h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Last Friday, I ran into an old friend that I hadn't seen in over a year. She and I have been friends for so long that no matter how much time elapses between the times we see each other it's as comfortable as if we had never been seperated. Even after she spent two years on another continent with the Peace Corps... they lost her in Africa.... lost her, I tell you. Lost as in "No sir, we can't quite tell you where we left you daughter, but we know that she made it into the country safely.". Her dad was on a plane shortly after that phone call. Oh, she says "Hi!" to the online friends that I was friends with last time I saw her.

We caught up a bit on the other old friends, while we were standing there in the sunny parking lot. That set me to thinking about the rest of that group of friends. I remember meeting most of them. They were fond of saying "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine, and friends are like family." I didn't realize how seriously they took that phrase, at first. I began to suspect when one of them told me "Didn't Donna adopt you? Then, she is your mommy and that makes me your uncle." The "family tree" gets complicated after that... Same friends attended several funerals for members of my family and did what they could to help at the time.

My father died when I was 17, right before I finished high school. Graduation night was five weeks later. Those friends made sure I studied. One of them nagged me into typing my term papers early. It takes a lot of talent to nag me by phone while I'm half asleep. For the Graduation ceremony, we were given four tickets. I had one parent, and she didn't go *anywhere*. I was mobbed in the street on the way to the Church by four of those friends. One of them had cut their honeymoon short by a day to make it back from Alabama in time for the ceremony. Much to my surprise, my mother and one of my brothers also attended.

Even though it has been a lot of years since then, I know the whereabouts of most of them. The one person who can actually nag me into submission(ssshhh, I try not to admit that) lives about ten minutes away from me.

There is a newer friend, who upon meeting, declared we would be great friends. Well, that was 1995 and we haven't had a single argument, yet. We found out later that her mom and my aunt were best friends many years ago. I have gotten the comment "You two should have been sisters.".