Summer of Stories: Marshmallows & the Eternal Flame

In addition to the snowball incident, my friends Rachel and Anna and I had more than our share of adventures. There was the popcorn incident. There was the goldfish swallowing incident. There was the time Rachel passed out on me in the student union. One of the most memorable adventures, though, was the night we roasted marshmallows over the Eternal Flame.

Our school mascot was/is the Flames. As in fire. It's supposed to be all pentecostal and charismatic, I guess, but I've always thought it to be lacking. I think we used to be the Vikings back in the 1950s, but I guess it was too violent. Or too Nordic. I don't know.

So, because of the mascot we had this fountain with a gas-lit "eternal" flame in the middle. Only it wasn't eternal, because I think it blew out more often than it was actually lit. Anyway, on one particularly cold night, Anna and Rachel and I observed the fact that we had an extra bag of marshmallows, for whatever reason. We also observed that, if we bent a couple of metal clothes-hangers, we'd have the perfect equipment for roasting said marshmallows.

And thus it began.

The eternal flame was right across the street from our dorm, so we bundled up, slipped on hoodies for anonymity, and strolled nonchalantly over to the fountain. It being below freezing, the fountain had been emptied and was quite dry, so we proceeded to climb inside and begin roasting our 'mallows. Now, this sort of adventure was highly frowned upon by campus security, so every time a patrol drove by we had to lay down inside the fountain to avoid detection.

We successfully roasted and consumed several petroleum-flavored marshmallows, upping our carcinogen levels for the next few weeks. We figured that we didn't smoke or drink, so a marshmallow or two probably wasn't going to overwhelm our bodies defenses.

There may have also been a few Native American-style fire dances around the flame. To stay warm, of course.

As a refresher, here's the three of us, pre-roast:

Summer of Stories: The "Snowball Incident"

Rachel, Me & Anna, incognito.

My friends Rachel and Anna and I were destined to be friends in college. We all entered our college experience as members of the Freshman Honor Corps, a group of study-focused individuals (read: nerds) that spent the semester taking challenging courses together and participating in crazy team-building activities. Rachel and I became fast friends and became known as "the Rachels" (I miss you, other half!), and Anna frequently joined us on our adventures.

And we had many adventures, or rather, adventurous mishaps. The most infamous of these was the Snowball Incident of 2003, which began with us innocently enjoying a particularly heavy January snowfall, sliding around in the parking lots and making snow balls out of the fresh piles accumulating on commuters' cars. This progressed to a full-on snowball fight, after which, in a rush of pink-nosed giddiness, we decided to take our snowball fight into one of the dorms and ambush our friend Jackie.

So, we began the journey from our current parking lot across campus to Jackie's dorm, carrying our carefully-packed snowballs. Attempting to outdo the rest of us, Rachel kept rolling her snowball into each patch of fresh snow we encountered. The snowball was the size of a tennis ball, then a softball, then a small cantaloupe. Right before we ran into the dorm, she took advantage of one more undisturbed spot of snow, primly located in the dormitory's landscape area. The snowball was now rather bowling ball-sized; it was no longer white, but was covered in a fresh layer of mulch and dirt from the landscape area. A slushy landscape ball, if you will.

The three of us ran up the stairs, knocked on Jackie's door, and waited. She opened the door, hair freshly washed and dried and a clean outfit on. Anna and I threw our dainty snowballs. Splat. Splat. We all kinda giggled. We looked at Rachel, and she threw the monster. SPLOOSH.

It landed on Jackie's head and kind of slid down the side of her face. And then we feared for our lives, so we ran.

Jackie didn't speak to us for weeks. It took lots of apologies and "please forgive us" cards before we could be friendly again. We even volunteered to come shampoo the dirt out of her carpet.

I've never laughed so hard in my entire life. I haven't seen or talked to Jackie in years, but as for Anna and Rachel and I, that snowball cemented our friendship.

