High school friends

I’ll remember always . . . graduation day.  Remember that song?  I heard first around the time of our high school graduation, 52 years ago though it seems like yesterday.  It’s playing on the radio in my car, makes me  look out at the rain and smile softly.

I was the class president then so I gave a speech at the baccalaureate Mass.  It was a good speech but now I don’t remember a word of it.  All I know is that we  were in our white gala uniforms, wearing seamed stockings.  Our seams were straight.  Our nylons — pantyhose not yet invented — were held up by garter belts, lacy things that fastened around your waist and had four pieces of garters with locks at the end to hold up the stockings.  What complex pieces of clothing we wore then.  Of course we had full slips-on.  It was, after all, a convent school and the nuns were strict about what underwear you wore.  And the school was full of nuns then.

 My bestfriend was Buki Richardson, another only child like me.  We were like sisters.  In Grade 5 we did a song number called Sisters. Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters. . .  Those were the words of that song.

 When we were in our senior year in high school, she was the sodality prefect.  We were prevailed upon to wear Mary-like dresses, meaning necklines could not be deeper than two inches from your collar bone, no wider than two inches from the base of your neck at the shoulder.  Sleeves should be two inches above the elbow line and skirts two inches below the knee line.

 On the last day of school I wore the latest fashion.  It was a lovely white dress with a bubble skirt that ended just below the knee – not two inches below.  Sister Aquinata got upset and told me I wouldn’t emcee the last school event because the stage was high and people would look up my skirt.  I gave her a genuinely happy grin.  Buki, who was wearing the perfect dress, emceed the show.  The day after our graduation ball when school was really over, she came to my house wearing a sleeveless, backless, and deep-front dress.  We were both happy to be out of school finally.

  My graduation dress was white and lavender organdy with little embroidered flowers that I had to sew on myself.  My mother had a dress shop then so I grew up a fashionista who had to finish her own dresses, hemming and embellishing them myself. That’s how I learned to sew.

 We were three only-children in class – Nena Zulueta, Buki Richardson and I. After graduation we stayed at the Baguio Country Club for a month, our parents’ gift.  We would play liar’s dice with a bunch of boys after lunch then at night we would go out dancing.  Nena’s mother was our chaperone.  She tried to teach us to play golf but we all failed.

 Now we are all old.  Buki lives near Los Angeles.  Nena lives in San Francisco and I live here.  But we still love each other very much, getting in touch through e-mail.  When I went there last we got together for long chats.  Life has taught me that high school  friendships don’t die.   They are built on very solid innocent ground.

The three of us have had multiple marriages.  That must have something to do with our being only children.  For a while it kept us apart.  Buki went to Santa Clara for college.  I went to Lausanne.  Nena’s family moved to San Francisco.  I remember once trying  to call Nena.  Her dad answered the phone and seemed quite upset with her but when I asked him why, he simply said she was out.  I didn’t get to see her that time.

  When we were in our 50s we found each other again.  Just like my classmates who are here.  We are alarmed when we hear one of us is sick.  A small group of us get together often enough.  Elyn, who was my friend since we were Grade 3.  Bing, whom I introduced to her husband.  Lydia and I who became closer friends when our marriages broke up.  Marita, whose lovely hair always astonishes me.  Loretta, who brings the dinuguan I love but don’t know how to cook.  Chingbee, whose sense of humor is as wild as mine.  Come, the text says, let’s visit Lydia this afternoon.   I drop whatever it is I’m doing and am the first to get there.  I am almost always the first to get anywhere.

We sit together, eat together and laugh a lot together, telling me that the graduation song is right.  We remember always.  Our high school friends are precious to us, a vital part of our lives, a tender spot in our hearts , until the day we die.  They are the friends who quite naturally last forever.

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