A high school friend who is a reader of my Friday With Fred blog sent me the following email last weekend:

You always do great “starters” and I thought if you had remembrances of yours [First Friend] it might qualify for a prompt for your followers.  I began thinking about my happy childhood and those who contributed to memories that made it “fond”, when I first began,unknowingly, to feel warmth towards those outside of my immediately family. Looking back those memories remain so fresh and clear, untouched by any complication.

She goes on to send the above photo of her and her first friend who she is offering to share her Oreo cookie with.

Thus challenged, I pondered my deep past and at first came up empty, but I stayed with it and finally remembered a little boy.

His name is Michael,from my early grade school years in Forest Hills and I never really liked him back in the day.

A strong memory was him out “Flipping” me for all my baseball cards.  An even stronger memory was him catching his fingers in a 3rd grade classroom door (which did not make me unhappy).

Flash forward to my freshman year at Syracuse University and the first Sigma Alpha Mu pledge class dinner. Sitting next to me was this guy and I asked him his name and he said it was Mike. I just knew it was the same Michael. I asked him if he grew up in Forest Hills and he said yes.  I then asked him if ever caught his fingers in a classroom door and from then on we were fast friends and Fraternity Brothers.

Do you remember your first friend?