Summer of Stories: Old friends

Allison, Sarah, Jessica, & me, circa '91-ish (my chubby, toothless stage). :)

I have several amazing, lifelong friends, a blessing of providentially epic proportions. It is something which I have taken for granted nearly my whole life, and am only now beginning to realize the full weight of.

Jessica and I like to say that we've been best friends since before we were born, since our mothers were best friends, and our grandmothers were also good friends. We lived down the street from each other until we were about 4, when her family moved to Texas, and then to Florida. From then on we faithfully drew each other colorful stick-figure pictures, progressing to chicken scratch-covered postcards, which eventually blossomed into real letters. They visited Tennessee over the holidays; we made the trek down to share in steamy Florida summers and whirlwind trips to Disney World. Somehow the states between us (ok, state - Georgia is HUGE people) didn't seem to matter.

(awkward much? yeah, we were)

I think I took having Jessica for a best friend for granted, because she was just always there, writing letters, calling, loving me for who I was, even though we are really different in a lot of ways. When it came to friendships, she put Jesus skin on and lived in it.

I was overjoyed when Jessica transferred to my college, and we got to share my senior year & her junior year of school. She also stuck around after school for a while, so we got to live in the same city once again. Now that she's moved back to Florida, it's harder to keep up with each others day to day lives, and I'm sure I'm back to taking her for granted all over again.

Sarah and Allison were my daily companions, my playmates, my partners in crime. We held Barbie yardsales, had birthday parties for our stuffed animals, built forts in the backyard, and did all of this in layers of dress up clothes. Our visits became more infrequent as we got older, and we lost touch when we all went our separate ways to college. Then, I was at an Irish pub with friends a few years ago, and the server that came up to our table to was Allison. I jumped up and hugged her; I think she kind of stared at me with her mouth open for a second. We discovered the three of us were all in Chattanooga, and now we get together fairly regularly for dinner or a cookout.

It's a wonderful thing when you're around old friends. It's just comfortable. I don't worry about my hair being frizzy or the dishes in the sink. Old friends know exactly who you are, and somehow still want to be around you.

The most recent childhood friend I've reconnected with is Emily. Emily also spent a lot of time at our house when were kids. Fun loving and accident-prone, she was the instigator of many of my childhood injuries, like the time we played golf with a broom and I ended up wearing a pirate-like eye patch for three weeks. After her family moved to Michigan, Emily and I were also regular pen pals. Between Emily and Jessica, I probably wrote more letters in my pre-teen years than most people do in a lifetime.

Em, her husband, and their three kids recently moved back to Tennessee. Although we hadn't seen in each other in a decade and hadn't even spoken in years, it was so easy just to pick up conversation, to catch up and reminisce.

I wonder if, when time ends and we meet Jesus face to face, if it will be like reuniting with an old friend. I imagine he'll tell us how much he's missed us, how glad he is that we're finally there. And then we'll sit down together, and he'll tell us about how he hung the stars, and why he had so much fun creating sea turtles, and we'll rejoice together that everything has been made new and right again.

Yes, I think it will be a lot like that.

Summer of Stories: New memories

Even while we're remembering the past, we're forming new memories.

Here are a few pictures from our recent Florida trip. I want to remember the beach this way, before the oil came and blackened the pure white sand. It'll be beautiful again someday, but it's going to take a long time.

Summer of Stories: Beach trips

I love this picture of me and my grandmother. I'm not sure who was more wary of getting in the water, and I think we both feel the same today. :-)

I grew up going to Florida nearly every year with my mother, grandparents, aunt, and cousins. Grandma grew up in Pensacola, so we would go down to visit family and play on the beach. My memories from those trips consist of happy nights snuggled in homemade afghans at Aunt Marylou's house, playing in the red dirt of her fire-aunt infested backyard, and picking up seashells on the beach. Most of my beach memories include my cousin Melody.

For visual reference, Melody is on the left, next to Harvey.

