I think about Valerie and our carpool every day. In our senior year of high school Valerie, Lois, Scott, Doug and I rode to school in the Brentwood to Millbrook Overland Express, which really wasn’t an express until the last rider was aboard. We had things to do that took longer than the ride from Quail Corners to the school. Our solution was to drive past the high school and go down Falls of the Neuse Rd until we got to the water treatment plant near the river. We’d turn around in their driveway and head back to school refreshed and ready for class. We called it our shortcut. Now, every day I walk my dogs 5-6 times a day and when we get to the farthest point on our farm road walk they get a treat at the shortcut and we turn around and head back to the house for another treat. I first met Valerie in 9th grade. For whatever reason, she’d started walking through a couple of backyards to get on the bus in front of my house and naturally we began talking and became friends. We didn’t have many classes in common, most of the time we spent together was during the morning smoking break in the courtyard or waiting for the bus in the afternoon or morning. Valerie didn’t have a car. I’m not sure if she ever had a driver’s license. Her main mode of transportation was her thumb. I’d give her a hard time about hitchhiking on her own but she’d just smile and say she wasn’t worried. That was Val. Up for anything. When I started driving to school Valerie was a natural for shotgun. The school wanted money to park in the lot, but you could park on the side street for free. Part of her responsibilities was to see if Principal Cobb rode his motorcycle to school that morning and parked it under the flagpole. If he did that meant no one else was going to use his parking spot. So we did. Valerie played a game where you made a phrase that started with the letters on license plates. I don’t remember the number, but the letters on my car back then were FSK. I won’t write down what we decided it stood for. One of our fellow side-street parkers drove a car with the license plate HEALTH. We didn’t try to play the game with that one. We noticed it, though. We also noticed when a different car’s plate said LIFE. We finally had to lay in wait and ambush the poor girl to find out what her license plate was about. Turned out they were her father’s cars, he sold insurance, and sometimes they traded cars. Mystery solved!! Once, Valerie was sick and missed a couple days of school. On her first morning back, she asked Lois to write her a note to get her absence excused. Naïve me asked Val why she needed Lois to write her a note when her mother knew she was sick and could write it. She looked at me like I was a poor, sweet, innocent young thing. “Lois has to write it so that the handwriting will match all the other notes she wrote when we skipped school together,” she explained like she was talking to a first grader. She was a sharp cookie. I got in trouble in 6th grade when the handwriting didn’t match. Valerie left North Carolina shortly after high school. I heard about some of her exploits from time to time, but I never saw her again after she left Raleigh. She was one of a kind. Time to take the dogs to the shortcut again… bye.
Derrick Boissiere
I think about Valerie and our carpool every day. In our senior year of high school Valerie, Lois, Scott, Doug and I rode to school in the Brentwood to Millbrook Overland Express, which really wasn’t an express until the last rider was aboard. We had things to do that took longer than the ride from Quail Corners to the school. Our solution was to drive past the high school and go down Falls of the Neuse Rd until we got to the water treatment plant near the river. We’d turn around in their driveway and head back to school refreshed and ready for class. We called it our shortcut.Now, every day I walk my dogs 5-6 times a day and when we get to the farthest point on our farm road walk they get a treat at the shortcut and we turn around and head back to the house for another treat.
I first met Valerie in 9th grade. For whatever reason, she’d started walking through a couple of backyards to get on the bus in front of my house and naturally we began talking and became friends.
We didn’t have many classes in common, most of the time we spent together was during the morning smoking break in the courtyard or waiting for the bus in the afternoon or morning.
Valerie didn’t have a car. I’m not sure if she ever had a driver’s license. Her main mode of transportation was her thumb. I’d give her a hard time about hitchhiking on her own but she’d just smile and say she wasn’t worried. That was Val. Up for anything.
When I started driving to school Valerie was a natural for shotgun. The school wanted money to park in the lot, but you could park on the side street for free. Part of her responsibilities was to see if Principal Cobb rode his motorcycle to school that morning and parked it under the flagpole. If he did that meant no one else was going to use his parking spot. So we did.
Valerie played a game where you made a phrase that started with the letters on license plates. I don’t remember the number, but the letters on my car back then were FSK. I won’t write down what we decided it stood for.
One of our fellow side-street parkers drove a car with the license plate HEALTH. We didn’t try to play the game with that one. We noticed it, though. We also noticed when a different car’s plate said LIFE. We finally had to lay in wait and ambush the poor girl to find out what her license plate was about. Turned out they were her father’s cars, he sold insurance, and sometimes they traded cars. Mystery solved!!
Once, Valerie was sick and missed a couple days of school. On her first morning back, she asked Lois to write her a note to get her absence excused. Naïve me asked Val why she needed Lois to write her a note when her mother knew she was sick and could write it. She looked at me like I was a poor, sweet, innocent young thing. “Lois has to write it so that the handwriting will match all the other notes she wrote when we skipped school together,” she explained like she was talking to a first grader. She was a sharp cookie. I got in trouble in 6th grade when the handwriting didn’t match.
Valerie left North Carolina shortly after high school. I heard about some of her exploits from time to time, but I never saw her again after she left Raleigh. She was one of a kind.
Time to take the dogs to the shortcut again… bye.