Friends were such an important part of our family life and to our great joy we seemed to have an abundance of them. They came from our high school and college days as well as from work and church. We even had fun times with the same cousins who had played hide and find with me on Friday nights at my grandmothers house. We enjoyed a full schedule of get togethers and celebrations. 

Linda and Bill Scheffler lived fairly close to our house. Our children learned to swim together and played with each other like siblings. We loved watching the University of Houston Cougars in any kind of competition and made parties out of any excuse. Linda and I decided to save on air conditioning one summer and challenged each other to use our units as little as possible. Linda took the lead immediately in that competition. She cooked outside on a grill and served dinner on a table nestled under the shade of a big tree. She was determined to hark back to our childhood days when we lived in homes cooled only by open windows and attic fans. 

Of course we found ways to cool down during the heat of the day at swimming pools and libraries. We might go window shopping at the mall or catch a movie in the afternoon. Nonetheless the heat was making me cranky. I realized that I no longer had the fortitude to withstand temperatures trending in the high nineties even with skimpy clothing. I soon gave in to my cravings for the cool of my air conditioner but Linda soldiered on. I was so proud of her and wished that I were as strong as she had always been. I thought she was amazing, but then I had always held that belief about her . 

Our friends Egon and Marita often invited us over for dinner and an evening sitting by their swimming pool. Egon would speak of his adventures as a boy in Bremen, Germany. He described playing in the rubble of the buildings that had been destroyed during World War II before he was born. He spoke of how his German father had met his Norwegian mother during the German occupation of Norway. He explained that his mother’s family had played a big part in a resistance movement, so when they learned that their beloved sister had married a German soldier they were bereft for many years. Eventually everyone buried the bad feelings and saw that love had bloomed in war which seemed to be a very good thing. 

Marita was from Chicago, Illinois and had come to Texas for college and never went back home to live. She was as brilliant as her husband and remembered events and the dates on which they happened with an uncanniness that was stunning. We always had fun with them while our girls got educated in the diversity of our world from listening to the stories that were bandied about. 

Pat and Bill also lived near us and our friendship with them became so casual that they could drop in without warning and so could we. Pat had a theory that her house should always be open. She kept a roll of cookie dough in the freezer along with some ice cream in case anyone decided to come visit. She often told me to keep the countertops and floor in my kitchen spotless and make sure that the guest bathroom was always nice. After that she argued that nobody would care about a little dust or things out of place. 

Mike and Bill loved to discuss all of the latests issues and I always thought that if someone had set up a camera during their conversations it would have made for must see television. Pat kept up with the latest trends and she perhaps more than anyone widened my horizons. She was also just plain fun, often coming up with fabulous ideas on the spur of the moment while I tended to cling to routines. She brought out the fun side of my personality.

Monica and Franz lived about an hour away from us on the other side of town but our times with them were always special. Monica was a fabulous cook created many a feast for us. Franz was an sweet man from Austria with an incredible talent for building wondrous things. He and Mike got along with a kind of comfort that made them seem like brothers. Now and again we would catch up with them on one of our camping trips where we learned that nobody made a better campfire than Franz. 

We made a point of meeting with Monica and Franz each year to exchange Christmas and birthday gifts. Monica was born in October and my birthday was in November. I always tried hard to find something very special to present on those occasions but somehow I never seemed to match the interesting and lovely gifts that they gave to us. Monica had a knack for knowing exactly what would enchant me. Maybe it was because we had been friends since the second grade.

We also enjoyed the company of Ed and Judy whom we had met at church. Ed was a talker with a wit that never failed to keep us laughing. Judy was a beautiful woman with such a calm personality that between the two of them I felt that our visits were akin to a therapy session. 

For a time we met regularly with Larry and Cappy as well. Larry had gone to high school with Mike and he met Cappy at Disneyland when he was serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War. When he brought her back to Texas we all took to her immediately. She was a real California girl and a friend who would lay down in the road if she thought it would help someone. Sadly the two of them did not stay together but Mike kept in touch with Larry and I continued my friendship with Cappy who always seemed to know exactly what I needed to hear when we were together. 

There were so many others who walked with us on our journey, sometimes for a brief moment and sometimes for the duration. There would be many more incredible people who would come our way, but these were the people who that we knew and loved as young adults just starting out in life. They shared our story as we guided our children from the time they were toddlers into their teen years. We were with them through good times and those that were bad. In a sense we grew up together and I must say that they made the pangs of that experience so much easier to bear. As we neared the end of the nineteen eighties much would change for all of us but our love for each other would be eternal.