Jill's Journal: A good friend will tell you the truth

Sometimes, it just takes a good friend to remind you exactly how old you are.

And, that’s what unfolded during a weekend visit with my friend, Trish.

Our friendship to date totals 59 years. I shake my head in disbelief when I say it out loud and even as I type it out. Fifty-nine years. Five. Nine. How can that be when I still feel (in my mind) 29 – OK, maybe not 29 – but certainly not 61.

Trish and I met on the borders of our backyards when our family settled into a rental home in St. James. Her brother Brian, and my brother, Bob, were the same age. Like dogs claiming our territory, we told them they couldn’t come onto our yard, and they, of course, let us know that we weren’t welcome on their grass either.

I remember the standoff being short-lived. Within the hour, we’d long forgotten our “territorial” threats and the Meier kids and the Curry kids became friends for a lifetime.

On Sunday afternoon, Trish came along with me to the cemetery to place flowers on my parent’s gravestone. My brother and a few of his friends – en route home from fishing at a nearby lake – met us there, and in our introductions, I shared that our friendship was nearly six decades strong.

“I’m going to be 61 this year,” I noted.

“No, you’re going to be 62. You were born in in 1963 and it’s 2025,” Trish corrected me.

Yep, she was right.

That wasn’t the only time in our decades of friendship that she’s corrected me, and vice versa.

Sunday’s episode reminded me of the time when we fought over the lyrics of a likely not-so-well-known tune, Minnesota. The song was released in the 1970’s, and I well remember Trish and I were sitting outside, underneath our dining room window that happened to be propped wide open on this particular summer day. The two of us began belting out the words, but came to somewhat of a loud disagreement when Trish sang the words she thought were the correct lyrics, and I sang what I believed the lyrics were. Unfortunately, we didn’t have cell phones or computers to log into that would quickly determine the winner of this disagreement.

It wasn’t long into our silly argument that my mom was at the window sending Trish home and ordering me inside. Obviously, she’d heard enough that day.

Being two months her “elder” – I’m a September girl, she’s a November girl – I always won the “I’m older than you are” arguments, “therefore, you have to listen to me.”

Sometimes that theory worked. Sometimes it didn’t. But as each year passes, she gets a kick out letting me know that I am the older one of us two.

Trish and I were both strong-willed girls, and we still are today. Take for instance an overnight get-away we took from her home in Sacramento, Calif., to San Francisco eons ago. When we arrived at our hotel to check in, it was raining cats and dogs outside. The gal behind the desk checking us was directing us to a room in a building across the vast parking lot. My strong-willed friend, however, let the gal know that we would not under any circumstances be going back out into the pouring rain and wheeling our luggage across the parking lot.

I clearly remember how definitely she waved her pointer finger at the woman to let her know that we weren’t budging from the roof that we were presently under. As the story goes, we ended up in a room just around the corner from the lobby. 

No matter where our lives have taken us all these years later, I still find comfort in spending time with Trish and her mom, who always opens her home to me without question. As for remembering those silly childhood disagreements, I can only smile. After all, we’re both too strong-willed to call it quits now.

Thanks for being my friend, Trish.