FRIENDSHIPS

Friendships are formed in many different ways.
Some start in grade school, and if your lucky enough it goes on  through high school and beyond. Or maybe it was developed in high school, with your college roommate or through your fraternity.

But today I want to blog a little about children's friendships.  How do children click with one another and have it turn into a lasting friendship?

 One way would be because of the day by day connection by living next door to kids their own age. Or they lived on a street (block) where all the kids got together as soon as the weather turned nice and played dodge ball,  hide n seek, or rode bikes together. In the fall the same group of kids would go to bon fires, football games, roller skating and in summer to the swimming pool. Girls did not play sports back then but we danced, went skating, swam, etc.

I went to Catholic grade school, for 8 years. Everyone had to  attend daily Mass. We had to sing during the Mass in Latin. Back in the fifties the Mass was said in Latin and most of the songs were sung in Latin. Father O'Hara said the Mass of the Dead every morning and we had to sing the matching songs. I still remember some of the words -Requiem,eeeeeeEterNaaaaa.
 Oh, yes and we girls wore babushka's covering our heads for Mass. (scarves)
  We had Divine Providence nuns, and they were strict -if you did something wrong or if the patrol boy told on you, because you didn't listen to them, they did not think twice of smacking your knuckles with a ruler (ouch & double ouch). If they caught us talking or sending notes to another kid, we had after school detention. Even if our parents were having a birthday party for us (like mine were). The one year I did something, (who knows what), but I had after school detention for punishment. Even though I told the nun it was my birthday and I was having a party, she didn't care, I still had to stay. It wasn't until my mother came walking in and asking me if I had told the nun about my party. When I said yes, I told her, my mom looked at the nun and said "why would you keep her if you knew this?".  I don't know what the nun said but I left with my mom -

Nuns never lacked from giving punishments. I think they had meetings to think up really hard punishments for us.:-)
We had to sit up straight with our hands folded in front of us.  They had so many rules that I can't remember half of them.

Being together 8 hours a day in the same room, (not counting when we sang for Mass or holidays) it was easy for friendships to develop and allies to form. We didn't just have one friend, but a whole classroom full of friends. We stuck up for one another and never snitched on each other.
When we graduated from eighth grade and started high school - it was like being let out of prison, there was so much freedom in high school, at least for us sheltered Catholic school kids. But the nuns had taught us well and we had us a good solid foundation that we continued to build on. Not that the public school kids did not have that, but lets just say they did not have the same strictness in grade school.

Some friendships lasted during high school - while others drifted apart because of attending different schools. Academic Course  kids would not be in the same classes as those taking the Commercial Course.
But for the most part we still stayed friends, called each other on the phone, had pajama parties and went to dances together. I made other good friends, two of them I traveled with to Pittsburgh everyday for a year while attending Cosmetology School.

 It was inevitable that most of us would drift apart with marriage. children or moving away. I was fortunate that I worked as a hairdresser. Because of that  I was able to see some of my friends when they would come in for an appointment.
Thanks to the social network, Face Book I was found 3 dear friends from grade school. Three of us went to the same high school, but one went to an all girls school Academy.
It has been at least 48 years since we have last seen each other. They all look just like they did in high school, at least to me. It was so great to spend the afternoon with them! After hugging each other we sat down and started to talk and it was as if we had just talked yesterday. What a comfortable feeling and we felt comfortable to talk about whatever subject that came up. Like our one friend said - you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
From that one afternoon lunch we hope to meet every other month for lunch.

On another note:
I loved reading Nancy Drew as a young girl and another series where the heroine was a nurse. Well that nurse and the work she did sounded so wonderful. I wanted to be a nurse and live the exciting life that I read about in the books. A private duty nurse like that - ah, so romantic, a nurse on a ship or in the military service - all these things at my finger tips - so I thought! So I took the Academic course, because I would need to take Latin and Algebra  to have my dreams come true. - - - - - - -
Now - lets stop here for a minute while I tell you------ - - - -- I was not a math person- oh, no! Numbers did not like me at all, even though I tried to get them to.  I could hardly talk English and I thought I was going to conquer Latin, what was I thinkin? But not one teacher or nun  advised me to take the Commercial course, where I know now that I would of thrived.  So there I was, all excited about my classes, I felt  that way for about 2 months and then started to get scared - I hated these classes, if I did not understand something not one teacher ever took the time to stay and explain it to me. If I didn't understand one thing and they went on to the next -then I was really lost. When I talked to the teachers- they said to have one of the students in the class show me. I did ask - my next door neighbor took her time and showed me and I understood, but then the next new chapter started &; I would get lost again - - - my dream of being a nurse was crumbling fast and - - - -- - - - -
If I didn't want to flunk out of school I had to drop Algebra and Latin. I had no choice but to do that.  That dropped me down to the General Course where you were taught a little bit of this and a little bit of that but not enough of everything. I tried to get into the Commercial Course but they said no. I didn't think to tell my parents that and maybe if I did they could of talked to the guidance counselor and worked it out. 
 Now I was at fault also, I liked to have a good time and after my dreams fell through I sort of gave up. General Course was a joke as far as I was concerned. I had a few courses I liked - yep - gym, health, Home-EC, typing, English where we were allowed to read the Readers Digest and then we would have a test on vocabulary words.
I learned more out of high school then I did while going, How you want to know?
I learned all the bones and muscles in the body while going to school, I had to learn formula's for bleach and tint, I had to be creative, I had to pay attention to detail. I had to know how many inches to cut off of some one's head and I read. I read everything I was interested in. I passed first time exam while others failed. I had to learn fractions, especially the 16teenth's. I had to learn how to make boxes before I could work in the office. I learned how to type up different documents - and so very much more, plus my husband taught me how to use the computer. I fudged my way through two jobs saying I could do something I had no knowledge of - but I did it - one job I stayed at for 5 years and one for 13 years.

I'm so glad my sons followed in my husbands footsteps instead of mine. In fact when they read this, if they read this they will probably never let me live this down and give me h double ll.
As this will be part of writing  MY LIFE STORY, I'm already wondering what my great grandchildren will think when they read this.

This is the Mianzo family - my dad's side. Looking straight on, I am on the right side, 1st teenager sitting down.