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I have a great memory of my first day in second grade.
We had moved to the country and I would be riding the bus for the first time. Needless to say, I was a little scared.
The year was 1952, and as I stood at the intersection of State Highway 9 and Highway 102, fear of the unknown really set in.
I got on the bus and there weren’t any empty seats. About halfway back another 7-year-old girl sat alone and as I approached she scooted over for me to sit down. She was wearing the neatest blue jeans and matching jacket — girls wore dresses back then and only jeans under the dress. I thought she was the neatest person ever and she was letting me sit by her!
Well, that neat person was Carolyn Hogue Skelly and we have been best friends every since. She has been there for me through childbirths, surgeries, my divorce and losing my parents. There is not a better friend on this earth than Carolyn.
Between us, we have had seven children and 15 grandchildren and we still talk or e-mail each other every day. We are closer than most sisters and I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if on that day, in September 1952, I would have sat in another seat.
