Book 15 - "Got Girlfriends?"

Do you have girlfriends that have been the "fabric of your life"? (I appear to me in a commercial mood this morning, bygones).  I do.  I have friends that date back to high school.  Not much before that for a couple reasons.  First, I moved the summer between 7th grade and 8th grade.  Those were the days before the Internet so to keep in touch you needed parents that supported keeping in touch or excellent skills and dedication in letter writing.  Now, for a while I had the latter, but really if you don't have the former, you're toast.  It took awhile in those awkward preteen years for me to find a way to fit in.  I was still kinda a kid, but kinda a tween.  And finally I made some friends... however, my freshmen year those friends were not so much into school so I joined that mentality.  Until my parents grounded me for 10 weeks.  Once, I cleaned 4 bathrooms and my mother called to get my grades so that I could join my friends, that I felt I was losing, on a Friday night.  But they weren't really my friends and as I watched them experiment with stealing alcohol from one girl's parents, I figured it out.  I met some other kids and by my sophomore year I was in with the Girls.  MY GIRLS.  And we've stayed in touch and had reunions and would come running (to the best of our financial ability)if the other(s) needed us.  In fact I had a text from one of them Saturday night... she was jamming to Whitney Houston and thought of me.  Yes, texting and Facebook and email has allowed us to keep in touch.  One of them has parents that live about 3 hours from me.  I am blessed that they come visit every summer and we drop everything to dash up to the mountains and meet them for dinner at Jo Mamma's.  Gotta love a place named Jo Mamma's.

The Girls from Ames is "A story of women and a forty-year friendship".  By high school, the Ames Girls or Sh** Sisters (read the book, you'll find out) were a group although some have been together since elementary school.  Some called them a clique.  But they were so much more or they wouldn't have endured the time, distance and tragedy that they have.  I found myself remembering stories of my group.  And wishing that we had a reunion planned.  Maybe I'll send out a message and see what we can come up with to be together.  Eating raw cookie dough and drinking red wine.  Past and present melded together.  Read it and reconnect with your "girls".