You are Blessed if---

You are blessed if you can pick up your telephone and call a friend with whom you went to high school. What sent me down this pathway? I am blessed in yet another way in that I have a good friend who favors me with her company from time to time. This past Monday I spent most of the afternoon in her yard helping her with raking and burning of leaves and other associated fall chores. As darkness neared, she went into the house and in a matter of a few minutes had prepared a lovely dinner the centerpiece of which were a plate of pork chops which she had hammered into shape and and prepared as Perkinsville Pork the recipe for which we had learned at a cooking seminar a few weeks earlier. We sat at table, thanked the gracious Lord for the manifold and largely undeserved blessings He has bestowed upon us, and with great gusto leisurely consumed the comestibles. We pushed the plates back and were enjoying conversation before dessert when she asked if I remembered a certain teacher with whom I had worked, and under whom she had studied, almost literally back in the dark ages. Of course I did. And? she asked. I stated that the lady was extremely knowledgable, knew her subject thoroughly, and impressed me as being all business, to the point of being bereft of a sense of humor. My friend roared with laughter, then proceded to tell me the following. "When I was a senior, the last day of class, a close friend and I put our hair up in pigtails, painted "freckles" on our cheeks and across our noses. We went to class. She would not allow us in, requiring us to go to the restroom and remove the freckles and take down the braids as the price of admission to class. Humorless." So, I roared. She said, "I wonder if she remembers," picked up her phone, saying, "She lives in Louisville. Haven't talked to her in a long time. Hi! Do you remembe. . .?" And of course she did, and they laughed and chatted for a bit. "I hope you realize how blessed you are," I stated. She looked at me quizzically. "How many friends with whom I went to school do you suppose I can pick up the phone and call?" "Oh." Light dawned "Actually," I said, "I think there is one. A girl I knew when I was a freshman and she was a senior still lives in Ft. Worth. I called her. She responded and the two of us had a lovely stroll down memory lane while my friend listened "That was amazing!" L said. She is 96? And talked with the clarity of a 17 year old." And it was amazing. You are blessed if you still have close friends from your school days with whom you still stay in contact.