July 30, 2026
“…one is silver and the other gold.”
If you were ever in Girl Scouts, like Dianne and Angela were, then you probably remember that old tune and the truth it holds.
In this current age of electronic communication, the practice of exchanging handwritten sent-through-the-post-office Christmas cards seems to have dropped off considerably, but not for Dianne and Angela.
Dianne, from southeast Mississippi, and Angela, from southwest Mississippi, met as first semester freshmen at Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, in the fall of 1963. They were housed in the same dormitory, Helen White Hall, on the small campus of the Presbyterian affiliated school. Even though both had received a strong foundational education from their respective public schools, they found the rigor of freshman English, college algebra, and required Old Testament a bit much, not to mention that the allowed interactions for female student life in 1963 felt more like a convent than college.
The two students bonded over their common homesickness and misery and left Belhaven after only one year, but in the winter of 1964, when the cost of a first-class postage stamp was five cents, they began exchanging Christmas cards. Between them they exchanged news of happy and sad times, deaths and divorces, job relocations, children and pets. Since 1964, there has not been a single year that a holiday card from each of them has not arrived in the other’s mailbox during the sacred season of Christmas.
For Angela, an opportunity recently presented itself for a trip to southeast Mississippi and so she reached out to Dianne (by mail, of course) with an invitation to meet up for a handmade milkshake at an old-time soda fountain at the local drug store in Dianne’s hometown.
After 62 years of Christmas cards, the two young college freshmen, now carrying four scores of years each, hugged each other for the first time since they lived on the same floor of Helen White Hall so long ago.
At a small formica topped table, conversation began to flow while Dianne sipped a vanilla shake, and Angela enjoyed a chocolate one. The ladies in the back of the store came up front to take pictures and revel in the beauty of such a rare sight. Joy filled every heart in the shop, including one of the regulars from the ‘old men’ crew who came in for afternoon coffee and wanted to know where the out-of-town visitors were from.
As sweet as the handmade milkshakes were, they couldn’t match the sweetness of an old friendship that has stood the test of time and distance.
” Make new friends, but keep the old…”