What do friendship bracelets really mean?

What do friendship bracelets really mean?

Another tale of dismemberment and love...

Many years ago I met a girl. At the time she seemed like the perfect girl for me. As I sit and type I can see her face as clearly as I could on the day we met. Emotions flood me that are no different from that day in Goodyear field. She gave me a friendship bracelet. It was a leather cord. The friendship bracelet had 2 turquoise colored beads about the size of a gum balls. Between the beads was a small bell made of cheap pot metal. It came from India. That's what she told me. The sound it made couldn't honestly be called ringing. It was more the sound of the clapper hitting the shell and sound stopping. When you would expect to hear the ringing tone of a bell you heard nothing but dead air. It reminded me of the sound a cotton ball makes when you drop it on a concrete basement floor. The girl told me she gave the bracelet to me to prove something. She never told me what that something was.

Looking back it seems unusual that you would find your soul mate in Goodyear field. Goodyear field was our field, our domain and why would anyone expect to find a stranger, especially a Catholic stranger that didn't go to public school in our field. It was a thing totally unexpected. It must be remembered that the girl haunted me then and still does today.

We lived on the west end of town. Our street ran east and west. To the east was the rest of our town. To the west was a handful of houses and then our street crossed the west most street in our community and dead ended at the fence to Goodyear field. The field went west down a hill to a pond and some woods and then up a hill and across a pasture where it ran into a dirt road and then rolled on toward the rest of America. Everyone in the neighborhood considered Goodyear field to be our playground. I was never sure who owned it. Most of my friends said it was owned by a Mrs. Goodyear. We had ever seen her or knew where she lived, but knowing she was out there, somewhere, made us behave and take care of her field, our field, as if it was our own. We didn't want her to put a better fence up that would actually keep us out. We didn't like to see kids in our field we didn't know.

The day I met her I broke some of the field rules. I didn't make a fire or dig a hole or anything stupid that would get us banned from the field. I did show her stuff. I showed her the bike trail that ran through the park the old lady built. The old lady wasn't Mrs. Goodyear, but another lady, granny age, who had a fenced in garden next to an area with trees that was always well kept even though we never saw anyone mow it. We called it a park because that was what it reminded us of.

One day the summer before we were taking turns seeing who could ride a bike down the trail from the path that started behind the houses next to the field, across the dip and then down between several trees in the park and stopping just this side of the old lady's fence. On my third turn as I went at least twice as fast as anyone else, I looked up for a split second with a smirk of pride, which took my eyes off the trail and ended with my biking running into one of the trees I was supposed to avoid. They say that when I hit the tree my bike stood on one wheel as I was thrown off my bike up into the air only to smack the tree with my head over six feet off the ground. I left a mark. Dazed I landed on my back knocking the wind out of me. I was down for nearly 5 minutes. I stood up, vomited and walked home. I made my brother bring my bike.

I also showed her the woods that were near the pond. In the winter the pond froze and we rode a car hood down the hill hoping not to hit the tree trunk in the middle of the pond. What we called a creek ran from the pond into the woods. In the woods was a tree someone had tried to hollow out. They had started a fire in the trunk and scraped the burnt wood out. We didn't know when it happened. One kid who had old parents and big brothers out of college said it was there when his brothers were little. Three people could fit in the tree easy. Sometimes if we got cold skating we would go to the tree and pack as many kids as we could hoping to generate warmth. I can't say that it worked. It was fun mushing kids in though. She and I stood in the tree. We both fit and being in the tree with the girl that gave me the friendship bracelet was just about the best thing that had ever happened to me.

I told the girl about the time we thought we saw a flying saucer land in the field. Four of us set out early the next morning after we'd seen the lights in the sky. We trekked past the pond and up the hill and across the pasture that opened onto the west. We found no evidence. I even took her to where we found the hobo fort the summer before. We think a patient escaped from the VA Hospital and made a camp before he found his way to the interstate that he could have taken him to California. We found some newspapers and empty cans. They weren't very old. For the next few weeks we didn't go to the field alone and after dark we watched out for each other just in case he was still around. Some kids across the street and 3 house down thought they heard him knocking on the basement windows one night. We checked the window wells, but couldn't find any clues.

As we walked back toward my street I asked her where she lived. She told me an address closer to downtown near the university. She was visiting her mother's aunt who lived near my school. She walked to the field because she didn't have anything to do. She told me that as she walked she was certain there was a reason for what she was doing. I wanted to kiss her. I didn't. Maybe I should have in the tree. We were only in 6th grade. She had a green and gold striped jacket. I can still see it in my mind. As we walked toward the fence she held my hand. Before she let go I asked her why she gave me the friendship bracelet. All she said was. You'll never forget me. She ran off through Goodyear field to a faded pink house where an old lady with mean dogs lived.

She was right. I remembered her. I remembered her eyes and the smell of her breathing. I remembered what was like to stand next to her in a burnt out tree. That might have been the top thing for me.When I was 24 I fell in love with her. She didn't know it was me. I knew without a doubt that it was. I still have the friendship bracelet in my good luck box. I guess it worked. She was the most important woman in my life until I met my wife. I like to remember her in the field the best. That might have been the best day we ever had. If you don't count the day in the field we had about 1273 decent to good days together. No about, about it. I counted them once after I moved away. That was hard. We did some mean things to one another so we could be apart. Even when you both know apart is best it doesn't make the accepting any easier. I don't like thinking about the awful hateful things that happened back then. We were adults and should have known better.

I wish she had told me what a friendship bracelet should prove. I'm over 50 and still don't know.