Carol, LaDean and I used to pal around with Shirley Alexander. It seems like she just popped right out of the woodwork. Shirley was tiny, cute and fun. The first time I went to her house, her mother sent her a few blocks to a dress store to pick out a dress for a party. My Mom always made my clothes and I had never just gone into a store to buy a dress. This was like a fairy story to me. I thought it was a beautiful dress and she was the lovely princess who got the “store bought” dress. She was an only child and yet she wasn’t spoiled – that made her special. (She showed up at our reunion 35 years after high school graduation married to her sweetie Kurt and she was wearing her High School sweater…sheesh!)
We supported the boys in their sports. During softball season we’d help them warm-up and hope for a forfeit, so we could just have a big free-for-all game. We’d form boy-girl teams and everybody would play.We’d scream and yell during basketball. One year we formed a cheerleading squad; Shirley, Carol, Nan and I. Mom helped us make little green skirts and vests that matched, and we made little green pom poms to put on our tennis shoes. We practiced and practiced our cheers. We had a great time at the games, but we never had a very big audience. One night, to our utter delight, we had a huge turnout. We were so pleased that at first we hadn’t realized why everyone was waiting outside the gym. Wouldn’t you know? The biggest turnout ever and they never got the gym unlocked!
I thought her Dad looked like a handsome movie star, and secretly wondered if he really was Carl Betz. I thought it was so neat that her Mother made up tuna salad for sandwiches and kept it in a jar in the fridge (at our house if you opened a can of tuna, it was gone before it could be stored in the fridge).
I liked to sleep at Carol’s house. It was so much quieter than my house. One night we were at her home alone and the rain was pouring off the tin roof that covered their porch, making a lot of spooky noise. I had never worked an Ouija board before and Carol had one so we fooled around with it a little. We thought the idea of it was silly, but we’d ask it questions anyway and surprisingly it would answer with things that shocked us because they were usually true.
We asked it a question about Tim Kelley, Carol’s boyfriend at the time, and the board kept giving us the number 7. We couldn’t figure out what it was “saying” until we counted down the ever-present stack of 45 rpm records, and number 7 in the stack was “their song.” It shocked us so much, we put the crazy board away, and to this day, I’ve never touched another one. We’ve been told by Church Authorities that evil spirits power them and I just never wanted to invite them into my life, so I just let well enough alone. 
Carol and I loved to switch clothes, as all girls do. My favorite outfit of Carol’s was her green and blue plaid skirt with her green mohair sweater. I felt so special when I wore that outfit. I’m not sure which clothes Carol borrowed because I don’t think I had much that was worth borrowing, but we did switch clothes a lot. Our Mothers were always asking us where some piece of clothing or another was, and we usually answered, “Oh, Carol (or Nanette) has it.”
One day while we were at Olive Vista Jr. High School, after days of heavy rains, they closed the school. Carol, Nanette and I walked home and rolled our wet hair in curlers, put on scarves, tied at the back of our necks and walked to San Fernando. (We’d roll our hair in curlers whenever we wanted anyone who might see us to think we had “hot” dates that night, necessitating curly hair.)
We not only “walked,” we nearly drifted. The rains had been so bad for so long, the streets were caving in and the intersections were flooded. We nearly joined the rushing water downstream at a couple of intersections because the water was speeding so fast even a Volkswagen floated past on Astoria Street. Yet, here we were, kicking and splashing barefoot in our cutoffs in the rushing water along the curbs. We had no idea how much danger we were in, it was just fun! Thank goodness our parents were clueless!
When we got home from walking around “downtown” we called all our friends and had a party at someone’s house, probably mine.
We always had parties. One church leader or parent would let us use their house for the gang to gather almost every weekend and it created a bond between our group that has never diminished.
We spent almost every weekend at one or another’s house through 11th grade. Carol came over to my house after Seminary and after a breakfast of pancakes, we’d walk to Sylmar High School every day. I don’t remember being anywhere without Carol during all those years; parties, school, waterskiing at the lakes, girl’s camp, every church function, fundraisers, Bob’s Big Boy, and most of all the beach. We practically lived at the beach! 
