First college friends.

With my daughter preparing to graduate from high school, I’m looking back at my own college experience in anticipation of hers. One thing I often find myself telling people about? The first friends I made in college. The year was 1985…

I moved into my dorm at The University of Alabama on a hot August day. My parents took the trip with me. We took two cars, both loaded with my worldly possessions…one car for me to keep there, and one for my parents to return home in. I don’t remember the “check-in” process at the dorm. I feel sure I had to go in, get a key, and sign some forms before we could start hauling stuff up to the room.

I was one of the first ones on my floor that day. My room was the first one on the left when we got off the elevator. My roommate, Fannie, had not arrived yet, so I walked into an empty room. We started unpacking things…compared to what girls take to college today, I took very little, so the unpacking didn’t take long. While we were unpacking, a cute, friendly blonde girl approached my doorway and introduced herself as Dianne from Delaware. She was absolutely adorable, and if I remember correctly, she had been attending summer classes before the start of her official freshman year.

Dianne was one of those people who made the college adjustment a lot easier for me, and she always knew how to pull an outfit together. I remember her tying a red sash on one of my dresses for a football game…and she did it perfectly. She was fun and outgoing…and still is. Back then, we liked to have dates for football games, and I remember one date of hers who drove up in front of the dorm and honked his horn for her. We were on the third floor, so we could hear the horn clearly. I can still hear Dianne screaming out her window for him to “get out of the car and come in to get me like a gentleman”!

The influx of girls started picking up throughout the move-in day. Susan, a girl who lived down the street from me at home, was just down the hall…a nice, familiar face who became a closer friend in college! We had been friends in high school, but we became real friends in college.And Fannie arrived in the afternoon with her mother and her older sister there to help her move in. I was lucky. Fannie was outgoing and adorable. Thank the Lord!

We all rushed and pledged different places. Back then, Bid Day was on a Saturday, and Squeal Night was one big party. Fraternities had parties, and we all got “set up” on dates. Thankfully, it’s not done that way anymore…now Bid Day is on a Sunday, and the girls go on a “retreat” with their new pledge sisters immediately…undoubtedly a good thing. But back in 1985, a sophomore sorority member set me up with a pledge at her boyfriend’s (her boyfriend was a senior) fraternity house, and the fun began!

Here’s what we didn’t know when we started college: we didn’t know which friendships would last. There are some people I have been in constant contact with, and there are others I haven’t, but there are some who are never strangers. That sophomore girl’s senior boyfriend? His name is Richard, and he’s one of those people who, despite going years with no contact, has never been a stranger…we just pick right back up where we left off. Way back in 1985 and 1986, when he was a senior, and I was a lowly freshman, I thought of him as a father figure. Funny, I know. He was all of 22. But when you’re a naive freshman, it’s nice to have an older guy who has your back. And he did. I often referred to him as my campus “Dad” back then.

I’m still friends with Dianne, Susan, and Fannie. When Dianne is in Charlotte for work, we meet for dinner. I hear from Fannie and Susan occasionally. We don’t all see each other often or even talk often, but I definitely count them among my friends. And that “Dad”? Well, as luck would have it, he lives in Charlotte too! We reconnected through Facebook years ago, and in 2012, when we were both at the Alabama-Georgia SEC Championship Game in the old Georgia Dome (Alabama won the game!), we met up at halftime, and it was like time had never passed! We have gone to dinner with our spouses. We have met up at football games. My daughter has given his daughter some “hand-me-downs,” which means clothes she probably wore once. And just like my freshman year in college, I always know he’s there! I don’t know what I brought to the friendship, but I’m glad to know he has found me worthy of friendship for all these years. Does he know he was the first guy I met in college? I don’t know if he knew it before, but he knows it now! A treasured friendship, indeed.

I hope my daughter will find the same kind of friends I found in college. I was lucky to make these first college friends and lots of other great college friends in my four years there. College is an experience you can’t repeat, so I’m glad I got the friendships right the first time! Saying a prayer my daughter will have the same great luck I had!

And yes, those friends are some of my favorite things. I need to schedule a dinner with Richard and his wife…texting him now.