Back in time

I went *home* to Muscatine last friday to visit an old friend. My friend Cindy was visiting from Boston. Cindy grew up across the street from me. My family moved to Oak St. when I was in second grade. So we went through the rest of elementry school together and then onto middle school and high school. We weren't necessarily the closest of friends, but friends non the less, sharing a lot of life experiences together as we grew up.


I had not seen Cindy since the day we graduated high school 14 years ago. Originally I had not planned to go over to Muscatine to visit her. But eventually the idea drove me crazy so I drove over for the afternoon. Mandy was able to join us as well. Uh, *big* Mandy that is. Not my daughter, but my best friend. She still lives in Muscatine and shared a similar friendship with Cindy. We all went to school together.


So we met for lunch and had a great time of catching up & chatting. Yeah, we talked about people from school growing up. Sharing funny stories of things we remembered. Funny how we all grew up thinking we each other was way cool, yet silently battling all the insecurities of childhood.


After lunch we went to our old elementry school, Jefferson. We wandered the halls again retelling stories and kept saying things like "remember when..." We stood in the gym and marveled at how it still smelled the same and peeked into classrooms & wondered how they looked so small now when they seemed so big years ago. Things were different, yet the same. We stumbled across one class that was labeled for Mr. Adkins. We all looked at each other & said "nooooooooo waaaaaaaaaaay!" We peeked in & was greeted by a familiar face who instantly remembered who we were. There he was, 23 years after we were in 4th grade, Mr. Adkins. He invited us into his class and told his class about us. He even welled up in tears to see us as adults come back and honor him & our school.



After finishing up at Jefferson we went over to Central Middle School which is attached to Jefferson. A hallway connects them, yet they are two completely different schools. We had more great time of just wandering & talking.

If you know me well, you know how extreamly sentimental I am. I also remember A LOT. So this little trip back in time really meant a lot to me. It was wonderful!