**June 2025 update (first draft is below):
Maureen and I are still going strong. Well, maybe not strong- that's probably not the right word. Life, age, loss... we've been hit by all of that. Our love for each other, though, THAT's strong. That's constant. That's her, to me. Stalwart, firm, foundational.
I just opened facebook a few minutes ago and saw that she had tagged me... apparently today is National Best Friends day or something? Seeing her post slammed me with nostalgia, remembering all the crap we've been through in our 46 years as friends. 46 years. Whoa.
Sickness has wreaked havoc on people we love, to the nth degree.
Families have shifted, moving and changing, growing, shrinking.
I don't know what I would do without knowing she's just down the road, just a phone call or a text away, or just a whiff of brownie batter, peanut butter and jelly toast, long brown More cigarettes, or beer with ice in a wavy glass that goes sailing through my forever memories...
My Maureen, my forever person, I love you oh so very much...
I started kindergarten in 1979 at Southern Pines Elementary. I remember it was close to the Peppermint Lounge... is that still there? Podgie Pugh's place... some of y'all may remember that as a place of less-than-stellar repute; in my mind it was "that little place near my elementary school"... (well, until I was in 9th grade and discovered more about it, but that's another story...)
So, kindergarten.
Betsy Harris with the gold earrings and stretched lobes where the too-heavy jewels dangled. Maxie King playing house with me, and Michael Frye forgetting to close the boys' room door. Ice cream money, naps, and sitting "indian style," way before the more PC "criss-cross applesauce" came onto the scene. Ms Alexander, wearing her woven brown sandals, making sure we "ta ta tippy tippy ta ta'ed" as we sang, and - once again- burnt butts on metal slides after meals on blue plastic compartmented trays. Parachute lifts and drops a jellyfish shape on giggling kiddos on a squeaky gym floor, whistle blown by Jeff Moody to alert the ups and downs. Pilgrims and Indians, Nathaniel Jackson dressed up with us, not an administrator that day... an educator, clad in paper bag vest and construction paper feathers. We were allowed to bring the trimmings to school at that time, feeding our hungry, eager souls.
JoAnna was born that year- my sister- and apparently it was a great idea to take a live human to "show and tell." I showed her, pink and blanketed and snuggly, and told probably more about her than anyone wanted to know. This newsworthy visit was highlighted in the Tattler, the school paper, and may have even made an appearance in The Pilot.
I was also busted, according to Mom, for knowing how to read... mom says Mrs. Harris ratted me out for reading to my classmates. The "I don't know how" jig was up.
Learning how to "skip" was evidently an important part of kindergarten curricula in 1979. I of course was well-versed in all things skippy, and in knowing such, took it upon myself to disseminate said skill to my more unlearned classmates, especially one Maureen S. Williams. I did good- Maureen learned how to skip. We still applaud my skip-teaching skills today.
Maureen. Youngest of six babes, born to Raymond and Martina Williams. Maureen's older sister, Reneé, was one of the most incredible humans I had ever met, by the way, and she so happened to work (was she a TA? a helper?) in the classroom across the little grass patch courtyard from ours. It was a special needs classroom, and I can remember being in the room with her sometimes, playing with the students and with her, most definitely solidifying and providing a heart-foundation for my love of the exceptional classroom. I owe her my career.
Renee would soon become our frequent ride for Burger King treats- much to our fry-loving delight. Just as I attribute my love of special-needs babes to Renee, I have to thank her for my abnormal love of all things burger-and-fry. It was those trips to BK that did it, I'm sure.
Back to Maureen.
I was the oldest of 3, and I taught her to skip.
She was the 6th baby; she taught me the world.
860 Sheldon Rd was where she and her gajillions of siblings lived with their mom and dad. Maureen had Renee to share in sisterhood; the other 4 were her brothers, and became mine, as well. The most perfect, tiny home of a house. Kids crammed into rooms and bunk beds. Puzzles and monchichis galore. Love grows best in little houses, they say... true... but little houses full of boys, Benny Hill, wrestling, cigarettes, cussing, and the Williams? Love grows best there. For me, anyway.
