Pretty found this card when she was clearing out one of her carefully packed away boxes yesterday. She saw that it was mine – and asked me if I wanted to save it. It was dated 12/31/15, and when I read it, of course I wanted to keep it. This card should have been kept with my collection of most treasured personal mementos I carefully pack away in my own special box in my office – not randomly mixed in with Pretty’s hundreds of tubs filled with collectibles at various stages of “to sell or not to sell.” Occasionally she surprises me with something that got crisscrossed in one of our many moves over the past twenty-three years. This card slipped through the cracks during the 2017 move from Casa de Canterbury in downtown Columbia over the river to Cardinal Drive in West Columbia.

Sheila, where does the time go? It seems only yesterday that I was racing down the basketball court to pass the ball to you. You were always there, ready to take the pass. Wonderful memories!

Carolyn and I played basketball at Columbia High School in West Columbia, Texas, from 1961 – 1964. We played a variant of the game called six-on-six because well, each team had six players on the floor at the same time: three guards playing defense on one half of the court and three forwards for offense on the other half. Carolyn was one of the fastest guards we had, could steal the ball from one of our opponents’ forwards and then dribble like crazy to get to the half court line ahead of players who were always a step behind her, desperately trying to get the ball back before she could pass it across the half court line to one of her forwards who would be waiting to alter the course of play with a switch from defense to offense. Thankfully, women didn’t play full court basketball with five players like the men until 1971. I played forward for our six-on-six team but definitely lacked both speed and endurance for full court. I’m exhausted just thinking about that.

our senior pictures in the 1964 Columbia High yearbook

Carolyn’s beautiful smile was deceptive on the basketball court – she was much tougher during competition. Since I was the shortest forward on the team, I needed to look tough, but that wasn’t easy when my mom insisted she needed to roll my hair in tight curls before games and especially before the yearbook pictures. Sigh.

The 2024 WNBA season started this week, and we have ten former University of South Carolina Gamecock women’s basketball players who made Opening Day rosters, second only to UConn alumni with sixteen. Basketball for Pretty and me is more fun when we know the players, when we see “our girls” playing on the big stages of professional excellence.

But when I saw this beautiful card from my former high school teammate Carolyn Buchanan (Reid Young now), I was transported to the rush of feelings I experienced waiting for her to pass the ball to me at that half court line sixty years ago. I had to be there for her, for my team, ready to take that pass. Nothing could have been more exciting! And if by some miracle, I actually scored after I caught the pass – Caitlin Clark herself couldn’t have been happier.

Isn’t it funny, this thing called life. The directions it takes us, the experiences we share and the special people we meet along the way.

Carolyn is one of the special people I met along the way, and her card brought back a flood of wonderful memories for me of a “forever friend” who made my five teenage years in Brazoria, Texas, some of the happiest in my life. I hope she still has that Hollywood smile.