2023 Wednesday — Deep in the Well

After pulling teeth all day, the last thing Betty wanted to do when she got home from the dental office was pull teeth. That must have been the reason my friend's home felt so casual, so free. Dede’s mom, Betty, would get home, change out of her dental assistant uniform, and the rest of the evening was unstructured. Not one of Betty's three kids was pestered to do their homework, to clean their room, or for that matter to do the dishes.

My mom liked to tell her friends that getting my sister and me to do our homework was like pulling teeth. Mom didn't work at a dental office, so I'm not sure how she came to that comparison.

Dede and I became friends during my journey thru 9th grade and hers thru 8th grade; that was the autumn of '63. I can't drop the bucket in deep enough to remember how we met; other than we were attending the same jr. high school.

Dede was as casual of a free spirit as her mom; cut from the same fabric. That carefree lifestyle was more than attractive; my home was across town and once inside my front door it felt miles from a carefree world; lots of structure, regulations, and rules. Mom and Pops, my stepdad, were the drill sergeants. Their favorite choice of punishment was restriction. I'm not sure that Dede had ever heard of punishment.

Whenever possible I would hang out at Dede's house and if possible spend the night. We could come and go as we desired; often we'd step out the front door at 9:00 pm to walk several blocks away to the liquor store to purchase candy bars. As we left Dede's house no one cared that we were walking out into pitch darkness. In the next 18 months we'd repeat those excursions many times. We never got in trouble, never thought to go or do something other than what we'd said we were going to do, we had no desire to be sneaky because no one cared what we were doing, and we returned safely every time.

I was always mystified by never seeing the floor in Dede's room because of the piles of tossed clothing and scattered magazines. Her walls were covered with posters and album jackets. School papers and homework surely had blown in from the open window to randomly land wherever. Occasionally when Betty would stick her head in she didn't notice anything out of place; maybe that's because nothing had a designated place.

Dede’s dad had left long ago, but she had an older brother and a younger one too. Dede's older brother Leonard, Betty always called him Lenny, was a brain, but he didn't spend his cells on school work; he poured himself into music and surfing. He could hear the coming revolution in music long before anyone heard a beat or put a flower in their hair. He was the first to mention the name Bob Dylan to me. I'm sure he had the first edition of Rolling Stone and stacks of MAD Magazine. When Leonard died a few years ago from prostate cancer, his renown as a skilled surfer was enormous.

When I dropped out of high school at the end of my sophomore year to get married, Dede and her mom drove 50 miles to attend my wedding at the rinky-dink wedding chapel my parents had rented on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Betty was the only one who sobbed all the way thru the ceremony. Three and a half years later when our second baby was born, a girl, I named her Deidre Anne after my treasured friend Dede.

Currently my friend Dede and I leave comments late at night on each others' social media; sometimes simultaneously. We see each other almost never. In the past 58+ years we've both stayed married to the men who were our teenage husbands, but we've seen each other less than a dozen times. We both live on the edge of the Pacific Ocean; she's north of San Diego and I am on the Central Coast. Getting together is more difficult than pulling teeth.

Good night (it’s late),
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi too!

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JANUARY PROMPT - 3

As a kid, our friends are usually based on proximity. They are either kids from the neighborhood, or maybe they are the sons and daughters of your parents' friends, and you see them when your parents drag you along for their own purposes. Once we start school, we meet more people, but somehow it still can be friends in your class, kids at the next desk. At some point you find a friend, one who isn't just happenstance of place, but rather someone you are drawn to for some other reason. It is a right of passage to have a friend who isn't part of your world by accident, someone you have to seek out to spend time with. Is there a friend from your childhood that this makes you think of. Visit with them in your mind's eye for a bit. See how you spent time together. Maybe spend some time at their house in memory. Now write about them...