The Third Leg of Martini Fridays...Laura

The summer of 1972, before high school, I met Laura...


She was everything I wasn’t. Blonde, blue-eyed, perfect white teeth, and tan. She had gone to the local Catholic school for 8 years and would now be unleashed on the same public high school Jane and I were going to. She was game for anything fun, which never failed to alarm a rather cautious Jane.

It was within the confines of homeroom, football games, parties, and countless crushes on countless unsuspecting boys that the three of us became friends. All was well. We were young and fun was our primary goal. Have we always stayed connected over the years? No, but we would reconnect between the circumstances of our lives. College, jobs, moving, marriage, kids........


Okay, three teenage girls on the brink of womanhood…who looked older than we were….let me repeat……we looked older than we were……and we were emotional infants. A perfect storm of classic adolescent angst.

The boys……we talked about them, followed them, knew which hall they walked down to get to class (today we would be called stalkers), and then the whole process would begin again because we found a new one.

Laura is what I call a "Fun Friend"-loosley defined in a previous blog-not reckless- just focused on the pursuit of an adventure. Something that would be spun into "Laura Lore" years later. Surely, any friend Laura has ever had must has plenty of stories to tell about riotous situations that could be woven into a "Glee" episode. 

Anybody out there care to share? LOL......

Laura’s four children have a hard time believing their mother was voted “Best Party Giver” in high school. They also could not believe that their mother and I had taken out my parents’ car at the age of 15. We figured Laura’s drivers permit was good enough. We were idiots. We never got caught. We were invincible. 

There were no seat belts, we drank and drove, and we got into cars with boys who drank and drove. Frankly, our whole generation did. According to today's stats-we shouldn't have made it to our 21st birthday! 

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Sadly, today Laura is the epitome of a responsible parent....sigh.

I long for the days when we thought of no consequences. When we just wanted to laugh, and get to the next party.  We were not shallow,  superficial, party girls. We were extroverts!!!! Except for Jane....she always had a boyfriend.

So, how do we define fun now? Let me take a stab at this.

• Gathering for Martini Fridays. Let's be honest.None of us can drink more than 2 martinis.
• Staying up past 10 pm. This requires plannning and napping ahead of time.
• Attending a ____ game. Insert the sport and somebody's offspring plays it.
• Discussing the merits of different potting soils.
• Comparing the girth of our thighs and frequency of hot flashes.  

I could go on, but you get the picture.

So, I salute my "fun" friends and mourn our youthful exuberance.

Can somebody help me out of this chair?

Your Friend,
Adrienne