Memories of a Beautiful Friend

Picture provided by Laurie Morgan Perschbacher

A Friend of mine woke up to this the second day in a row!! Now for those of you who don't appreciate a good TP.. in California it's done pretty regularly. Not just for homecoming or such. We do it at slumber parties, drunken parties (umm well, lol) whenever the mood strikes us. 

But when I saw this I thought of my friend Diane. Diane was my absolute best friend in Junior High. There were so many wonderful minutes to our friendship. It sort of peetered out when we went to High School as we made different choices and had different friends,as a matter of fact Diane ended up marrying one of my older brother's best friends. 

But those minutes in middle school remain forever in my heart. One of my favorite memories of Diane, was a weekend spent TPing our friends houses. For those of you who aren't Californians, at the time there was a fine for every roll of toilet paper you were caught with. So besides trying to be quiet enough not to get caught by the owners.. you had to be stealthy and not get caught by the cops..

OK.. back up a bit.. One night a group of us tp'd Diane's house.. And I left a tv guide on her front porch, why? Because she was always calling me and asking me what was on tv.. seriously every single night.. and I was always telling her to just get a tv guide.. Well not too stealthy of me because of course Diane figured out who did it. But then, because I was her best friend, I was obligated to share the names of the others in the car.. (oops must have been freshmen year cuz no way would my mom let me drive around in a teenagers car when I was in HS).

Anyway, Diane and I were diabolical.. we got a bunch of newspapers and used her mom's lawnmower to shred them.. we had bags for each house. We also learned that using a single mom's lawnmower was much smarter than using my dad's. He was not pleased. Then we got somewhere between 25 and 50 rolls of toilet paper (per house) and 6 tv guides..

For the next three nights (yes it was labor day weekend.. or memorial day.. either way a long weekend) Diane and I went from house to house, two a night, and exacted her revenge. One night her mom drove us, one night my mom drove us and one night my fabulous Uncle Jr drove us. That was the truly fun night.. because one of the houses was on Greenleaf, which is a major street in our hometown.. So we had to hide every few minutes when one of us or my Uncle (parked across the street) would shout COPS.. yeah, not so stealthy.. but we didn't get caught. 

I have missed Diane for many years and was greatly saddened when another of my brother's friends told me in passing that Dave Eliott's wife died of Breast Cancer a few years back. Dave, the friend who told me, was not aware of my connection to Diane and had no idea how much those simple words made me grieve. I always thought that someday we would connect again..

While I no longer have Diane, I do have some very wonderful memories of her!!

Shauni