Friendship

A few years ago, I wrote humorous articles for our local newspaper. I just found my file, and thought my blogging friends might enjoy some of the stories--for those posts when I have no knitting to share. All the stories are based on real experiences but written with literary license.

She and I have been best friends for a long, long time. I didn't know it then, but my big family was poor, and her family was well-off. Other kids had to point it out to us, or we'd have been none the wiser.

All I remember is that it felt good to be friends. She loved to come to my house for fried chicken--at her house I gorged on Chicken Cordon Bleu. I never envied her trendy clothes because she always loved my mom's "custom made" clothes (she never said "home-made").

Whenever she got new shoes, she would scuff them up so they would look as comfortable as mine, and I learned to spit-and-polish so mine would shine just like hers.

We would gossip together long into the night, snug in the down comforter my granny made (because my friend's ultra-smooth perma-pressed 300 threads/inch sheets made her feel chilly). When we grew up, she bought a down-filled comforter, too, but now it is a duvet.

We shared everything all through school. She loved to borrow my hand-knits and I strutted in her boutique clothes. Then she became a cheerleader--but I got a part-time job. She joined the band--I learned to sew. She dated--I babysat. We both got acne and worried about our weight and about runs in our nylons--and we stayed friends.

Both of us found happiness in adulthood: She belongs to the Garden Club--I plant a big garden; she hires a cook--I love to cook; she has a private tutor for her kids--I help mine with their homework; she travels the world--I have a globe and a subscription to National Geographic. She sits on the Hospital Board--I sit in the emergency room with my kids-bored.

She still loves fried chicken and hand-knit sweaters, and we're still the best of friends.

Now as I reminisce, I think that, had we been born in different times, we would have missed each other, because we'd probably have lived on different sides of town. And besides, we had never heard of the expression: "Wrong side of the tracks".