01/21/2026
Alweys Straight From My Heart
Life as I Knew It
Way Back Then
With Leslie and Me
My First Forever Best Friend. ❤️❤️
I was mesmerized by the picture of Mrs. Metcalf’s room in the fourth grade while I was in the front row looking like a lost puppy dog,
behind me on the top row was Leslie with her ginger colored hair, flowing down her back with a gigantic smile on her face, that would soon become like family to me.
Memories that are still so powerful to this day
Like when The North Fork river is ready to peak and flood its banks!
“Leslie, did you ask your mom Carol if I could come out and spend the night?”
Well of course it was OK with Carol. For my own mother was another story. Phyllis was never too keen on letting any of my friend’s spend the night.
So we headed to 23350 Bell Church Rd. as Carol was driving, what seemed like a big old tank! North Fork Bus #11. Carol could back that baby in quicker than you could say,” Cincinnati Reds!” I soon became a member of their family, as Sunday dinners were a regular at the Heskett household! All the fixings you could ever imagine, plus desserts galore!
Leslie and I would head upstairs to her bedroom talking about boys! Boys, we were in love with boys, who wouldn’t give us a second look or acknowledge us.
We talked about our life long dreams, as we looked out the window of the lowly countryside below. We were surrounded by beautiful fields of green the scents of the soon to be full grown stalks of corn down below.
The gravel road that we had traveled many times on Leslie’s tandem bicycle, laughing as we crashed into the side of the brush!
But in a flash, all that dreaming made us so very hungry! We would soon fill up on the leftovers left from this week’s Sunday dinner, enough that we could sleep peacefully.
Leslie had the cutest little dog named Carrie, who was a spitting image of Toto, who would always sleep with us. One night as I was turning around in her bed to tell her something, I grabbed this glob of hair, “I screamed,“ oh no, you didn’t !” Much to my surprise it wasn’t what I thought, I had grabbed Carrie who was laying closer to me than she usually did! Leslie and I we were laughing so hard, We almost peed our pants!
We both headed downstairs to go to the bathroom hitting the fridge once again. Laughing that hard takes up a lot of energy! On more than one occasion, Carol would holler upstairs to let us know, we better get to sleep or all bleep is going to happen!
Carol was the queen of her household, what she said you better do! Alva, was Leslie‘s father, he was a soft spoken gentleman, aways so kind.
Carol was a gigantic Cincinnati Reds fan, nothing came between her and her man Pete Rose! But Alva was always the love of her life. You knew, not to interrupt when the Reds were around, especially when you could hear Carol talk back to the television, or start to holler!
Coming in from outside sitting on the porch swing talking about boys again! I saw something that I had never witnessed before. Alva and Carol were sitting on the couch together as Alva had his hands wrapped around Carol. I felt like I was witnessing something I shouldn’t see, but I continued to stare. Before long I didn’t stare, I just felt their love. It was normal in the Heskett household.
Oh how I wanted to see that at my own house so badly. I would never ever witness anything like that, which made me deeply sad.
It was like I was living in two different worlds. How I so wanted that to be my parents.
One day when Leslie‘s mom and dad were out of the house so we decided to sneak, as most soon to be teenagers do!
Their bedroom was on the first floor, as we went inside opening up their night stand drawer. We were in awe of what we saw!
Just to say it was what most couples had, in their night stand drawer, but we didn’t know that!
We quickly closed it, running upstairs laughing talking trying to act like the crime we had just committed was never be spoken about again!
Years down the road, I finally fessed up to Carol, she started to laughed then said, “ you damn girl’s!”
Seeing Barry Manilow in concert in the ninth grade, believing that he would spot us out of the crowd, confess his love to both of us!
I think that was a fantasy not a dream, but who use the word fantasy!
We soon became blood sister’s, back in the day that was something that was popular, at least for us! Leslie got the needle, I poked my finger first, as blood was flowing down my finger Leslie chickened out! After much convincing, she did it, and we were blood sister’s for life!
Trying out for cheerleader, Leslie could do the splits, I could do the cartwheels, but neither both! Soon our dream careers of becoming cheerleaders ended abruptly!
Todd was Leslie‘s older brother, great basketball player for Utica. Todd was a handsome fellow for a brother! One night Leslie had her birthday party. One thing I remember Carol saying is, “now I don’t want you girls to get crazy tonight!”
