My smiling friend

My friend Linda has been in my life since we were 15 years old. She is the friend that I have often called my personal cheerleader. The first thing anyone will notice about Linda is her smile. It is a smile that goes all the way from her heart to her eyes. Oh she has a temper, but even if I don't talk to her for long periods of time, I can see her picture on facebook and feel she is smiling at me.

We met as Juniors in high school. We were both new to the school but did not know that the other was also new. As Linda put it, we very shyly danced around the possibility of getting to know each other. It was a friendship that developed into a means of having someone to tell our secrets and fears to, knowing we would not be judged. We laughed a lot and were really kind of weird, but it did not matter because we each had found someone special to fit in with.

One time we bought these shinny jogging shorts and t shirts, hers was red and mine blue and when we would go jogging we were really really stylin! On April 1st I called Linda to go jogging. I told her to start running my way and I would run her way. I thought I was so funny as I tried to drive up behind her, planning to honk my horn and say April Fools.  Trouble was that she was a little faster than I thought and I did not catch up with her until she was almost at my house.

I think she is still pretty fast but I wonder if she still wears her 1978 style red jogging shorts??

It was with Linda, in the back of a 5th wheel on a camping trip with her parents, that I first mooned someone. There was a trucker driving behind us and we raised the curtain in the bathroom and stuck our butts up at him and then we laughed and laughed.  If you know me well you know that I have mooned many times since then, but I will always fondly remember the rush of fear we got that first time.

Not to date myself, but when we went to watch the first Star Wars movie we were really funny...or so we thought.  There were some really odd boys sitting about 4 rows up from us. Someone, and I think it was Linda, threw the first piece of pop corn at their heads. We thought we were the most clever girls ever born as we pretended it was not us hitting them in the head with popcorn.. Fast forward to us trying to make a quick escape after the movie. They caught up with us but we told them we had a party to get to and they were welcome to follow us. Who would have thought they would follow us 30 miles down the road before pulling up next to us and asking where the heck we were going.  We had no party to go to but we did have a curfew to meet.
As a joke I handed them our phone numbers out of the moving car window.

Little did I know that not only was Linda a fast jogger, she believes in getting even.  Remember that April fools joke?   Linda had Tom, a friend of her bother, call me saying he was the popcorn head guy and he was in town, can he come over? Somehow I studder some stupid answer and hang up. I immediately called Linda, I guess her mom was counting backwards from 5 and I did not disappoint them with my calling speed. Imagine my  shock when Linda hands the phone to Tom.

This blog has made me look back and find these silly memories.

They seem pretty dumb now but we had fun.

Love you Linda!

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