36. Nola

Nola always had a green pass. That was the first thing I noticed about her.

We were in 4th grade, and every kid had a little pocket on the wall with their name on it, and Nola always had a green pass. A green pass meant you were a really good and responsible and amazing person, which perfectly describes Nola.

In 5th grade Nola and I were both in Mr. Mastoris’s classroom, and got to be good friends. And by 7th grade we were inseparable.

Schools were a little crazy in our New Jersey town, because it was growing so fast. I went to first grade in the upstairs bedroom of a house. Fourth grade was in the living room of a townhouse where we all sat around with lapboards. And fifth grade was in a Buckminster Fuller dome.

In 7th grade our school got super-cool, and many of our teachers gave us the option of going to class or not. Since we were 12 and our brains weren’t fully formed, most of us chose NOT going. And while I was scraping along with B’s and C’s and the occasional D, Nola always gracefully, effortlessly, stylishly racked up A’s. Every damn time! In every class!

School was a ton of fun, because our classes (when we went to them) were pretty experimental. In history we created our own countries and economies. In music we built musical instruments. And in science Nola and I performed experiments on water quality (shown in the adorable picture above) and were written up in the local newspaper.

My family moved away after 8th grade, so we were only school-girl friends for 4 years. But we’ve stayed in touch ever since. We were in each other’s weddings. And luckily Nola and Wes kept moving to fun places, so we’ve visited them in Boston and England and Utah.

There are some people you just like being around, and one of them is Nola. She is smart and funny and creative and caring. And she has a driest of wits. And mostly she is my long-time friend who I’ve loved since I was a girl.