8/22/2010 Today, I Was Seventeen Again!

I dropped Bob off at eight this morning at his VFW club. He met up with his friend Bill Davis for the start of their weeklong fishing trip. Actually, twelve of them are going to New York. This fishing trip has been going on the for the last 15 years. Bob has missed only two trips and he so looks forward to this weeklong party. Yeah, yeah, he says he’s fishing but I’ve never seen a picture yet that didn’t have a beer can in it somewhere.

After my “have a good time”, “be careful” ,”love ya’s” I was off on my own adventure. I was going to have a very special day myself.

I pointed the truck south and took off. I was meeting up with Lourie and Janice. Janice lived across the street from me in high school and Lourie and I had been best friends since junior high. What was so special about this day? Well, today we will be TOGETHER for the first time since graduation night. I’ve seen them each over the years but not once was this trio in the same place at the same time and Janice and Lourie had not seen each other since that June evening thirty nine years ago!

Emails had been flying back and forth all week long about what day to meet, where, what time and we finally got it nailed down. We would meet at the Bandstand, on the Boardwalk at ten. It was finalized, the plan was in place. In actuality, we met at K-Mart, on Route 1 at 9:45. At the last minute I realized that I’m driving The Beast and there is no way I’m going to get a parking spot in Rehoboth Beach because all their parking spaces are designed for Mini Cooper’s or, at most, the smallest of Toyota’s. The emails started again and finally in a phone call Janice suggested the K-Mart parking lot where Lourie and I both could leave our vehicles and we would just take Janice’s mini-van and we would share the parking meter costs. Sounds like a plan!

I pulled in right on time and you’ve never seen three women smile so much when we got together! It was instantly like old times. We piled into the van and off we went on our day long adventure! We found a parking space immediately, which is unheard of in Rehoboth at the Boardwalk. We hit the boards all trying to talk at once, asking questions, shouting out, “Remember when we…….” We were all operating on “reunion overload”

We sat on the boardwalk for awhile talking away, people watching and just enjoying each other.

Lunch was next as it was noon and we headed to a boardwalk restaurant. I don’t think any of us could tell you what we had for lunch because food was certainly not the focus.

We learned a lot about our girlfriends today. Some had troubles that we had no idea about, some had issues she was dealing with that the other two were in the dark on. One had fears that she voiced and I think it made the other two think. We were happy to share, to unload and know that the other two women would understand whatever was said. And we did, it was like we were seventeen again and we shared like we used to. Sure the problems today weren’t nearly as “innocent” as the ones that plagued us back then, but our joys and triumphs were a thousand times bigger and better than those we shared thirty nine years ago.

We laughed. Oh, how we laughed. We reminded each other of things we did way back when and we giggled and laughed like it was yesterday.

After lunch we walked out to pouring rain so we made our way back to the mini-van. After a ride we went back to K-Mart to do some shopping for exciting things like laundry detergent and sat in the snack bar over sodas to continue our conversation. When we just couldn’t sit anymore we loaded back up into the van and went to another store for some more shopping.

Our day finally had to come to an end. Lourie had to go home for dinner with her husband, Janice was going to visit her mother and I had friends from Quail Run waiting for me back at the Inlet.

So we three, Lourie, me and Janice had a wonderful day and being seventeen again,,if only for a few hours, priceless.

We parted ways with hugs, a few tears, sincere I love you’s and a promise to not wait another 39 years again before we were all together again.

Girlfriends are just the best!

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