Another BVGO Reunion

They met when she was 17 months old. He was an older guy, 19 months old. They played well at that first BVG picnic, meeting for the first time. Little did their moms dream then that these two would go on to be such great pals in preschool, so funny together that the teacher would ask if they could be observed for a day and written about for her project at school. She was finishing up her degree in early childhood education, and she was dazzled by the creativity of this little pair of munchkins.

He loved pretending to be Luke Skywalker, and she was always his Princess Leia. Sometimes he would deviate and be Johnny Cash, or Michael Jackson. They had a thing about going to the Purple Planet. And how funny is that, because one day she got into the purple paint that was spread on the merry-go-round at the Piggy Park. He pushed her round and round on that merry-go-round, and neither one of them noticed the purple paint getting all over her. It is one of those memories their moms will never forget. There was no bathroom at the Piggy Park in those days. Thank goodness--no, thank God--for the open church nearby, although her mom would have preferred that there hadn't been a women's meeting going on at the time.

She is Elletu's daughter, and he is my son. Because Elletu and family moved away from Bethel Valley Lane, these two ended up not going to the same elementary school or junior high, but they did see each other when she came to my house for piano lessons. They ended up in high school together, but it is such a large school and their paths just didn't cross all that much. I got a picture of the two of them together at graduation, in their caps and gowns, and then we moved to Hawaii.

They didn't see each other again, but many years later they did connect via Facebook. And then our recent family reunion happened in the past few weeks. He came from North Carolina, and I invited her and her two daughters to come along with Elletu to see my grown children and two of my grandchildren. After 16 years apart, this special BVGO reunion materialized, and it was awesome. It was as if they never skipped a beat. Their humor is intact. They discovered they both do voices and accents at will. Along with my younger son, they went out to play pool. And they stood back to back to see who was taller between the two of them, harkening back to a dark day in their relationship. The teacher decided to measure the height of each of the kids, and she posted the results up on the board. She was the tallest in the class, he was the second tallest. This apparently bruised his male ego. When they came back to my house after preschool that day, he was so upset, he hauled off and kicked the sofa really hard and yelled at her, "It was just this much!" holding up his thumb and index finger to indicate about an inch. Well guess what? He's still about an inch taller, 30 years later!!!! But you know, "It's just this much!"