OLD FRIEND....NEW FRIEND

You old timers here will know what I'm talking about, you newbies will be going what the fuck?..Catch up..!Anyhow....When I lived in Portland, Oregon and first went to work at the Palm Gardens I had never really had a real job before. I had tossed asshole #1 out and his parting words were:"You'll be crawling back to me in a week, you can't make it with out me, your stupid and don't know how to do anything...stupid stupid stupid.blah blah blah.."..He was right I didn't know how to do anything..At the time I was living in Vancouver, Washington so I got in my car and drove across the bridge to Portland and went to the only place I knew. The Palm Gardens which was a 'nightclub'...A-hole#1 had taken me there a couple of times...It was one of the hot spots in the city at the time. (Something else you should know..I didn't drink...had been with A-hole since I was 15, had 2 kids..David was a little over a year old and Tom was 4 months..I was still nursing...) So I go to the bar and ask to speak to the owner who happened to be Al Parker and proceeded to tell him my woes, crying my heart out and I mean crying, sobbing like a baby..scared to death...Basically I don't know shit, never did shit and don't know how to do shit. But if you hire me I'll learn fast and be the best and most loyal employee you have ever had. Normally R. W. would have done the hiring as she did the training too, but poor ole Parker folded like a 9 High hand in Texas Holdem. He told me later that he had plans of seducing me as he did all the other waitress's, but the tears did him in. So R.W. got to be my trainer and in doing so we became the best of friends..Which leads me to today. After losing contact with each other in 1992 we found each other again. Actually her sister-in-law found me and told her 'one of your old friends is looking for you on line.' So we have been talking on the phone for the past 2 days..It's like we just saw each other yesterday. We spent most of yesterdays conversation catching up on what's going on, who's doing what, the kids, the grand kids, our health, etc. Today we started rehashing our past history and friendship...Each one of us remembering something the other one had forgotten. It was fantastic. Remember our past is really the past..We met in 1966, and were side kicks till I moved to New Mexico, in 1969 to be with my Daddy.(because I was one sick puppy with hepatitis.)So we reminisced for a while and then we hung up and about 5 minutes later the phone rings and it's R. again..She said I meant to tell you and forgot, my favorite memory of you.(I always dread when people say that to me, as it usually means I get to listen to a story where I said something insulting to someone or said fuck a lot...like my friend Brian who says the first time I met him I said, (after I had walked into the Stardust Bar after being someplace else where I had been constantly hit on by some asshole)..."I hope your not going to start telling me how good you are at eating pussy, because I've heard that one already tonight."...But no...this is a great memory for me too.R. said she came in to work and I was already there and was laughing my ass off and putting pieces of paper on all of the tables..She said 'what the fuck are you laughing at and what are you doing?'...I said 'read the notes'...and they all said "Hooray, hooray, the first of May, outdoor screwing starts today." She said every May first she thinks of me..Said once she was in PTA meeting and the date was May 1st and she said she giggled all through the meeting..ha. Funny thing is, until she told the story I had forgotten all about it. But when she told me, I'm thinking 'Oh...I remember that, and thinking at the time how funny that was and how everyone was going to crack up when they read their note.'.(the picture is when I was 24 years old)I imagine there will be a lot more updates on my behavior as we are still catching up on each other and remembering our wild and woolly pasts. We were the Queens of Powell Blvd. and ruled the Palm Gardens..I have so many stories I could tell about that place. Like the 13 steps that led to Al Parkers apartment in the basement of the Palms...We all called it 13 steps to heaven. There was a door that went out from there to the parking lot. We knew how the girls rated by which which way they came out. If they were any good he would bring them back up stairs and buy them a drink and send them home in a cab. If we didn't see them we knew he had just ushered them out the back door. I always referred to them as P R's for Parker Rejects.Oh I can't wait till she calls again and we start remembering stuff. Not all of it was great, that's when I started taking drugs and got hepatitis, and lost all of mine and my kids belongs..Which was ok, because if I had stayed I probably would have croaked...and y'all would be doing something pretty fucking boring right now instead of reading about my wicked days of misspent youth. Like the time someone came in asking for one of the customers and I said he's out back in the parking lot. They wanted to know why he was outback in the parking lot..I said 'because I told him to go fuck himself and he's out back doing it.'