As an Oregon transplant from Indiana, it isn’t too often that I get to work with someone who has known me for almost my whole life. Sara and I met in 1978 when I was four and she was three. She rang my doorbell and asked if there were any kids her age who lived there, and that is how our friendship began.
As kids, we played together after school and on weekends with our little gaggle of friends from the neighborhood. We collected lightning bugs in jars, rode our bikes to the neighborhood pool, and played Annie and V until dark when our parents would yell through the yards for us to come home.
Our neighborhood HOA discouraged fences so everyone’s backyards were open and our doors were always open, too.
Sara’s family moved away from Indiana to Kansas when Sara was 11 or 12 and we lost touch. Without Facebook I never would have known that my old friend had moved to Portland, too. We reconnected shortly before she and her husband relocated to Hawaii.
I was so excited to hear that she was back in the Portland area this winter, looking to purchase some land outside of Portland. It wasn’t long before we found her property in Tillamook.
Congrats, Sara. Sorry for the old photos, friend. It was the 80s. :
