Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

Make new friends, but keep the old.

One is silver, and the other gold.

Skip this, gang.

Let's move straight to the platinum ones.

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I grew up next door to where my dad was born.  My family moved to the "big house" the year I left for college.  I love State Center.  I started kindergarten with most of the same people with whom I graduated from high school.  The book "Dick and Jane" could have been set in State Center.  I know the "Spot and Fluff" that lived in almost every home.  State Center is where my roots run deep.  Real, real deep.

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Last weekend was delightful.  Patty Wilkening Tresemer, her husband, Ray, and their son,Tom, came to watch the Iowa game on Saturday.  State Center South was taking place at Bluebird Hill.

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Patty grew up one block from my house.  I could see their kitchen window from our house.  She has two sisters, Daria (who was the Maid of Honor in our wedding) and Ginny.  I spent part of almost every day at the Wilkening home.  Patty and Ray wound up living in Centerville, Iowa while Bill and I lived there in the late seventies, early eighties.  Ray and Bill became fast friends.  Bill and I loved their baby daughter Megan and the Tresemers were there when Molly was born.

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What's the blog all about today?  It's about enjoying your past and embracing the present.  Ray is one of the funniest humans alive.  (His Christmas letter usually has me in tears from laughing so hard.)  He's also an outstanding physical therapist and an avid Iowa Hawkeye Fan.  Patty is an RN and she's a school nurse.  We debate everything from head lice to choral music.

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I don't have to explain who I am to these people.  They like me for just being me.  We laugh and laugh. We've been through grade school, catechism, marriages, births, deaths, first communions, pig roasts, tailgates, bar-b-q's, football games, wrestling meets, confirmations, college, cars, bats (the "Oh my God, I've got a bat in the house", leave my husband sleeping in bed, and drive to Ray and Patty's without waking Bill up-- "Let him deal with the bat!" said the eight months pregnant Erin), tornadoes, root cellars, basements, bird watching, steaks, riding on the hood of a car which is being pulled behind another car, waterskiing with the rope held between your teeth--the type of friends who love your kids and you love their kids.  The platinum sort of friends that are rare and a valuable part of who we are in our heart.

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So, Saturday was a piece of the past, the joy of the present, and a glimpse of the future.....all rolled into one!

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