Meg

If this pool could talk...

I spent three years of high school on the AFCENT/Geilenkirchen Orcas swim team.  If you have ever been on a sports team, you know the intense bond that can form between teammates.  Our swim team was year round.  Practice was five days a week with Fridays optional and Sundays off.  Most weekends were spent at all day swim meets or traveling on long bus rides to all day swim meets.  Swim meets were spent talking to teammates while you waited to swim your event.  Do you see where I'm going with this?  You got to know your teammates whether you liked it or not.

Meg was one of the first teammates I remember meeting, and I was struck right away by her kindess and openess.  She had a gentle spirit and an easy smile.  There is not a mean bone in her body.  We spent many bus rides traveling all over Europe.  Our team was given t-shirts that had the slogan, "I'm touring Europe pool by pool."  So true!   Those charter bus rides were full of fun and lots of laughter.  Our team was elementary through high school kids (most teams are), and all the teens would usually sit in the back of the bus, and the younger kids would sit up front.  Apparently there were some "co-ed issues" with some of the high school students, so when we had an overnight bus trip to Berlin, the coaches made assigned seats.  They basically put all the teens up front and staggered the coaches and parents throughout.  Meg and I were assigned a seat directly behind the bus driver, and our friends, Eric and Carsten, were assigned the seat directly across from us. We spent the entire night in fits of laughter much to the chagrin of the bus driver.  At three in the morning the four of us become quite punchy and had digressed to laughing at the stupidist, corniest jokes ever that Eric and Carsten told. 

Meg and I were known for being silly and having fun, and we were nicknamed Schatz Keks by our German teammate, Stefanie.  Loosely translated, it means, Joke Biscuits.  And we have been Joke Biscuits ever since. 

Meg was one grade level below me, so we only had  two classes together: Mr. Gage's AP History and Mr. Harville's Computer Programming.  AP History was a dream class.   (Read the former post entitled "Mr. Gage" to find out more about that!) Mr. Harville's class was quite a challenge.  Our school required one semester of computer class to graduate.  Most people took Word Processing.  I was unable to because it was only offered at the same time as Journalism class.  I was Editor-in-Chief of our school paper, so missing Journalism was not an option.  I didn't have a clue what I was doing in Computer Programming.  Meg stayed after school to help me with coding and loops and if/then statements.  I never would have passed that class if it weren't for her.  She was so patient and explained things that made sense to my right-brained mind (I've since become more left-brained, but that's another story). 

We were in National Honor Society and Writer's Club together, and we traveled to Ireland for Model United Nations.  We explored as much of Dublin as we could and stayed with a family that lived in the middle of nowhere on a massive estate in Co. Wicklow.  Meg and I stayed in the guest house, and we felt like royalty.   We were both in the Czech Exchange program and traveled to Prague via the overnight train. 

We organized a huge Christmas party for the swim team and their families and felt very grown up reserving the school cafeteria and coordinating all the decorations, a gift exchange, and Christmas carroling around the piano.    It was a great party! 

Our favorite waffle shop in Heerlen

We took advantage of the excellent European transportation system and often took the bus into Heerlen to visit our favorite store, The Body Shop, and to purchase waffles at a local vender.  

Meg gets along great with my family.  They absolutely love her.  She traveled with us to Munich for swim championships and stayed with us in the *TLQ's.   Her house was my second home in high school. 

Meg has been a vegetarian since she was a freshman.  She is an adventurous cook--even in high school.  I remember watching her make macaroni and cheese once, and marveled that she never measured.  She even added mustard!  It was delicious!  I don't mind working with her in the kitchen, which is a rarity since I usually like to have my own uninterrupted work space.  Meg cares deeply about the environment.  She recycles, she takes cloth bags to the grocery store, she hangs clothes to dry to save electricity, and she makes her own cards.  She would never dream of using a product that was tested on animals.

We are both second borns, and we both have an older sister and younger brother.  We both strive to keep the peace and desire that everyone be happy.  We have never had an argument but are both able to remain calm and practical when we have a difference of opinion.  She is not afraid to ask me hard questions and doesn't judge me when I believe differently than she does.  We like to discuss feelings, write poetry, and we both loved to watch "In Living Color" re-runs on **AFN.    At one time we shared a secret ambition to be a Fly Girl.

After high school, I went to Illinois, and Meg went to Maine.  I flew out my sophomore year to spend spring break with her.  Everyone else was going to Mexico, Florida, or some tropical location for spring break to work on their tans.  I opted for Maine...with snow!  So I convinced Meg to go skiing.  Neither one of us had been before, but we went to Sunday River and enrolled in a guaranteed-learn-to-ski program.   After some time on the bunny slopes, we "graduated" to what I like to call the Black Diamond Mountain of Death.  To this day, I don't know how either one of us passed the test to make it past the bunny slopes!  We both knew we were in trouble when we fell getting off the ski lift!  Our instructor pointed to the bottom of the mountain and said, "The only way down is to ski.  I'll meet you at that tree."   Neither of us had mastered the art of stopping properly.   And did I mention we were in blue jeans?  What were we thinking?  It was a difficult task, but we made it!  We were tired, sore, cold and wet, but we made it safely to the bottom of that mountain!   Our muscles screamed in pain that night when we had to walk up stairs, sit down, or stand up.  Neither one of us has been skiing since.

I miss her already.

I was touched when she flew out to Chicago to attend my graduation from college.  She even flew out to Virginia when my dad had a stroke.  That meant the world to me.  She asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding, and I flew to Caribou, Maine, and spent the week leading up to it helping her to get ready.    We have spent several vacations together, and we even drove to Wilmington, North Carolina, to visit her grandparents.  The lines are definitely blurred between friendship and family where Meg is concerned.

She just came for a visit with her darling hubby and two sweet children.  We picked up right where we left off, spent lots of time in the pool (of course!), chatted until the wee hours of the morning, and remarked once again how PERFECT second born children seem to be!


More military acronyms:
*TLQ = Temporary Living Quarters
** AFN = Armed Forces Network

She is wearing an Orca team shirt!  Love it!