A childhood friend called me out of the blue. Joanne was my next door neighbor and my best friend. We did everything together. I was devastated when her family moved to Australia.
We talked for an hour and 25 minutes. A record for me. We spoke about how we played with our brothers and one of the neighbor kids. We played capture the horses. We hid in the brush line at the road on my property and threw apples at what passing cars there were. One car stopped and a very angry man got out and threatened to send us to reform school. His shouting alerted my mom, who shouted right back at him. By that time, we had all scattered.
We also transformed the loft of Joanne’s barn into a Western Cowboy bar using empty liquor bottles we collected from our parents. We dared each other to jump from the top of the barn stairs to the dirt floor below (where I first sprained my ankle).
The giant swing set that my parents had put in, set on the edge of our property, was a big draw. There was a trapeze bar, rings and swings that with enough leg work could swing up into the blue Michigan sky. It was a hefty swing set that was bigger than ones at most schools.
Of course there was the half-acre pond on our property that we all swam in, caught frogs in and in the winters, skated on. It was a pretty idyllic place to grow up, we both agreed. Not to say that it was perfect. Joanne recalled how all the neighbor kids (all six of us) had played on a giant dirt and gravel pile that was a result of the acres behind our properties being excavated for a big lake and housing development. I remembered standing on top of the pile playing King of the Hill and the kids throwing stones at me. Scared and angry, I dodged the stones thrown. Somehow I had ticked everyone off. Joanne didn’t remember that and I hadn’t until she brought up the man-made lake and all the piles of dirt.
I do remember getting in fights with Sandy from the house next to Joanne’s. She was older than both of us and was a tough cookie and I was an easy target. I still wonder why Sandy, who was hot tempered on a normal day, picked on me so much.
We spoke about our cats (Yes, single ladies with cats!). Joanne has two beautiful ones, Jane and Parker, and I have my four. All six cats are rescues or strays. We aligned on that and on our politics, thank goodness. She remembers my mom as being “glamorous,” which made me laugh as I remember my mom always digging in the dirt in her many gardens. Even after she moved from Michigan to California to be near me, she rented a tiny one-bedroom place and turned over the soil in a small patch behind her place and planted flowers.
Joanne sent me photos of a two-page single-lined letter that I wrote her from Sri Lanka. I wrote, “My favorite memory of you is how long you would take to eat your meals. You couldn’t go out and play until you had finished and I would stand by the table where you ate (I was outside talking to you through the screened window), trying to get you to chew faster). And then! If you had chores to do, I remember doing them for you (which was probably why you took so long, so I would get them done!). I remember clipping the grass between the patio stones in the front of your house one morning. Isn’t that a riot? Me…who hated chores.”
We talked about our brothers; mine who died when I was 16, two days before his 19th birthday. Hers, who died during the pandemic from Covid. We spoke of how she got to know her brother Steve as a man and me, who still wonders what my brother Mark would have become. Joanne said she saw Mark as an airplane pilot. Funny thing that. I’ve never thought of him as anything but an older brother who I had just begun to idolize.
She shared photos of her parents and younger sister. I had to look hard at her mom’s picture with gray hair as I plainly remember her with short dark brown hair.
No wonder we talked the afternoon away. There were a lot of memories, a lot of childhood stories.
What’s a girl to do?…talk more, make new memories.
Lucy Llewellyn Byard welcomes comments and shares. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
