lost friends (lyn)

This has been a week or re-connecting.  

In Junior High and High School I was part of the same clique of Jewish girls.  Vivien (with whom I’m still friendly), Marcie (we occasionally talk), and Amy, Ellen, Evelyn, Janie, Linda P and Linda M (all of whom disappeared from my life about 25 or more years ago).  We all did everything together.  We had make-out parties in Linda M’s basement (with each other so we’d be good when a real boy kissed us).  We bowled at Westgate Lanes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the non-Jewish boys we had crushes on.  We practiced the latest dance moves in Marcie’s split-level house.  We made-out (or more) in D.W. Field Park.  We doubled together for the junior and senior proms.  We drove up and down Main Street “cruising the drag” in Linda M’s Oldsmobile 442.  We speculated on “who had done it,” later learning that more of us had than had not.  And much of our socializing took place at or through the YW/YMHA (Young Women/Young Men’s Hebrew Association, more colloquially known as The Y).   

We hung out with the older  Y boys in Evelyn’s finished basement, doing things we shouldn’t be doing.  We went on trips with the Y, one resulting in our getting stranded overnight (and later having a snowball fight) on I-93 when a snowstorm hit. This was before cell phones, so our poor parents had to wait it out, hoping that everything was okay.  It was. Some of us were Y cheerleaders.  Two married boys from the Y (one of them is still married).  I took a drama course at the Y with a former Miss Massachusetts.  This was as close as I’d come to knowing a real celebrity.  Ellen and I competed in beauty contests (she usually won).  I remember much gossiping, nightly phone calls for hours, each with everyone, and many wild times, doing things I’d hate for Alexander to do today.  

So next week there’s a Y reunion in Brockton, Massachusetts.    It’ll be a multigenerational event.   My parents and sister Jean are attending.  Valerie has “zero interest.”

I contacted my old friends, except for Linda M whom I couldn’t find.  No one knows anything about her except that she’s “probably still living in Florida, unmarried, but with that same guy.”   Vivien kept in touch with her for a while but lost contact many years ago.

This week I called Linda P, someone whose voice I hadn’t heard in over 30 years.  She sent me a picture (I asked) and she looks exactly the same.  She’s fit, tan and still has long straight black hair, and describes herself as “still immature.”  Like the rest of us, I’m sure.  I spoke to Marcie briefly, and she sounds exactly as she always has.  Loquacious.  Ellen, Evelyn, Janie, Amy and I all  connected through Facebook.  Only Ellen is coming.  The others have prior commitments and one  “doesn’t want to see past boyfriends.”

Last year at this time I wouldn’t have contemplated going, but now I can’t wait.  What a difference a year makes.