“On October 4, 2002, a Friday night after a volleyball game, Jewel, Nikki, Angie, Sarah, and I came up with the brilliant idea to go camping at the Haunted House. It was a frigid cold night, but we wanted something adventuresome to do so we decided to brave the cold and the ghosts. It took us forever to set up the tent and since it was very dark, it was hard to see what we were doing. It wasn’t until the next morning that we realized just how crooked the tent really was.
“We had a great camping time eating parade candy, bread, and chips. (That’s all we could find.) We also roasted marshmellows over a 3-wick candle, but that made the marshmellows taste like wax. For restroom facilities, we used the ditch beside the road and laughed ourselves silly over that experience.
“We were so terrified by the house that we hardly slept a wink and no one wanted to sleep by the tent door so we all slept with our feet towards it. (That in and of itself scared me because I didn’t want anyone grabbing my feet in the middle of the night like a horror movie.) It was so scary, but just a little bit fun too that we made a pact to come back to the same spot in 5 years and camp out again. So on October 4, 2007, we should be back to lure up some more spookiness. By the way, we didn’t encounter ghosts or goblins, but we did sleep really close to the house and we did try to go inside the next morning once it was light out and less scary. The floor was caved into the basement and the stairway didn’t have a complete set of stairs though so we didn’t even make it through the front door. Here’s to another 5-year reunion at the Haunted House!” — my diary, 2002
We never made it back to the haunted house, but Sarah did come back to Iowa for a visit so last night several of us from the same high school generation had a little reunion at The Olive Garden (with dessert at El Dorado–we decided that we weren’t bar hopping; we were restaurant hopping). It’s strange what 7 years does to a person. Now we are all long graduated, married, and all but 2 of us have children (Go Sarah & me!). Regardless, put us back together at a table and we revert back to our silly ways and lots of laughter and stories ensue. Of course, talk about children, jobs, and husbands came up too, but mostly, we just laughed about our old high school selves and the trouble that we used to get ourselves into and the scary movies we used to make ourselves watch from under the blankets, huddled together on the couch.
This is what amazes me most about old friendships: the ease of joining back up. While I’ve kept in touch with many of these ladies, I don’t see them very often. New friends are wonderful, but it’s always just so comfortable to sit with old friends and know that you have enough history together that you’ll never run out of things to talk about. They’ve known me all my life; nothing to hide there. It was a very great evening and I’m definitely looking forward to more “reunions” and more great times, girls.
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