Grand Deb and Papa

Debbie Whatley was my first girlfriend. It was a convenient relationship in the fifth grade because we lived across the street from each other and our parents were best friends. It didn’t take a lot of work to see each other.

I saw Debbie and her sister Donna a month or so ago when they were in Reynolds for the Whatley family reunion. The fact is I knew they were in town so I made a point to ride over to see them that Saturday morning.

We were laughing at our fifth and/or sixth grade romance.

Those romances back then meant a couple of things. The first was that you could write each others names on your notebooks at school.

Bruce loves Debbie. BG + DW.

Actually it was Lucy loves Debbie. And LG + DW. Because everybody called me Lucy.

You were cool if you had a girls name and the word love on your notebook. It meant you had a girlfriend you were “going with.”

Not sure where we were going to but that’s what it meant.

In our case we did go to a few sock hops together. After a Reynolds High School basketball game, many times there were live bands such as the Mustangs or the Malibus or the Sixpence who played in the gym after the game for the dance.

For you younger folks, they were called sock hops because we could not walk on the gym floor in our shoes. So we had to wear our socks. You had to be careful not to wear your socks that had the hole in the toe on sock hop Fridays.

We did the Monkey and the Jerk and the Swim and the Dog. Some of the older kids that did not attend Sunday school would do the Dirty Dog.

And we also slow danced. We would hold each other close and the girl would put her head on the shoulder of the boy and we would dance away. Sometimes the boy would have to put his head on the girl’s shoulder because at that age the girls were taller than the boys many times.

“Don’t they know it’s the end of the world…. and it ended when you said goodbye.” Sock hop slow dance hold me close music. Whew.

Debbie and I got so carried away one Saturday after a Friday night sock hop that we bought red parkas to match. We went with our moms on a shopping trip and talked them into buying them for us. I even gave Debbie a charm for her bracelet shaped like a heart with the word “Lucy” on it.

That charm bracelet is still at the Whatley’s house. When I visited a few weeks ago, Katie, Donna’s daughter, went to a bedroom and brought it out. I smiled when I saw it but I was also disappointed because I couldn’t believe Debbie does not wear it anymore.

The truth is all the Goddard boys and the Whatley girls grew up and married other folks. We are all very happily married with our own families. But we are still family to each other. And always will be. All of our spouses understand.

There is just something special about lifelong friends from Reynolds, Georgia.

And that brings me to the purpose of this blog.

My bragging the other day on this blog site about my granddaughter who is scheduled to arrive in February resulted in an email from Debbie.

Debbie and her husband Bob are living in London. For you who are not good on your geography London is a very long way from Reynolds… it’s way on the other side of Rupert.

It seems Debbie has some bragging to do of her own. She and Bob will be grandparents in February too. The picture below shows Debbie, Bob, a pregnant Wendy and Peter (right to left) taken a few weeks ago in England.



So Debbie will become Grand-Deb about the same time I become Papa.

And that makes me smile even more.

I think I feel the urge to go buy a couple of red parkas.