Saturday, April 15, 2006

A Blast from my Past

A long time ago in a land far away...

Actually, it was about 1968 in a tiny Virginia town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so that fits. My parents and I (this was B.S. - before siblings) moved into a duplex next to another young couple with a child a few months younger than me. The two couples became good friends and did everything together. "Chip" and I were playmates since before I can even remember. We went to each others birthday parties, played at one another's houses, had tea parties, played G.I. Joe together and were one another's first "boyfriend/girlfriend." (It reminds me very much of how Jonathan and SG's Kolby are.) In a strange coincidence, both families moved to Charlotte, N.C. and continued the friendship for several more years.

I don't remember who moved first, but they moved to South Carolina and we moved to Texas. Our mothers kept in touch, but Chip and I did not correspond. Eventually our mothers lost touch too.

I always wondered what happened to Chip and his family. When the internet came along, I tried now and then to find him on people searches. I sent a couple of emails, but they must have been the wrong person. Last week I typed his name into the search area on Classmates.com and there he was. This "Chip" included his real name, the years were right and he was listed as graduating high school in South Carolina. This had to be my old friend. I sent a cautious message through Classmates, wondering if I would hear anything back. I got a reply later that day! He was surprised and thrilled that I had tracked him down. We are emailing back and fourth now trying to catch up on more years than I can believe. It is just so nice to find a connection like that. We both have very fond memories of that time.

This experience has strengthened my reslove to stay in touch with our Texas friends. I don't want Jonathan and Kolby to have to search for one another someday. Even if they loose touch, I pray Stephanie and I won't. Like the old song says: Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.

2 comments:

SG said...

That just won't happen! We will not loose touch and Kolby and Jonathan can always be eachothers back up date for Prom Homecoming etc!!! :) So when are you coming down?

Antique Mommy said...

Wow, you are so brave to do that! What a great story! I imagine that Meg Ryan will play you and Tom Hanks will play Chip. Keep us posted!