Betty's Birthday Monday

Monday will be the birthday of my oldest (longevity of friendship, not years) friend, Betty.  Good fortune had it that we were both born in 1948 and both wound up in Cochran, a small town in Middle Georgia, in which to grow up.  We walked to and from school together, we had most of the same teachers and friends, and we both went to First Baptist Church every Sunday, morning and night.

One night after a revival, we sat in my parents' car, philosophically troubled by the point of the visiting preacher's sermon.

"How could it be that people who don't know about Jesus have to go to Hell?" Betty asked, outraged as she always was at injustice.

"I know!" I said.  "That doesn't seem fair at all!"

"I think exceptions must be made, " Betty said.

At one point in our young lives, we had some harebrained idea that we should go to Africa and be missionaries to the infidels, but then we got distracted by a pink jeep in some teenaged movie and decided that we'd like to dedicate ourselves to having one of those instead.

Once, we picked blackberries for a whole day, intending to sell enough to buy a $300 Singer Slant 'o-matic sewing machine.  But after one day of picking, we retired.

"The only thing I still like about that idea," Betty said yesterday, "is you and blackberries.  I detest sewing and picking."

Betty made marginally better grades than I did.  She played the piano dramatically better than I did.  We both took piano lessons from Miss Marguerite who--at the time--seemed ancient.  While Betty was playing, I gazed at the portrait over the piano, a portrait of Miss Marguerite's daughter, Jane, who had died of polio. Jane--who, according to her mother "could play like an angel"--was a formidable ghost in our shared childhood.

Betty played "exquisitely"--emphasis on the second syllable.  "Ex QUI sit!" Miss Marguerite said (ad nauseum, I thought) when Betty played. To me, she just said, "You have a nice touch."

Betty, the solo twirler at Cochran High School,  could throw two fire batons in the air and catch them every single time--while dancing to the music of the band.  I never even made the basic majorette team!

All through high school, I dated the man I'd later marry, and Betty styled my hair for dates. She (my maid-of-honor) even styled it for my wedding.  She rolled it on brush rollers, brushed it out, teased it, and then she curled my eyelashes and told me how to line my eyes and apply eye shadow.

In spite of our differences, we were best friends, always, except for a brief hiatus in fifth grade when we weren't because we both preferred Brenda Cooty.

Due to the geography and circumstances of our lives, we only see each other two or three days a year.  But when we talk, we collapse the miles and pick up the threads from our last conversation.  Nobody does dark humor like Betty!  She can tell the saddest stories and have me laughing my head off.

It's a great thing to have a friend who goes back more than sixty years, a friend who knew you and your whole family--and vice versa.  It's an exquisite thing to have a friend who knows every single one of your secrets,  someone who knows all the same characters of childhood and all the creeks and streets of the same drowsy town.  And here we are, friends still, a thousand miles apart, as ancient now as Miss Marguerite used to be.