Assignment #6 Best Friend in 2nd Grade

Answer: No thanks. Question: Do you feel like looking up your best friend from second grade?

Patsy Hartman was my best friend from first grade through sixth grade. Everyone thought we were sisters. We were inseparable. Riding bikes. Climbing the neighborhood tree. Playing heel, toe, stomp, and over. Chasing Ralphie Regabuto so we could kiss him. Then one summer day she moved to Hempstead, New York, and the very next day I moved to Chicago's North Shore.

I talked to her on the phone exactly once after we moved.

Then I saw her one final time in person, when the old neighborhood gathered for a reunion ten years later, after we graduated from college.  Everyone from the old days was there. They had all kept in touch with each other. But no one had kept in touch with me. Thanks guys.

Except for me, the old group looked exactly the same -- sensible clothes and shoes. No make up for the women. Most of their parents were still college professors, so the dress code was very Hyde Park -- our old neighborhood where the University of Chicago is located.

As far as they were concerned, I had turned into a North Shore Swell -- fur coat [it didn't help that it was fake], a dress from Saks, three inch heels, plenty o' makeup and worst of all, I was driving my graduation present -- a Mustang. Culture shock. Oops, sorry.  I should have taken the bus.

I felt like Patty Hearst at a Symbionese Liberation Army barbecue.

I spent the afternoon apologizing for living. Mostly for having a dad who was a doctor, and made more money than their fathers did. Not my fault.

So, getting together with my best friend in second grade is not on my list of favorite things to do.

Finding out why my first boyfriend died in 1982 -- now there's something I do intend to do.

Mrs. Linklater