Best Friends Forever (BFF) part 1

Peggy and I first met in 7th grade but I thought she was a braniac nerd. Well then in 8th grade we both were braniac nerds :) and became best of friends. That was back in 1979 if I am doing the math right. That is many many years. I moved after high school because my dad took a job in Washington DC. Peggy and I remained friends and I was even able to go back that year for a visit over the Christmas holidays. We both went to separate universities/colleges but still kept in touch. During my college years I went to Guatemala to serve a mission for the LDS Church. I didn't hear from Peggy much but I have a fond memory of receiving a manilla envelope stuffed with a years worth of letters and pictures that Peggy had written. She wrote the letters just never got around to mailing them. I remember that day being so happy that my good friend hadn't forgotten about me. I returned from Guatemala and went back to finish up college. I remember receiving a wedding invitation from Peggy at the end of the school year. I still kick myself that I didn't go to her wedding. I was young and without resources though and my family lived in Alabama at the time I think and we were getting ready to go on a trip back to Guatemala and in the process of moving to Buffalo, NY. Anyway, we kept in sporadic contact over the years.

After I finished my graduate studies, I was driving from Utah to Buffalo New York moving myself. I was driving through Kansas City where Peggy had moved to after getting married. I had her work phone# and decided I would really regret it if I didn't call her. So I stopped and called and she gave me directions on how to get to her work (Yellow Freight general offices). I was dressed in sweats and probably looked pretty travel weary but we went out and had a lunch together and had a great time catching up. I remember thinking, wow, she works at a really nice office building and a good company. I remember looking through the atrium like area and there was an actual tractor trailer parked in their building (it is an antique of one of the original Yellow Freight trucks). I remember driving the rest of the way to Buffalo and seeing tons of Yellow Freight trucks on the road.

Fast forward a few years. I got tired of the cold and snow of Buffalo and my parents had retired to Texas so I didn't have familiy there anymore. My brother and his family had also moved to Austin, TX. So I decided I was ready for a change in scenery and packed up and moved to Austin. Well after being there a few months, Yellow Freight opened up an Inside Sales Center in Austin and I took a job working there having remembered that Peggy worked for them and it was a good company to work for. I was so excited to tell Peggy that we now worked for the same company. Now remember, this was a long time ago before the days of the internet and email. But our company had intramail so that we could email people within the company. This is how Peggy and I reconnected after all the years. The year I took the job with Yellow was our 10 year high school reunion. Peggy invited me to join her and her husband and baby son and go to the reunion together. So I flew from Austin to Kansas City and Peggy picked me up at the airport and I stayed at her house (the same one she now lives in). We drove to Des Moines and stayed with her mom & dad and went to the reunion together. I have such fond memories. This was the first time I met her oldest son Cameron. He was just a little guy back then. Fast forward another year or so. I was still working for Yellow Freight and was sent to Kansas City for 2 weeks for some training. I was able to see my good friend again as we were both working in the same building for 2 weeks. I also went up to her house and we went shopping at the mall one evening.

Fast forward another couple of years. Peggy got laid off from Yellow Freight :( I then got transferred to Kansas City to work at the General Offices. Had she not been laid off we would have been working in the same building again. However, we reconnected and really picked up where we left off I guess. We both discovered that we had a love of quilting although we were both amateurs back then. I had started taking some classes before I left to make a quilt (just finished it this year--well at least the piecing--and I have now lived here 10 years). We started to get together regularly to quilt together. Four years after moving to Kansas City, I bought a house in the same suburb as Peggy. We now live 10 minutes apart and see or talk to each other almost every day. Her kids are like my own niece and nephews. Her youngest is a sweet, precocious almost 3 year old named Erica. I am so blessed to have such a good friend in Peggy and her family. They are a part of my family and a wonderful support to me. I hope that I am as much as a support and friend to her as she has been to me over these past 24 years (oh that hurts to write). I don't feel that old :)

Stay tuned for part 2 of BFF.
Susan (I will have to see if I can find a picture on my other computer to post a then and now picture.)