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Today I was in the basement in my office, playing with my pc and heard the doorbell ring.  Of course our dogs have a barking routine, when we have company and I didn't go up to see what the racket was all about.  My husband came to the basement door and said, "Diane, come up stairs, NOW."  Well he doesn't usually talk like that to me and I didn't answer back.  But standing in the background was our best friends from Gainesville, Florida.  They originally lived here but Richard retired from GM in Ohio and did consulting work for a GM plant in Atlanta, anyway they ended up in Florida and where home on a family visit.

We sat around and told stories on each other and laughed at our aging processes.  And other body processes that have shown up as we have gotten older.  It is amazing that you can not see each other for so long and as soon as you are back together, it is like we see each other every day.

They raised foster children.  Glenda was adopted and this was her way of repaying society.  When they would come out to our house for a meal.  I just started handing out plates until everyone had a plate.  I never knew if there were going to be 8,9, or 13 coming for a meal, so I fixed plenty.  Tacos were the special.  Their own son holds the record for eating 18 tacos in one meal.  

When Marvin's mother passed away, I called Glenda and asked her to pick up my children from school.  I did not tell  her why or anything else.  She said OK and I didn't worry about them.  Once or maybe several times, we were invited out to dinner at their house and if we got there early, we just walked in and cleared the table from the last meal and started a new one.  Then when they got home, we ate.  

We square danced for years together and all the after parties we attended brought a flush of tears and memories of fun times, jokes and good friends to mind.  Once in the middle of a joke Marvin was telling, his teeth dropped out of his mouth and into his lap.  Of course, no one could remember the content of the joke, only Marvin and his teeth.

Another time, Marvin was giving Glenda a swing and her wig fell off and went sailing across the floor.  Just a few times, Glenda stopped a square, because she lost a contact lens and we all dropped to the floor feeling for her lens.  One night after leaving an after party, we got into the parking lot of the Blue Ridge Mall and were worried that we would never find our way out.  Richard would work the pedals of the little Opel and Glenda did the steering and shifting while Richard leaned over the driver seat and talked to us in the back seat.  I really think the caller was worried about us getting home that night.  He was serving Harvey Wallbangers and we tried a few.

They were home for a visit during Christmas and of course we couldn't find time to get together before the holiday, so we went out, we three couples and met at a little resturant/bar at Lake Lotawanna on Dec 26.  Well there was no one there but us and we closed the place down at three.  The weather was nasty and we drove that night.  When we got to Richard's sisters home, Marvin drove right up to the front door.  Richard got out and promptly disappeared.  He slipped on ice and fell under our car.  I could only imagine us slidding backwards over Richard and killing him.  He said later that would have been a merciful way to go,  Glenda said he laid in bed and moaned all night and had a huge hangover the next. day.  I was at work shortly after 6:00am that morning.  I told my boss, "I am not hung-over, I am still drunk."  I made it till 11:30 and asked if I could go home.  My stomach was not feeling so good.  I don't let my social life interfer with my work life very often, but that was one time it did.

We vacationed with them for many years at the Lake of the Ozarks.  A third couple had a 3 bedroom cabin on the Nianga Arm of the lake near Camdenton.  We would work around the cabin and do the housekeeping jobs and any repairs that needed to be done on the cabin in the morning.  Then in the afternoon, it was swim and play time.  Karl & Sue had 3 children, we had 2 and Richard & Glenda had whoever was in their care at the time.  We had a runabout with a 110 Mercury and I can't tell how many children we have taught how to water ski and ride a saucer.  One year our youngest developed the mumps during vacation and couldn't get in the water, but by the time we figured out what it was, everyone was exposed anyway.  They would bring their pop-up camper and all the kids slept in the camper and the adults had a bedroom in the house.  Lunch was usually sandwiches and each of us took a turn at the evening meal, planning and preparing.  After dinner and after dark, it was cards.  At the time a card game, called Screw your neighbor was popular.  Nothing kinky was going on between any of the couples, that was just the name of the game.  I don't remember how it went, but we played and laughed for hours each night.

We promise we will visit them in Florida and I hope we do, a better set of friends could not be found.