When I was in the first grade, I had no friends.  We had moved to Pryor the year before, and nobody who was in my class had any friends.  Nobody knew anybody else, because we were a bunch of "migrants" that had moved into Pryor when our fathers had gotten a job at the powder plant.  We came from all over the United States, were shy, and didn't know how to make the first move to say "Hello." Our class room at school was so crowded with children that we were forbidden to speak out loud anyway.  Unless the teacher called on us.  Which you silently prayed she wouldn't.

The "Townies," those kids who had grown up in Pryor, were very few in number.  The town was really small--until all of us "Outsiders" moved in.  The townie's mothers had asked that their children be put in Mrs. Quinn's class--I guess she was the best teacher.  (You could ask for special treatment if you had lived there all your life.)  The rest of us were trundled off into the other two first grade classes.  Two classes crammed chuck full of strangers.  My teacher was frightening.  She was an old maid in her 60's.  I'm sure we were not what she had signed up for.

Our parents, and those of us who hadn't grown up in Pryor, were ostracized for the most part by the rest of the town.  People figured that we were temporary.   But over the next three years, we "powder plant kids" started getting to know each other, and found out that we were all in the same boat.

 I made my first "townie" friend in the fifth grade.  It seems impossible that it took so long, but it's the truth.  I made a friend only because her dad went to prison--and all the moms wouldn't let their children play with her any more.  Her dad was sent to the pen for embezzling from the bank, and she was heart broken, lost and lonely.  She discovered how painful it was not to have friends.  Life can sometimes be cruel.  I felt sorry for her, and invited her home to play with me.  She came.  Good things sometimes come from bad.  We remained best friends our whole lives.   I held her hand and told her how much I loved her as she was dying of Parkinsons a few years ago.  She held my hand and wept and left to be with God.  I miss her.  Who can know the power of friendship unless you have been rejected.

Maybe my friends mean so much to me because they were so hard to come by when I was young.  I don't know, I just know I treasure my friends.  They mean the world to me.