Plastic on the screened-in porch, slapping with the door "vacuum" open and slam, Tina naked on her pool chair. Buster snuffing his way in and out, swing chains and clotheslines. Raymond-chef-wafts in the kitchen, swirled in cigarette smoke and swimming in profanity and real love, pouring Kool-Aid from a Tupperware pitcher. I had led a comfortable (sheltered?) 6 years, and entering 860 was somewhat akin to opening a taxicab door on your first trip to Vegas. Marvel, astonishment, sensory overload... and instant infatuation. I couldn't get enough. Maureen was brilliant, funny, loved to hold my hand, wanted to learn, and wanted to share. She breathed exuberance and chaos-smiles into me, and I shared sisters, quiet, and travels with her.
Skipping through immaturity, navigating growth and time, we were soul-inseparable; I'm glad 860 cannot speak, and I'm sure Maureen (and her brothers) share the same sentiment. My too-many-to-even-try-to-count nights spent with her family began with my first-ever sleepover there, at 6 years old. We were slated to sleep in her brothers' room, in the bunk bed they shared. Boys. Silly boys. Decorating the back of their bedroom door was a poster of the Loch Ness Monster, which apparently impeded my slumberability that night; a groggy phone call from her house to mine prompted a late-night child retrieval, and alternate sleeping arrangements henceforth.
But no matter. Nessy had no affect on our stitching. We were sewn together from age 6 on, until now, even. Our family trips always included Maureen, her parents became mine, and she was the third "adopted kid" to my mom and dad. We wrote letters to each other each summer I went away to camp, and we bonded over baking brownies, coiled-cord phones, and Freddy Kreuger marathons. Tom Hanks, Chevy Chase, Anthony Michael Hall, and Molly Ringwold were part of our glue, we wore our Keds and sprayed our hair while we fought over boys and gossip-rumors.
I dated her cousin, twice, was enamored with all of her brothers at some point or another, and probably learned too much about life from those boys, their friends, and watching R-rated movies at her house. Middle school parties, spin-the-bottle, and adolescence were woven into my life and cemented into my being at 860, and not for any amount of time do I regret one second I spent time in that home.
Todd taught us the art of the perfect cinnamon toast. Ice cubes tinkled in Tina's beer glasses bumped with ridges at the bottom, perfect for holding with the fingers that didn't scissor the long, brown More cigarette. Kool-Aid flowed like water at their house- I wasn't allowed to drink it at home- and I learned to love the elixir of the southern gods... sweet tea. Music was always in the air, usually from the boys' rooms, cards were permanently on the table, poker-ready, and every once in a while we could see figures emerge from the smoke-haze; sometimes family, usually friends of the boys. Chris and Todd were physical- and they fought hard. One time their raucous tumbleweed rolled into the bathroom off the den, loud and heavy, and busted the mirror off the back of the bathroom door, shattering the glass onto the blue carpet. Here is where I learned the beautiful, necessary art of spewing the perfect blend of well-placed, profanity with yelling and separating sons twice mama's size. One did not wrangle with Tina, nor did one disrespect the home without repercussion of some ilk.
It was chaos in their home. Voices were loud, it was boy-heavy, the door was always open, and it was beautiful.
In 1989, I moved to Sanford, and spaces were created in our relationship. 860 became a less-frequented stop, more of a memory, and seemed to wisp further into nostalgia.
Marriages, children, dissolution of families... deaths...
Life moments happened to both of us, in separate zip codes.
Always, though, within phone's reach.
Funerals, divorces, labor, chocolate milkshake cake and baby showers.
We even lived together for a while, as adults... roommates... mess-ups, grace, and forgiveness.
If you don't have a forever friend, my heart genuinely hurts for you.
I have a feeling, though, that there's an 860 for most of us. A home. A crazy loud love-fun wouldn't-change-it-for-anything place, where life happened.
My home was lovely. It was where I grew and navigated and learned and laughed and was heart-shattered, see previous post regarding 1290.
But it wasn't 860, no way. THAT was life, that was the heartbeat of my childhood, that was where I was breathed into and loved and taken in and taught.
About life.
The world.
Maureen and I don't see each other all the time, we don't talk to each other every day, and weeks and months pass without messages, sometimes. But God, I love her, so very much. She is family. She is everything nostalgic in my soul. She is home.
Charlie lives in Raymond and Tina's house now, and I imagine it's a different life there. Heart-full, just not quite the same. Different loves, different smells, different sounds, different memories being made.
Maureen's daddy died recently, and I couldn't bring myself to go.
I can't imagine 860 Sheldon Rd without them, without the life in that home that I so attach to mine...
I had to skip it.
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