Lauren? Are You Out There??

Once upon a time, long, long ago, my family moved to LeHavre, France, having been transfered by the company my dad worked for. At the time, I was merely four years old.  Mom and Dad met another American family there, and as it would happen in a foreign land, the two families being far from home and having their homeland and language in common, the parents became fast friends.  While the dads worked at the office and struggled to communicate engineering in a foreign language, the two moms and all the little kids traveled all over the place in a little red square-back Volkswagon. While my own mother was a bit timid about striking out on her own in unknown territory, the other mother had no fear. She was an assertive and independent woman, and together the two ladies made their way to some beautiful and obscure French sites with six or seven kids in tow. (Obviously those were the days before car seat laws!)

Red-headed Lauren was the only girl in the other family, and she was a year older than I.  I don't think we went to the same school, but we did everything else together. (I hope I am remembering this right.  Probably not -- I can't even remember to take meat out of the freezer for supper!) She lived in a big old three-story house with a dungeon beneath it.  Seems to me it had long ago been the home of some Gaulic military captain or something.  The top floor was a big playroom, a wide open space where noisy children were stowed away while parents visited beneath somewhere. I remember rollerskates up there, maybe bikes?  A chin-up bar in the doorway?  And three loud, boisterous, scary older brothers of Lauren's. There was a stone wall that ran along the road in front of their home, and Lauren and Todd (my little brother) and I played "hide from the bad guys" by jumping down and hiding behind it whenever a car drove by. And the dungeon.  This family hosted a Halloween party one year (maybe it was Mardi-Gras?), in the dungeon, which was the perfect setting, at least good enough to scare a four-year-old girl out of her wits. It was dark and damp, and one had to be careful not to fall into the cistern.  I remember so little about those years...maybe I dreamed all this except for the part about my friend, Lauren.

After a couple of years, the other family moved back to the USA, to one of the southern states.  Soon after, we also returned to the US and visited our friends before making our way to the west coast. And then? Almost no contact. All these years.  I think I saw Lauren's high school graduation photo, and I heard she married a Frenchman. She has two boys and soon to be two adopted little girls from China.

Well, once in a great while our moms still exchange a note.  And guess what I just found out?  My old buddy Lauren is an avid HOMESCHOOLER!  I can't help wondering if she is out there in HomeschoolBlogger-Land somewhere...

So Lauren, if you are out there, please leave me a comment and say hello -- "Bonjour" -- I remember that much, but you'd better write the rest in English, lol!  And tell me if I am nuts or what.  Do you remember it like I do??