Everybody has a best friend in school. In grammar school, my best friend was Cornelia (Connie) Farley. Connie was of Irish-American descent and loved all things Irish. She knew how to dance jigs and reels and every St. Patrick's Day, she would try to teach us how to dance Irish dances. We all loved learning the dances and the songs that Connie would sing.
I would often spend the night at Connie's house and we talked and shared secrets the way best friends do. We were very fond of John F. Kennedy, our Irish-American president. When Mrs. Kennedy was pregnant and gave birth very early (too early) for the baby to survive, I was at Connie's house. We prayed and prayed for the little baby Patrick but to no avail. We cried when we heard he had died and then prayed for the family.
We would make our own magazines at Connie's house. We would cut out articles and pictures from other magazines and use floor and water paste to paste them into our own magazine. They were just articles and pictures that we liked and thought would look better in our own magazine.
We would often dress up in our mother's dresses that were long on us and play nun. We enjoyed doing that very much. We would give each other punishments or penances. One day we got a little carried away and Connie hit me a little too hard with a stick and it hurt. We cut back on our penances after that.
Connie went to the other girls' high school after 8th grade and it was the school that I wanted to go to but my parents preferred that I go to UCA. So after 8th grade we lost contact with one another until about 4 years ago when we had our 40th anniversary. Even though I didn't go, someone gave me Connie's email address and we have kept in touch ever since.
I would often spend the night at Connie's house and we talked and shared secrets the way best friends do. We were very fond of John F. Kennedy, our Irish-American president. When Mrs. Kennedy was pregnant and gave birth very early (too early) for the baby to survive, I was at Connie's house. We prayed and prayed for the little baby Patrick but to no avail. We cried when we heard he had died and then prayed for the family.
We would make our own magazines at Connie's house. We would cut out articles and pictures from other magazines and use floor and water paste to paste them into our own magazine. They were just articles and pictures that we liked and thought would look better in our own magazine.
We would often dress up in our mother's dresses that were long on us and play nun. We enjoyed doing that very much. We would give each other punishments or penances. One day we got a little carried away and Connie hit me a little too hard with a stick and it hurt. We cut back on our penances after that.
Connie went to the other girls' high school after 8th grade and it was the school that I wanted to go to but my parents preferred that I go to UCA. So after 8th grade we lost contact with one another until about 4 years ago when we had our 40th anniversary. Even though I didn't go, someone gave me Connie's email address and we have kept in touch ever since.
