The Terrible Catsafterme

Ashleigh Heath (pictured at right in her BHS senior picture) first came to be my classmate at Ankeney Junior High school during the 1985-86 school year. Of the six classes I had that year, Ashleigh was in exactly half of them. At least until the day came when I got kicked out of Mrs. Gardetto’s Honors English class. We also shared Mrs. Williams’ Algebra class and Mrs. Pappas’ American History class. And from the moment I first crossed paths with this diminutive and cute girl, I knew I had met my match when it came to spunkiness. My friend Jeff Flinn and I knew that we could poke fun of Ashleigh’s size, but she had plenty of fodder to make fun of us as class dipsticks – so we were even.

Oftentimes though, I think Ashleigh fed off of our unruliness and often joined in on our antics, enjoying our hand-manufactured issues of Funshiet and Trash magazine…and was occasionally herself included in the fun. So while there were fleeting moments of friendship and connection, there were also moments of a Beaver Cleaver/Judy Hensler relationship brewing between us. But no matter what transpired in those wonderful days of junior high, I considered Ashleigh Heath to be a long-lost friend for many years.

Ashleigh as I remember her in eighth grade…except she used to be in color

But through the magic of Facebook, we connected once again about midway through 2008. I had actually looked for Ashleigh now and then but had always come up with nothing, so I hoped that when I found her living as Ashleigh Armstrong with her husband Tom in Raleigh, North Carolina, she would also remember the good times in favor of upstart that I was. Much to my surprise, I found that she was not only receptive, but seeminly just as intent on reminiscing as I was.

And even better, once we finally began chatting by phone early in 2009, hardly a week had passed when we haven’t communicated by phone or email. Ashleigh has certainly become one of my best friends and I always enjoy having good conversations about music, movies, history, travel, our hometowns, and naturally former classmates and all the good times we had in school together.

Although we had been planning that I visit Ashleigh as part of my upcoming Myrtle Beach trip, I actually got the chance to meet up with Ashleigh even earlier when she made a three-week trip back to Beavercreek for the Memorial Day holiday. On Monday, May 18, 2009, the day after her old-hometown arrival, I met her and her very kind father (who had driven back with her, but lives just a few minutes from me) at Skyline for some chili and hot doggies. She came over afterward so I could show her the collection of movies, autographs, and music that we had talked about for so long over the phone.

It was great to see each other in person, although we had had lots of time to actually ‘catch-up’ beforehand. I’m hoping that we can hang out even more during her Ohio stay and still plan on the visit to Raleigh this coming July. Obviously I still can’t get enough of Ashleigh’s good humor and spunky spirit.

In seventh heaven at Skyline!

And for the record: With the unique spelling of the name Ashleigh that my daughter has, you may think it just a coincidence that one of my former friends from junior high shares the same spelling of her name. But in fact, although I won’t go so far to say that my daughter was named after her, the spelling of my old classmate Ashleigh Heath’s name certainly influenced how I wanted to spell my daughter’s name. You see, during my Junior High years, the name Ashleigh (with any spelling) was rather uncommon, so when that name came up as a potential name for my daughter, this spelling was the only one I really knew thanks to her. And it worked out even more so because Ashleigh’s Mom Christi’s middle name was Leigh.

Return to Memorial Day week…

Continue to the next reunion…

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 24th, 2009 at 6:05 am and is filed under 1980's - Late, 2000's - Late, Reunions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.