with juicy updates about their town, etc. This year, the notes and phone calls are dwindling. She's noticed and I can tell it depresses her.

Just like marriage, friendship takes an effort. In some ways, it takes more of an effort. It has to matter to you.

So, I've been trying to reach out a bit. When it works, the years fall away. I was in New York earlier this year and had dinner with a friend from college. We're making plans to visit again. I had lunch with another college friend and we shared laughter and tears. We spent a lot of time saying, "Remember when we all ...?" I'm a little jealous, he's done a much better job of keeping in touch with our college gang.

The Unabomber has lost touch with reality; the mother-in-law has not. She watches the comings and goings of our life and she misses her friends.

One of Those Mean Girls

Recently, I sat with two friends and a gaggle of dogs, enjoying the last summer days. I made a saucy comment, which my friend Cynthia found witty. My other friend said with a straight face, "Oh, you were those mean girls in high school."

Was I?

I remember doing some mean things -- mainly when someone was taking advantage of Jan. She didn't need me to protect her but there I was! If you're going to mess with her, you have to go through me. It's almost 30 years later and I feel the same.

I remember saying some mean things. Ok, let's stop kidding. I say mean things every day -- usually to the husband or the oldies. But, I don't remember saying a lot of mean things in high school. I don't think I had the mental capacity.

My mom and I can say mean things to each other. We're just screwy enoungh to find it funny later. We are extremely honest: "You hurt my feelings," or we make unwelcome comments about each other's lives. The worst is, "I'm just disappointed."

Young girls can be cruel. I remember it from my childhood, I've witnessed it with the daughter and I've watched it with my friends' daughters. I'm oversimplifying but boys just punch something or someone -- girls get verbally vicious. They turn partially Amish and shun someone.

The good news is they grow up and (usually) become nice and kind people. If I was a mean girl in high school, I had a good reason. I'm not a mean girl today. I would never intentially be cruel. If I come across that way, it just means my mouth got ahead of my brain.

Passing Notes

School was hard for me to sit through. My work was done and I was easily bored. So, I spent my time writing notes to my girlfriends. My report cards constantly had some version of the remark, "Talks too much" or "She needs to stop sending notes." In high school, we had this down to a science. We could pass in the hallway or the lunchroom. There was always a note.

About 12 or so years ago, the Golden Girls were together for one of our trips. One of them had saved many of our notes from high school. We spent countless hours reading them and belly laughing.

The other day I was in church. My mother passed me a note. Then, she passed one to my aunt, sitting in the pew behind us. I sent my mom a note back. (Yes, we did participate in the service.) I want to contact every teacher that ever corrected me. I come by this honestly. I can't help it.

Life Lists - Part One

A lot of people compose lists of goals they hope to accomplish in their lifetime. Climb Mt. Everest? Check. Visit every continent? Check. I understand the fascination with this to some degree. I love lists. I love the opportunity to cross something off my to-do list. It's a meager, yet meaningful, sense of completion.

I'm starting a new list, titled "Things I'll Never Do and Things I'll Never Do Again." (I'll let you figure out which ones I've never done and which ones I'll never do again.) My list begins with:

• Camping
• Wear braces
• Do any illegal substances
• Mow a lawn
• Get tattoos or piercings
• Date a married man
• Climb a mountain
• Swim a Channel
• Give birth
• Wear a high school gym uniform
• Ride a motorcycle
• Go to the circus -- the clowns give me the creeps
• Work for or with a raving lunatic
• Own a bird
• Take oldies into my home without an exit plan

I'm very excited about this project. I can type it out and whenever I feel like it, I can read it and say to myself, "Check it off; not going to do that!" Mission accomplished. Plus, I can add to it whenever I feel like it. I hope you'll make your own list.

Wild Bill

I rarely use names in my postings. This is an exception. Wild Bill was my grandfather, my mother's father.

When I was a child, he flitted in and out of our lives. No one was ever sure where he lived. Once someone figured it out, he had moved again. Then he would just show up on our doorstep and my parents would always take him in.

You know what Robert Frost said, "Home is the place where they have to take you in."

He might stay 2 days or 2 months. He had a gypsy soul and was soon off again.

Everyone seemed to know him. He made friends easily. Age was not a factor. About the time I was finally allowed to attend parties in high school, it was not unusual for me to show up and hear someone say, "Oh, your grandfather was just here."

Wild Bill invented drunk dialing. If he was with friends (and he was always with someone,) he would put them on the phone to talk to you. My mother has accused me of inheriting this gene. She would get so frustrated with him and that's when he nicknamed her "The Prosecutor."

My father had a little more patience. He would allow Wild Bill to work with him or he would often take him fishing. Dad lost more fishing equipment to overturned boats than he would care to remember. Once, Wild Bill ducked behind my dad's truck and Dad ran over him. On the way to the hospital, Wild Bill was moaning and groaning. In a rare moment of zero-compassion, my dad told him to stifle -- he wasn't having a heart attack! After several hours in the emergency room, they informed my Dad that -- you guessed it -- Wild Bill had a heart attack.

He was a skinny wisp of a man. He had a bad eye that he always taped shut with Scotch tape. It was a bizarre look. My dad tells the story of him calling the house, needing a ride, etc. My dad would go to pick him up and he would announce to a bunch of hooligans, "This is my son-in-law and he's going to kick your a**."

Later in life, he worked with the Sheriff's Department and played Popeye for sick children. They would helicopter around the state and bring joy to kids in the various hospitals. As a perpetual kid himself, he was very good at it.

At the end of his life we were called to the hospital repeatedly, always told that he may not make it through the night. He fooled us for months. My parents would go in after the doctor and ask how he was doing. The answer was always "Great!." Finally, my dad asked him if he had understood the doctor's diagnosis. He said, "Well, I know I'm dying but I still feel great."

My grandmother was the love of his life, although they had a twisted and demented relationship. She left him when the children were very young. When he was in the hospital dying, she agreed to see him one more time. He was unconscious, but she visited and talked to him. She reminded him of their fun times together. They had not seen each other in over 30 years.

When he passed away, I didn't believe it for a while. Just like my entire life, I thought he'd pop back in eventually. He must have still had some pull with my grandmother. For no logical or medical reason, she died 5 days later.

Maybe they're in heaven avoiding each other.