July 2

I love it when I can pick up the phone and call her and it seems like we just spoke yesterday. We can pick up a conversation and just run with it no matter what the subject is about. Friends like that don’t just happen every day; it takes someone very special to have that type of friendship with. I have been best friends for thirty-three years with Melissa. We became friends according to her when I saved her from being bullied in fourth grade; she has to tell this story because I don’t even remember it. We were friends from that day forward. She moved shortly after we graduated from high school, she didn’t want to but her mom was moving to Arizona and Melissa didn’t have a choice. After she lived in Arizona for a few years her mom decided to move to Arkansas, my friend stayed in Arizona because she finally had a decent job and had bought a reliable car. Her mom eventually moved back to Arizona and became her daughter’s roommate, which didn’t work out very well. During the time that her mom was in Arkansas Melissa met a guy and fell in love. After they dated for a while he got down on his knee and asked her to marry him, which was twenty years ago. Their son will graduate from high school this next school year. My family has been blessed to have the opportunity to travel and vacation with Melissa’s family. We have been to Disney Land, Las Vegas, and California twice with them. We all meet in Florida one summer and went to Disney World and watched the space shuttle launch from Coco Beach, which was a very cool experience for all of us. She has flown back to Missouri several times also to see her family and friends here. I just found out a couple of days ago that she and her son are going to make a trip back in just a couple of weeks. I am excited; it is pretty neat to have a friendship like we share and to be able to remain best friends for all these years.