Scanned Nostalgia: Cole Girls & Middle School

     I don’t know if it is because I have been working on my book, transporting me back to my naval base days, or if it was the fact that the youngest Cole girl just graduated from college, but either way I felt compelled to go through my old pictures until I found something good.

 

     The Cole Family moved on base when I was in middle school.  I’ll never forget seeing Elizabeth Cole for the first time- she was waiting at the bus stop wearing khaki pants and a navy blue & forest green fleece pullover.  I was so jazzed to have a new girl my age move into the neighborhood and although she was pretty quiet, it only took one 30 minute bus drive to the local laser tag arena with the middle school young life group before we became best friends.  One of the greatest things about my new friend were her two little sisters Emily & Sarah.  We quickly became quite the bike riding, backyard playing, neighborhood pool swimming, dinner dance showing gangs of all time.  Even if the rest of our middle school friends were kissing boys and playing in make-up, we were happily playing house or riding our razor scooters to Sailing lessons.  We worked every inch of the naval base over…gallivanting across the golf course or riding our bikes to the arcade (supposed to be for the sailors but it was always overrun by the neighborhood kids) to print out hippie smiley face stickers.  To top of happy little world, the Cole family lived in the Illinois House, one of the huge homes part of the Jamestown Expedition.  This gave them some serious base kid street cred and the rest of us clamored to play in their big playroom.  The long playroom, stretching the width of the house, was the perfect rehearsal room for our dance choreography…which we subjected our families to! 

 

     Enough chatter, the real evidence of our fun can be discovered in these perfectly awfully awkward photographs.  I love them!!

The infamous dinner-dance show.  Do you like our matching outfits?!

A whole gang of naval base middle schoolers!

 

This is me, Emily, Sarah & my little brother Brian.  Emily & Brian were in the same grade and he played with us girls more than he would probably care to admit!

  

I am pretty sure this is middle school cotillion.  I think Elizabeth & I must have shopped at the same store..modestyRus…thank God our mother’s knew how to lay down the law! (My sweet friend  Diana is on my right in the photo! She and I had babies a week apart from each other this year..crazy!)

 

This gem is us girls hanging out at the bowling alley.  Brian and his friends must have followed along, since here we are humoring his friend Stephen’s presence.  We were always annoyed at them following us around, but generally ended up having just as much fun with them around.

 

  

Right before Elizabeth moved away, she made this for me and it hung on my bedroom wall for many years to come..

Emily or Sarah, you are going to help me out on this one? Where are we? Is this after you moved or when you still lived here?

And this picture is from a visit during high school. 

     I saw a lot of families come and go during our almost 18 years on base, but the Cole girls were hands down a favorite.  I just have the best memories of the fun we had during their quick two years here..and of course, all the pictures to prove it.