Memory Lane in Maryland

There really is such a thing as a BFF (Best Friend Forever).  My husband and I were in Maryland this past week, at the home of my friend V........ we met back in our first year of high school, in 1965.  She was just out of Greek school, I was just out of Catholic school...... and there we were, standing in front of that huge public high school, totally lost.

I don't remember if she said hello to me first, or I said hello to her first, but I think we both realized very quickly that we were like fish out of water in that big public school after our 'sheltered' eight years in the private school system.

V and I hit it off at that first hello, and we were inseparable all during high school.  I spent as much time at her house as I did at my own...... countless sleep-overs at her house, with her mom cooking Greek dishes that I'd never tasted before.  My life-long love of anything Greek began with our friendship and has never wavered.  V and I used to walk to my grandmother's house after classes, and she would taste my grandmother's Italian food...... and my grandmother would make us home-made potato chips after she saw us eating "those things" in the cellophane bags.

After we graduated high school,  V went on to college, I went to work...... then I moved out of state and she moved out of the old neighborhood.  I tried over the years to find her, she was trying to find me. We never managed to re-new that connection, but the memories and the friendship was all there, intact and waiting.

I tried more than a few times to find V on the computer over the years, with no luck.  Over the years, I told my husband about V and our friendship..... we looked for her under her maiden name and couldn't find her.  Other friends in NY didn't know where she had gone, didn't know her married name..... it seemed hopeless and for a while I stopped searching.  My husband managed to find V last year, via Internet searches...  V's daughter C had opened up a Facebook page--- one look at C and I knew she had to be V's daughter.... I sent a letter to "my V," hoping that we had found the right person in Maryland...... V answered back right away... we spoke over the phone, we sent eMails........ everything that we once had was all still there..... we were just a little bit older.

When my husband asked me what I wanted for my 60th birthday back in January, I told him that I wanted a trip to Maryland to see V and her husband and daughter.  And that's what we did last week. One hug from V and it was as if we had never been apart. The magic of a BFF relationship.

V's daughter C is just like our own special friend Miss C............ same personality, same sense of fun and innocense, same everything.  I told V that when she visits us here, I will make sure to have Miss C visiting us at the same time so the two girls can meet--- they're just one year apart in age.

As with every trip, my husband found restaurants recommended on the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives show, and we all had lunches there inbetween the sight-seeing.  We went to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore and saw the Aquarium.  We saw where Francis Scott Key wrote the words to "The Star Spangled Banner" (the tune was originally a British drinking song!).

My husband found the most beautiful vintage carousel in Echo Park...... just breathtakingly beautiful, and so wonderfully restored.... surely the prettiest vintage carousel we've seen.  We all drove into Washington DC for one day to see The National Zoo....... big disappointment.  They're remodeling much of the zoo, and it truly needs updating because the glass enclosures for the small mammals are just so very sad and old.  After seeing the San Diego Zoo last month, any other zoo is going to pale in comparison, I guess.

As much as we saw in Baltimore, the highlight of the trip was just seeing V and meeting her family.....  had we done nothing but sit in her kitchen and talk, it would have been a wonderful trip. We promised to keep in touch (which we've been doing anyway since we found one another last year)........ and V is hoping to be able to visit us here in Texas when it's possible.  Both V and her husband work full-time, plus V is very active in her church...... and her daughter C is getting herself set up at college....... so I know her schedule is more complicated than mine.

But the main thing is that we have re-connected..... the friendship that was so special and so strong years ago is still there....... we've gotten older, we've matured....... but we're still the same two girls that couldn't talk enough, couldn't share enough, couldn't laugh enough when we were together.

Sometimes life just gets in the way...... and that's what happened with us....... but as I was looking for her, she was looking for me...... and only my husband's sense of computer-saavy was able to get us hooked up to one another again.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote something to this effect:  "There is nothing so good as the hand of an old friend."    Henry knew what he was talking about.