People That I Know, part 1

Sometimes I get a flash of memory about a person that I have known. Someone from grade school or college. Sometimes just their name. And if the time is right, I'm in a mood, and the phone isn't ringing I can bring this person up as I knew them, and I find myself standing there too.

Recently I saw a name on Facebook of a woman that lived in my neighborhood when I was 7 years old until I was 13. Her sister and I were very best friends. This was at a very powerful time of my life, I really believed in myself. Our neighborhood was filled with small houses, backyards connecting, and there were kids in nearly every house. In fact, I can think of only two houses with no kids - one a man who played in a band and was a party animal bachelor of whom my mother roundly disapproved, and the other an elderly couple next door to us with a grown daughter. My older brother played endless pranks on them. Until Mr. Henderson killed himself. Then the pranks stopped. I've never talked with my brother about that, I wonder if he felt responsible?

Tina (she is the sister of the woman on Facebook) was one year my junior. We looked very much alike - moreso than either of our sisters. We lived in a wonderful world of play and pretend and imagination. We fancied ourselves twins, separated at birth and now our adoptive parents are committed to never telling us the truth about our connection. Only some random Fate put us in the same neighborhood.

We read "The Lion's Paw" and relived the journey of the three children across Florida in the black-painted sailboat constantly shifting characters, adding to the adventures, deeply engaged in the universal themes of orphans, war, family and independence. We played and we sang and we danced and we made up intricate productions for other kids in the neighborhood. Tina and I were writers, producers and stars. We marshalled all the children from my younger brothers and sister, to even the Taylor kids who nobody liked, but sometimes you need soldiers or subjects or frogs depending on the play.

We spent all of our time outdoors, I can't remember her bedroom at all. Maybe we spent the night together occasionally, but not usually. We played until 9 or 10 at night, went home, bathed and fell dead asleep. We would be up early and back outside and there we would live all day long. We biked, we ran, we skated. We lounged. We snuck through yards. We mocked the younger ones until we needed them. We were invincible. We ordered "falls" from the back of a comic book and pinned the nasty dark brown ponytails to the back of our heads and fancied ourselves elegant like Nancy Sinatra. Only brunette.

We climbed trees and rolled down hills. We knew every dog and every cat and every house and every kid and every dad who drank, and every mother who looked the other way. We knew which cupboards held cookies and we knew were Missy's dad kept his gun. We babysat on New Years Eve and read the whole book "Joy of Sex." We had to use the dictionary because neither of us had ever heard of a clitoris and had no idea what it was. (I have to say I was in college before I really grasped that.)

We were a gang of two. We would always be friends. We would always be twins.

Then in 1973 my grandmother died. She left us a small pile of money and we immediately moved. Across town. I had my own bedroom. The house was on a lake. We had a big green front yard and a pool in the back. With a chain link fence around the whole yard.

I didn't see Tina for a year. Til she came to high school the year after me. We barely knew each other then. We had hollow eyes when we looked at each other. Both afraid the other would tell what kind of childish kids we were. We went our separate ways.

And all of this flashed into my head, and heart, when I saw her sister's page on Facebook.