In our February issue, we asked our staff to tell us how they met their best friend.
My sister Tammy arrived when I was almost 10, and my sister Beth was born when I was 19, which was quite the spring-break shocker freshman year of college. We are each stair-stepped a decade apart, with me as the top tier. Sounds so much better than saying I’m the oldest.
— Ginny Lutes, advertising account executive
When I was 17, I spent roughly a year spying on this cute guy who worked at the library in Shelbyville, so you can imagine the teenage thrill when he turned up a couple years later as a barista at the local coffee shop, Sixth and Main, which promptly became a daily stop for me. My first words to him were, “Black coffee, no room,” and he claims that’s when he knew. We danced around each other for another year or so before our first official date. Five years later, still my best friend.
— Alexandra Winters, digital media manager
It’s a classic tale of girl meets boy, girl meets boy’s best friend’s best friend, boy moves to Spain, girl remains best friends with boy’s best friend’s best friend.
— Megan Heinsohn, event coordinator
I was a freshman or sophomore in college, visiting some friends at another university, when a group of maybe a dozen of us delinquents decided to break into a hall one night. I think someone climbed up to a balcony and let the rest of us in. We found our way to a grand piano in an empty auditorium, and someone pointed out that my best-friend-to-be and I both knew how to play this terrible emo-hardcore song on piano. We took turns at it while the others danced around, singing along and smoking cigarettes, which they hastily snuffed into the stage when the light from a security guard’s flashlight preceded him into the room. He kicked us out into a new friendship.
— Dylon Jones, staff writer
She stalked me (her words). We lived on the same floor freshman year at WKU, and she says she eyed me during a floor meeting as we all sat in the hallway on the dirty dorm carpet. Perhaps a beam of light reflected in her eyes from my knitting needles — a shared hobby.
— Jenny Kiefer, associate editor
I met Tristan more than a decade ago on New Year’s Eve. A high school friend invited him to our small party, and I was less than enthused because it meant one more person would be sharing the single bottle of Smirnoff we’d spent weeks convincing a friend’s older brother to buy for us. Now I’d gladly share a bottle of Smirnoff with Tristan any day!
— Katie Molck, contributing writer
We were both Catholic altar boys and he was a surreptitious cutup during services. Made the whole tedious business a delight. He was the smallest kid in my fifth-grade class, but, boy, what a master of biting remarks. Taught me a lot about laughing yourself into tears.
— Jack Welch, copy editor
On the first day of sixth grade, a classmate needed to turn some forms into the office. Our math teacher asked me to show him how to get there, and we walked in silence on opposite sides of the hallway, our shoulders practically rubbing against the maroon lockers. Then I noticed his T-shirt. Michael Jordan was a Chicago Bull again after trying to make it as a baseball player, and the back of his shirt was the back of Jordan in a No. 45 jersey, with the words “Jordan’s Back.” “Nice shirt,” I said. Fifteen years later, he got ordained online and officiated my wedding.
— Josh Moss, editor
I met my best friend, Ali Lone, in seventh grade. I remember we both had this bright-orange T-shirt that said “To save time, let’s just assume I know everything,” and we would coincidentally wear it on the same day. It was a bit awkward, especially because it happened more than once. It got to the point where we had to make sure the other one wasn’t going to wear it. Now our daughters are best friends.
— Lindsay Flint, advertising production coordinator
I met Shauna sometime before we both went to Trinity High School’s prom junior year. That spring, I rode shotgun in her white Ford Escape, likely on our way to a house with lenient parents. She put on the new (at the time) M.I.A. song “Paper Planes” and we bounced around in our seats, basking in our independence. A few years later, when I transferred to UK, I barely knew anyone but Shauna. The whole group from UK became my best friends (each with their own story of how we first bonded). And Shauna is still driving that Escape.
— Mary Chellis Nelson, managing editor
My best friend, Carrie Christensen, and I met at Earlham College in 1990. She was living on “the farm,” which was student housing as part of the agriculture program. In reality, it was an old haunted house with a couple of sheep, some chickens, bees and a garden. I’m sure we met at a party that neither of us remember (actually, she might). We moved here in 1994. I trust her with my life.
— Suki Anderson, art director
First grade, Lincoln Elementary School, recess. I spot two girls doing flips on the playground and desperately want to show them my mad flipping skills. I knew one of them from kindergarten, but not too well, and had never seen the other. I went up to them and asked if I could play. Lexi, the one I knew, told me they had to “conference” about it, then said I could play with them on a trial basis. Apparently I passed the trial run because the three of us are still besties.
— Mandy Wood, advertising account executive
My best friend lived three doors down my whole childhood. Our houses were like continuous revolving doors. As adults, our doors no longer revolve because we live three hours apart, but she’s still always there.
— Emily Douglas, advertising account executive
Tom Butt and I met when we were babies, not even a year old. Our moms, Marge and Muriel, respectively, introduced us at a Corydon Presbyterian church picnic. Later, Mike Shireman made it a trio when we were all inmates in Mrs. Smoot’s kindergarten classroom.
By 14 we were tall enough to drive and would “borrow” a family car and head to Blue River to swim. Mostly jump off the White Cloud Bridge. The only spot deep enough in the creek was below the very end of the bridge, right next to a steep and rocky bank, and you had to throw out your hands when you hit the water to keep from banging the bottom. On other days we would hitch up Mike’s dad’s speed boat and drive down through the state forest to water ski in the Ohio.
Today we live in three different states but all get to Corydon and remain fast friends.
— Bill Doolittle, contributing writer
Despite living two miles from each other in a rural community and attending the same grade school, I didn’t meet my best friend until band camp the summer before I started high school. I played flute, she played saxophone. She was two years older but thought I was cool and started driving me to and from camp. Then to and from school. My sophomore year I quit the flute and picked up the saxophone, so we sat together at all the games. Her parents basically adopted me, and I started semi-living at her house, even after she left for college. Twelve years later, we’re still best friends, and I still have a key to her parents’ house. They forgave me for the time I broke their car while they were out of town.
— Michelle Eigenheer, contributing writer
A blind date.
— Matthew Barzun, publisher
This originally appeared in the February 2019 issue of Louisville Magazine as the Inter-Office Memo. To subscribe to Louisville Magazine, click here. To find us on newsstands, click here.
Cover photo: Pexels.com
