Lessons

In fourth grade, I was best friends with Norah O'Donnell. While I'd love to say we were still the bestest of friends, we lost contact long ago. When you grow up in the military, you move and you move often. As a result of this, you say goodbye to a lot of friends.

But when we lived down the street from each other in Korea, we had great times together and she taught me a lot of things that I still hold on to as an adult.

The smartypants that she was, she got to skip fourth grade and go right on to fifth grade, while I stayed in fourth. We managed to be good friends even still though. I would tell her about the boys in my class, who burped how often, and who threw up what on the carpet and how bad it smelled...and she would share with me all the cool and distinguished things that the big fifth graders were doing.

She taught me that it was important to include everyone to the best of your ability, setting differences aside.

In her class, they had a student that used sign language to communicate. So, as a class, they were all learning how to sign. We'd spend hours after school practicing the signing alphabet and other hand signs that might be useful in the classroom setting. I thought it was fun to learn what my friend was learning. We certainly weren't doing anything that fun in ~my~ classroom. But Norah was very excited about being able to be a good friend to this student and wanted to excel at her signing.

One night my parents insisted that I attend a YMCA Up-All-Night kids event on the post. Looking back they probably just wanted a night to themselves, but then, they kept saying how much fun I would have and "oh.my.gosh.you.will.meet.so.many.kids.anditwillbesomuchfun!"
I don't recall much about the night, other than putting to use the lesson that Norah had taught me.

There was a girl, off by herself, that no one was including in anything. This girl was younger than I, but could only communicate through signing. Not wanting anyone to be left out, I decided to put my signing knowledge to work. I had to spell most everything out because I didn't know much signing and at a young age, when you're not the best spellers, it was a challenge indeed. But we became friends for that night. Played games, chatted about likes and dislikes, and I left feeling like I had made a difference and that my new friend had made a difference in my life too.

Norah also taught me that rewarding yourself is important no matter how difficult it might seem at times. One Halloween we went trick or treating. I think we were both dressed up as Valley Girls. Ha! Like Fer Shure! Gag Me With A Pitchfork Already! But, she had broken her leg doing goodness knows what. And she still went trick or treating with me...on crutches. The.whole.night.

I have a hard time remembering to take as good of care of myself as I do of others, but I do try and that's all one can really ask of someone....that they try. Rewarding yourself is important.

Norah and I hopped on a military cargo plane with my parents for a quick trip over to Guam. As we were singing our hearts out to 'Islands In the Stream' with the jukebox in some greasy diner for all the world to hear, I learned that it's important to let loose and have fun no matter how silly you might look.

In the realm of time, life is short. I try to remember this and focus on what's important. Laughing and having fun are important. You can't, and shouldn't, work all the time.

And the last lesson that sticks in my mind, although not the last lesson she taught me I'm sure, is that when it comes to cookies...do all you can to get some. Especially if it involves adventure.

One of our friends knew a lady. It was about as vague as that. This lady lived ~somewhere~ on the Embassy. Our friend ~thought~ she knew where. And said lady would give us cookies if we could just.find.her.house. Because said lady told our friend, "Come by sometimes and I'll give you some cookies!" when her and her family had stopped by to pay a visit, this validated us trying.

With nothing better to do apparently, we decided to sneak on to the Embassy. Now, I'm not sure how we managed this really, because one couldn't just walk on to the Embassy. Let alone four lone kids. But somehow we talked the shuttle driver into sneaking us on to the Embassy from the post. We hid in the back of the shuttle and held our breath ...all in the name of a cookie!

I couldn't begin to tell you how long we roamed the neighborhood streets looking for THE house that homed the lady with the supposed cookie stash that we were going to devour on that summer day. But I will tell you we never found it.

As we were working our way back to the shuttle pick up to sneak back onto post, we passed an adult barbeque. I'm not sure what came over us. Maybe the fact that we were deprived cookies that we so badly wanted? Maybe just that it was hot and after all that walking and searching for cookie goodness, we were looking to cool down?

But we invited ourselves to this adult party. I made our grand entrance by grabbing a big plastic cup of water and tapping the biggest man I could find on the shoulder, "Hey Mister!"

As he turned, I greeted his surprised expression with all the water in my cup. I tossed it all over him. In hindsight, I don't know what on earth I was thinking. And with that, we all went running, grabbed more cups of water, tossed them and ran again for refills. And with that, all the adults did the same. It was Shorties against Talls and I'm not sure who was winning. I recall a couple of the adults emptying out their ice chest...putting all the beer and soft drinks aside. Then our poor, poor friend...not Norah or myself...was scooped up and set inside that icy chest of freezing water!

The escapade was brought to an end when a grumpy, old lady came waddling out of her quarters and turned off the hose we were using, "Do your parents know what you're doing? Stop this right now."

And with that, the party was over. We said goodbye to the adults and glared at the granny, then hopped on the shuttle and headed back home.

Cookies are important. And if you don't end up getting any...wreak havoc and have fun while doing it.

The lessons friends can teach you are so valuable.

I don't doubt that Norah is as much fun now as she was then. Norah if you read this...I hope you're having fun and thank you for those lessons!