Enduring Friendships

I remember Susie White coming to my dorm room with a monster cookie from the Superette in Corvallis.  It was raining and she was wearing a blue rain coat, Levi 501 jeans, and the L.L. Bean duck shoes we all wore.  She told me she had chosen me as her little sister in the Alpha Phi house. 

From the beginning, no two people could have been less alike, but we got along like a house on fire.

In highschool, I spent most of my lunches by myself in the Art Department practicing Caligraphy. I went to an experimental highschool where it was perfectly acceptable to skip classes and paint for three hours.  Which I often did.

My big sis was the opposite, so much so that I believe she was the Alpha Phi social chairman for all four years. 

She was a spark plug, and I was an introvert who liked to stay up all night reading, but this was about to change. As Sue’s little sister, I was quickly swept into her hurricane of fun, and I went willingly.

We had many adventures together in her Dodge Dart.  One Christmas Break we drove it to Whistler Canada to ski. We were so poor back then, we had to pool our pennies just to go.  In the years to come, Sue would have a Porsche, and even a Ferrari, but nothing would compare to that trip.

On a recent Saturday, Sue picked me up in her BMW and we took a road trip to Napa. And it was like nothing had changed and we were exactly the same people we had always been.  The years melted away, and time stood perfectly still. 

It was completely magical.