The Three Musketeers

This is one of those “friends” posts. I am part of a trio, a triumverate, a mis-matched but tightly-knit set. These two women and I have known each other since childhood, but welded together as college roommates.

We shared an apartment during our days at the University of Kentucky, on the second floor of an old building above the Two Keys, a legendary campus dive bar. On the other side of it was a pornography shop. To say our mothers were not impressed is an understatement…but next door was McDonald’s (my favorite hangov – uh, post-party food was a Big Mac, fries and a Tab. If you’re younger than 50, that’s what we drank before Diet Coke). And even better, 3 doors up was Joe Bologna’s, the best pizza in town, with breadsticks drowned in garlic butter. How we got by with only gaining a Freshman 10 in those days, I’ll never know!

But we certainly had adventures! We 3 would go together to the grocery once a week, consult ENDLESSLY about what to buy, then split the bill 3 ways at the cash register and write 3 checks. Those poor cashiers…We took turns cooking in our tiny kitchen. We truly lived on a shoestring, and had been taught by our mothers how to pinch a penny. As a whole chicken was cheaper than a cut-up one, that’s what we bought because Linda (the only one of us 3) knew how to cut up a chicken. NOT cooking most nights would have seemed very extravagent. I know I burned a few things, and the mention of my Taco Chops still gets a good guffaw out of all of us.

We thought we were the height of cool when we threw a “punk” party. We clipped the sharp ends off of safety pins and used them as earrings, and got our guy friends to tie our neckties for us. The keg was about to get iced down in the bathtub when we realized we all still had to take our showers and wash our hair – disaster narrowly averted!

Somehow, we survived those years, and all managed to graduate, with the other two going on for graduate degrees. Linda and Jo came to visit me when I lived in Germany for many adventures (read about those wild times here). Life carried on, with marriages, births, deaths, mortgages and the accumulating baggage of adulthood and experience. We got together as hectic schedules allowed during my brief visits back to Kentucky.

In the year 2000, we started to get together for a Girls’ Weekend once a year, meeting halfway between where I lived and they lived, which was roughly West Virginia. We holed up in a cabin for a long weekend and cooked and laughed a LOT. This continued when I moved back to Kentucky in 2004, and branched out to locations as diverse as Gatlinburg and Indianapolis.

Girls’ Weekend morphed into Girls’ Beach Week as we included my friend Pam in Florida, usually with Clearwater Beach as our headquarters. Girls Week has included variations of a cruise, and a trip to Puerto Rico last year. 2020 found us slipping in a long weekend in Asheville in February, right before Covid 19 body-slammed the rest of the year (read about it here).

We try to meet monthly for dinner, and other yearly rituals have evolved, such as the Winter Slumber Party (no boys allowed, hostess rotates), fall camping trip (Real Women Camp in Tents, or Tiny Cabins When It Rains), a day of racing at Keeneland- our bijou racetrack during either the spring or fall meet, a concert (we had tickets for Journey in Cinncinnati before that cancelled this year), and a Christmas crafternoon with daughters (and now granddaughter). We also get together to celebrate our birthdays as we all turn the same age each year (July, August and November, respectively), and exchange Christmas presents.

We ran 5ks together for several years, have been white-water rafting, snorkeling, taken cooking classes, mead-tasting, food tours, ceramic painting, hiked, danced, canoed, sailed, been to movies, amusement parks, and once dressed up at the 3 Blind Mice for a costume party.

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Having this much history together means we can be unflinchingly honest but unfailingly kind towards one another. We can diagram each other’s complicated family trees, recite names of pets going back 30 years, and know what code phrase will conjure up an old story that will guarantee we’ll be laughing in the photos when the camera shutter clicks.

It has taken a great deal of effort, love and forgiveness from each of us to maintain these friendships, especially when we were managing young children and careers, family crises, financial challenges or health issues.

Treasure the old friends in your life. Do not be hesitant to make new ones, though. I’ve met some wonderful people in the last couple of years through social media, as well as church, volunteering and civic activity, who have really enriched my life.

My support system is what has allowed me to remain sane and recover after setbacks like divorce, being fired from a job I loved as a recession started, deaths of family members and friends, and all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that come to us all in a long life. I do not take this for granted, and I really feel for those who do not have these beacons in their lives.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip down Memory Lane. I’d love to hear about your adventures with your own “musketeers” as well. Stay safe, friends, keep your spirits up and stay in touch! Cheers, MK