A Blast from the Past :-)

She was the best bad influence on me that I ever had.

We met when he father moved to North Carolina from Ohio, opened a business, bought a home and settled three miles from mine.  We were both sophomores in high school - neither of us had a license and so we signed up for driver's ed together.

She taught me what "pop" was - it's what we call co-colas, in the south.  She taught me what cracking on another person meant.  We got our licenses at the same time and skipped school together, got in a ton of trouble for doing that.  We decided we wanted to see what Hay Street was all about, so off we went, past Rockfish Park, on to town.  Now, Hay Street was where all the hookers and unsavory people hung out.  We courageously got out of her car, and were immediately approached by a scraggly man who asked for a light.  It was enough to scare us back home.

One evening, she said - Look mature.  We're going to a bar.  And we did.  But the reason we were there was soon apparent.  Her dad was sitting at a table with a woman who was not her mother.  She grabbed my arm, pulled me along and stood in front of him.  Whatcha doin?
He said he was just having a drink, introduced the woman, and Terri giggled that nervous giggle of hers, clenched my arm tight and pulled us both out of there at warp speed.  She cried the rest of the evening.

Her parents divorced.  She stayed with her dad to finish out the school year; he married the bar lady, and three years later, I married Terri's stepmom's brother.   Terri and I had kept in touch faithfully.  You don't just forget someone who forced you to take driver's ed and didn't laugh at your steering (cringed, maybe, but she never laughed).  We were bound together through all our misdeeds and adventures, and then, by family.

Well..her father passed away...I went to the funeral and was there for my friend.  We kept in touch for another ten years; i visited her in Ohio and she brought her husband down to meet me.

And then suddenly she wasn't there anymore.  I wrote to her over and over, never got a response.. I scoured the internet white pages, hoping to find her phone number again, and thought I had found her in Xenia, Ohio, called the number but it wasn't her. I tried to remember her mother's last name, but couldn't. 

I thought all was lost.

Until tonight.

Terricalled my brother, looking for me.  My address had changed, and though she tried to write to me, the letters kept going back to her.  My phone number had changed.  But the miraculous thing about this is...the same night she called my brother, I was once again scouring the white pages, and had even considered paying for information on all the Terri's in Ohio.

It must be true that when you feel someone strongly, that they're thinking of you, too.

It's a GREAT day in Carolina :-)