Pint-size Observation

There was a time in my young life when I had no close friends outside the small circle made up of my sister, brother and a few cousins. So, this was an historic day when we moved to a new house and I traipsed up the back yard hill exploring.

Beyond the tall privet hedge, I could hear children laughing and playing. I peeped through the hedge and saw two little girls on their swing set. The older of the two caught me in her glance and ran over to the hedge, easily slipping through. She and I stood shyly eyeing one another for a full minute before either of us found our voices. Excitedly, we told each other our first names: Mary Anna was hers and Susan was mine. Then we began measuring our hands, feet, and height. By standing back to back, we could tell that our heads came to the same place in the air. We both had chocolate brown hair. Removing our shoes, we put our feet side by side and saw that our stubby little toes came to the same point. We were both waiting to start kindergarten that fall. After this initial meeting, Mary Anna slipped back through the hedge and ran into her house to tell her mother that she had met the new little girl who lived down the hill. Our mothers eventually got acquainted, and I found out later from Mama that Mary Anna had skipped into her house announcing, "Mama, Mama, I met a new friend and we are the same big and the same tall and we have the same size footsies."

Thus began a friendship that has lasted 56 years. We did start kindergarten together in the basement playroom of Mrs. Mary Green's house on Highland Avenue that September. Mary Anna and I attended grammar school, junior high and high school together, sharing many of the same teachers, plus we were members of the same Brownie and Girl Scout troops. Until we left home to attend out-of-town colleges, we were back yard neighbors for 13 years. That Baker's Dozen number of years found us climbing the pink fluffy-blossomed mimosa tree and the smaller pine trees in my yard, playing with our dolls and dollhouses, playing Red Rover, Swinging Statue, jumping rope, catching lightning bugs in Mason jars, taking turns spending the night at each other's houses, taking tap and ballroom dancing lessons together, riding horses at the Bridle Club, writing in our diaries and sharing secrets about boyfriends as we got older.

Our paths parted for only a few years before we moved back to our hometown. A couple of years ago, Mary Anna and I made a pact to meet for lunch or dinner once a month in order to keep up with what is going on in our lives. She is my longest-held friend, and we still cherish each other, although our once brunette heads are now streaked with silver and our sizes no longer match. We never lack for good conversation, which nowadays includes bragging rights about grandchildren, two of whom are the same age that Mary Anna and I were when we first met at the hedge that summer of 1950.

Story ID:	1113
Written by:	Susan Hammett Poole (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Family Memories
Location:	LaGrange Georgia USA
Year:	1950
Person:	Susan & Mary Anna