A Weekend with Friends from College

It all started with a goofy Facebook post and then a conversation about how it would be really great to see each other again, since we haven’t been together for years and years, and somehow, one thing led to another and it actually, amazingly, worked out for us all to meet at Molly’s husband’s parents’ lake home while they were traveling.  (Ironically, Molly’s husband was also a good friend of my husband in high school.  Her husband got to come a long to drive us around the lake in their boat.  Mine had to stay home and take care of kidlets).

This is Molly.  Molly is organized  and knowledgeable and practical and has a passion for education and middle school.  We spent a lot of time in education and music classes together during college.  Molly keeps people on task, and we would have been a scattered group without her lists and lists of lists.  Molly thinks things through and then executes them.  She did not execute us.  (Ha Ha.)  Seriously, though, if you want something done, Molly is a good person to have around.

This is Molly’s new dog, Barkley.  Barkley came along too.  He provided much entertainment.

This is sweet, and very kind Jamie, who was my stand partner and fellow clarinetist for nearly all my years of college band.  We had the exact same kind of clarinet and had so much fun playing together.  I haven’t seen her for years and years, and it was really fun to spend time with her again.

This is Mel, who is the most utterly hilarious person you will ever meet.  Guaranteed.  Even my husband agrees.  I have so much to say about how hilarious Mel is that I’m planning a separate post to talk all about that.

There was a lot of talking about pretty much every subject under the sun during our weekend.  All of us are or have been teachers at some point.  All of us have kids.  All of us had a lot of catching up to do.  However, there might have been more laughing that talking.  Loud, cackling laughter.  We stayed up late each night and laughed so hard I thought I might get sick.  We laughed so hard we cried.

One of the greatest things about the weekend was getting to relax without anywhere we had to be or anything we had to do, and being able to just lounge around.  Nobody did their hair or cared if they were wearing trendy stylish clothes.  It was super duper relaxed.

We toodled around the lake while Molly’s husband, Brian, drove us around.  We called him the Cabana Boy, and he was a super great sport about all of our crazy cackling.  I don’t think most people would have been so patient.  Some of us did some tubing behind the boat.  Others of us did not.  I proclaimed myself the official documentarian.

This is Molly after her Olympic feat of climbing back in the boat.

In the evening, out on the deck, we played the game Imaginiff, and included several of our brilliant but quirky college professors on the game board, which resulted in serious cackling that was so loud and prolonged that I’m actually surprised that some of the neighbors didn’t come over to complain.  We were ridiculously out of control, which just made us laugh even more.

After Mel won the game and the sun set,  we had a fire in the fire pit down by the water and talked and laughed even more.

When the fire died down, we came in for some much anticipated ice cream, gifted to us by that good-hearted Cabana Boy.

Then we laughed and talked more until someone decided it was time to go to sleep.  

It was good to laugh so much and talk about important things and remember super fun times from college.  I decided that I wish there was a charter school filled with passionate teachers who studied at Jamestown College.  It would be amazing.  It’s fun when college friends can be away from each other for so long and then just slip right into the craziness we used to be all the time.  College is such a neat time in life, when you get to truly choose amazing people to be your friends, and you spend so much time together that closeness just lasts for the rest of your life, I think.  These aren’t the only college friends I feel that way about, either.