For many years, we would go to Pensacola to see family, then head over to Panama City for our relaxing beach time (this was when it was just starting to become an airbrushing, go-carting tourist trap. don't judge). I have great memories of Melody and I playing in the surf for hours, building sandcastles, getting eaten alive by sand fleas, and even dancing around in our matching grass skirts. Our annual trips got more infrequent as all of us grandkids got older, and the long car rides got to be too much for my grandfather.

My grandfather passed away several years ago, but my Grandma still likes to go back to Pensacola every couple of years visit her nieces, and be reminded of the place she and Grandpa met, I think. Last week my mom, aunt, and I had the privilege of joining her on such a pilgrimage.

I'd had high hopes for the trip, because of all those wonderful memories. But wasn't everything I'd hoped it would be.

Grandma was sick, and wasn't quite herself. In between coughing fits, she was bossy and irritable. I probably would have been, too, if I was 80 years old and felt as bad as she did. Mom and my aunt were both stuffy and snoring, so no one slept a whole lot. Melody wasn't there, neither was my little brother. Neither was Grandpa. I had no desire to collect shells, because they didn't match my house's decor (snooty, huh). This trip was just different. I wasn't a kid anymore.

There were many really good things about the trip, too. The beach was beautiful and clean, still unspoiled by the coming oil slick. The weather was perfect. The hotel was great, with a nice little pool and a great view. We saw amazing sunsets. We got to visit with family. I got to talk with my aunt a lot, which I don't think I've been able to do it years. I think I had the most fun of the whole trip when mom and I went out to the beach by ourselves on our last evening, walked along collecting shells for a craft project she wanted to work on, watched the sunset, and entertained ourselves by setting the camera's timer and attempting the perfect jumping-in-the-sand photo.

We can't get the past back, obviously. But the present can be good, too. And I'm so grateful for such wonderful grandparents, who took the time to share their past and present.

And, in case you're wondering, our timer photos were hilarious, if unsuccessful. :)

Summer of Stories: Slip n' slides and whipped cream

(Sarah, me, & Allison, circa early 90s?.)

I had a wonderful childhood.

I have nothing but good memories of my early childhood and elementary years. This is mostly thanks to my wonderfully creative, stay-at-home mother. I was an only child until I was eight, but my friends Allison and Sarah, and often two or three other kids, were our house every day. While we had plenty of free reign, it was my mother that helped orchestrate, and often joined in, our grandest adventures.

Summer was the best of all. We constructed elaborate slip n'slide set-ups in the back yard, where we'd tack tarps onto the end to make it longer, and still ruined the grass and our stomachs from overzealous sliding. My dad would bring refrigerator-sized boxes home from work, and we'd cut and color and open our own drive-through restaurant in the driveway. Bicycles were the vehicles of choice, and the "food" was usually tacos made from magnolia leaves. Sometimes we'd even schlep the plastic play food outside. Super Soaker water fights were a common occurrence, as were trips to the library and the public pool.

But the day that stands out above all the rest, the one that we still talk about as adults, was the day my mother

let.
us.
have.
a.
pie.
fight.

She even bought the supplies. She was that cool.

I don't know where the idea came from, probably Bugs Bunny or Nickelodeon, but we got it into our heads that slopping whipped cream pies into other people's faces had to be the epitome of a good time. Maybe because you just don't see people walking down the street, slapping whipped cream at others' heads, I dunno.

So, mom went to the store and bought a carload of Cool-Whip and pie tins. We donned our bathing suits, laid the pie tins on a picnic table, and began divvying up the Cool-Whip. We had amassed quite a few more kids at that point, I think, so this was a big deal. Everyone got two or three pie plates full, so you had to aim wisely. Our backyard was immense (at least it seemed to be back then) and full of shrubbery. Trees and bushes became fortresses, globs of whipped topping met would-be invaders.

I'm sure the fight lasted only minutes before our supplies were depleted, the grass was coated in corn syrup and hydrogenated oil, and we were sticky, dirty messes. So my mom did what any reasonable mother would do.

She broke out the slip n' slide.



(That picture up there really makes me want a Little Mermaid t-shirt.)