Old friends

{D'Arcy, Shani, Michelle, Michelle, Kim, me, Patrice and Lorie}

My 20-year high school reunion was Friday night. It was sort of weird to see all these grown women that I remember as teenage girls. Most of us look pretty much the same {apparently I do - I probably didn't even have to wear a name tag}, but there were a few women who looked completely unfamiliar. Someone brought our yearbooks from the four years we spent at Nazareth Academy, and I had to consult the last one several times Friday night to remind myself who certain people were. A few women look totally different and I would've never known them had I run into them on the street.

It was so good to see old friends. A handful of us still keep in touch and see each other often - mostly at our children's birthday parties.

There was a small group of us who rode the the el and the bus together to school every day. We were all from the Philadelphia neighborhoods below the Northeast {where our school was located} - neighborhoods like Kensington, Port Richmond, Fishtown and Bridesburg. Some people had a negative view of our working-class neighborhoods. A few girls we went to school with were afraid of us because of the neighborhood we grew up in {which we thought a little ridiculous!}. I can remember talking with someone in high school about taking the el - she had never ridden the el and thought that we were so brave for riding it to school each day! Our neighborhoods were much closer to Center City than those in Northeast Philadelphia, and most of us had spent our childhoods riding buses and the el - we didn't think it was a big deal.

I can remember seeing photos of the Northeast girls' houses and backyards. Backyards! We had a cement backyard that was about six feet square. They had trees and gardens. We rode the bus to school. They drove cars.

Needless to say, the el- and bus-riding group of us stuck together through high school - I guess you could call us a clique. Before reading the definition of that word, I thought it was a bad thing. Clique: an exclusive group of people who share common interests, views, purposes, patterns of behavior, or ethnicity. A clique is a subset of individuals from a larger group, who are more closely identified with one another than the remaining members of the group, and who exchange something among themselves, such as friendship, affection, or information.
Doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Seeing them on Friday reminded me how much I miss them. It was like no time had passed since 1988.

Some more photos from our reunion are here.