NORENE

Being a Mormon and living in suburban Washington DC. meant that you had two sets of friends - your neighborhood friends and your church friends.  The ward I attended while living in the red brick house covered most of Arlington County, Virginia.  Because of that, children in the ward attended several different elementary schools.  Unless play dates were arranged during the week, the only time you would see some of your church friends was on Sunday, at weekday Primary or ward activities.

There were about five or six girls my age in my ward.  A couple of them also went to my elementary school.  But my absolutely best church friend, Norene, went to another elementary school. I can honestly say that I knew Norene from the time we were babies.  Her parents had lived in the area as long as my folks.  I always looked forward to Sunday School, Primary and other ward activities because I would see Norene again.  We were excited to go to Junior High because then we would see each other at school as well.

Norene and I had similar interests, particularly when it came to boys.  We always seemed to have crushes on the same boys.  It was a friendly competition, even though Norene usually got the guy.  One of the boys that we had serious competition over was the older brother of one our friends.  Norene was the one who married Monte.

When both of our families bought new homes while we were in high school, we were devastated.  Both of us would be leaving the ward we grew up in and leaving the high school we both attended.  We both wondered why our parents couldn't have consulted each other and bought new homes in the same area instead of buying in opposite ends of Fairfax County.

We were pretty close all through school and came to BYU together.  We weren't roommates at BYU. But because each other were about the only two people we knew on a campus of 25,000 students, we were together a lot.  We got married at about the same and, unfortunately, we were both divorced about the same time.

Norene eventually married a second time and moved back east with her second husband.  We've lost touch.  But I still have the memories.