Remembering friendships-Thursday Flashback

I moved away from my hometown of Danville, VA in 1981.  I have never regretted leaving; my career took my DH and me to Texas, California, Florida, Pennsylvania and now I am back in VA for almost 11 years.

A lot of my close friends also moved from Danville.  Yet many stayed.  Danville was a textile mill town and perhaps some of you have even purchased fabric over the years, particularly cotton, with the markings of Dan River Mills in the selvage or on the bolt end from which you purchased.  The mill was shut down like most textile mills throughout the country in the '90's (remember Ross Poiret and the sucking sound he talked about regarding NAFTA) and particularly through the southern states.  So even more people have left Danville after that.

I visited a good friend from long ago yesterday; over the years we have stayed in touch seeing each other every few years.  She has three children with two of them having families of their own so their home is always lively with children.  My DH and I don't have children so it is interesting to see their kids now grown with children of their own.

As I mentioned, Carolyn's husband had some health issues and had some invasive surgery from which he is recovering well.  It was apparent that my friend needed some R&R- rest and relaxation; reminiscing and remembering with lots of laughter.

We went to lunch having NC style barbecue sandwiches and french fries with a soda (diet of course).  We then decided to ride around town.  In the late 60's cruising Riverside Drive and going to the Coke plant for Saturday night dances was the thing you did.  So we cruised and remember what use to be where and noting what was gone.  Our group of friends dated what we called the Dry Fork boys, Dry Fork being an area outside the Danville city limits.  So we cruised country back roads and drove all over Dry Fork and we actually saw one of the "Dry Fork Boys" who is a well established farmer.  My friend had dated him and by the time we turned around to say hello he was gone.

Another big thing we did every summer was to go to Pine Lake which was a swimming pool located near a lake known as Pine Lake

Pine Lake pool is behind the weeds in front of that shed.

All gated up now!!

 My DH and I went to the same high school but did not really associate together at that time.  I vaguely remembered him from school.  We met in 1972 at another pool called Shangrila when he got out of service, again this was yet another pool we could go to as kids and teenagers as well as young adults.  So my friend and I went to that location only to find that there is nothing there at all.  I jokingly had Carolyn take a photo of my pointing this way to Shangrila!

All in all it was a good day for rekindling friendship.