I don’t know who decided to have a séance, but Todd decided to help us perform this event that we only heard about from other friend’s!
We all got into our positions, two girls on each side, Todd was in front, our other friend at her feet.
Then we repeated the words, as we knelt on our knees, before we knew it, we had raised our friend up to our chest area.
Not believing what we saw, we dropped her, as quick as a hot potato.
Running all the way upstairs on top of Leslie‘s bed we ended up bending the bed frame! We decided we were never doing that again!
Todd had a girlfriend named Bonnie, soon they were to be married.
I was privileged to be able to go to their wedding, but I was also part of their family, and Leslie being my blood sister! Their wedding was held at Todd’s mom and dad’s house.
Bonnie was a beautiful bride, with her powdered blue dress. It was April then in 1973, what a special day I’ll always remember.
Soon Brooke Leslie’s younger brother had the bedroom next to Leslie all to himself. But that didn’t stop him from coming into Leslie‘s room to pester her, especially when she had her best friend over!
I Loved Brooke, he was such a kind and gentle soul, who died at such a young age.
On a warm summer afternoon Carol was out washing her bus down. Leslie and I were outside, then Brooke comes out! They start to get into one hellacious fight. I moved back closer to where Carol was washing her bus in the driveway, because the rumble had started to intensify, I started to laugh so hard, I almost wet my pants!
I had never seen anything like those two go at it. At my house Phyllis would just stop talking to me, I was completely ignored, never knowing why.
Pushing, shoving, taking punches, screaming, and pulling hair. I had never seen anything like this before!
Carol spoke up, yelling at the top of her lungs, “YOU TWO KIDS NEED TO STOP THAT RIGHT NOW.” her words got louder and louder as the fight intensified. “ALVA, ALVA, YOU NEED TO GET OUT HER AND TAKE CARE OF THESE TWO KIDS!” Hollering, “ALVA,” he finally came out, soon all Alva had taken care of the rumble was over, as all was back to normal once again! The storm door didn’t fair as well, it took the blunt of the battle, which later would come out of their allowance, for a new one was needed!
On the weekend they would hook up their camping trailer, as we would all head up to Mochain State Park, for campfires, swimming, looking to see if there were any cute boys up here!
One day my dad decided to take myself,Leslie, my brother’s, Ed and Dave Jones, to the primitive area at Mochain State Park, for a night of sleeping and canoeing the next morning. Now Leslie had promised me that if I had to go to the bathroom, she would go with me and vice versa.But if you knew Leslie when it came to sleeping, she would clock out five minutes after Chiller Theater and The Night Owl came on channel 10!
My father had fixed our supper over the open fire, it wasn’t long before it was time to say good night, as the fire was ready too!
Now Leslie had a brand new Mickey Mouse white sleeping bag, as she had laid a piece of plastic underneath to protect the whiteness of her sleeping bag!
We had the same ones that we used many times before, our sleeping bags didn’t need any plastic they were use to what lay below them!
I kept whispering her name,
“Leslie, Leslie, wake up, you promised me you’d go to the bathroom with me,” I continued to ask her over and over, but to no avail was she waking up!
I started to cry as my father woke up and said, “kiddo, just walk up there with the flashlight by yourself,” I starting to cry again,I said,
“I can’t, I just started my period!” My father came to the rescue, as he had done for me so many times over the years! So he walked me up and waited till all was well, and I had stopped crying, and was fast asleep.
He was my hero, I love and miss him every single day, because the day he died part of my heart died too. I lost my best friend, just like when your Mother died.
We were always there for each other, as we always had been.
The next morning waking up to the scent of my father was frying eggs and bacon on the freshly revived fire with the old black iron skillet over the campfire. We headed down to the river, soon away we floated on top of the murky water, having the best time, with my best friend and her Mickey Mouse sleeping bag!
Before we knew it, time was stealing us blind. Every moment had passed so quickly, we were graduating from high school, and The Licking County Joint Vocational School. That’s what it was called back in our day. Leslie took food service, myself horticulture.
Les bought a new car after graduation. We were coming back from Newark one night, all of a sudden bang, she had hit a deer, or as Leslie would say, the deer hit me! Leslie started, screaming, crying, uncontrollably. I couldn’t get her to stop, so finally, I shouted,” LESLIE IF YOU DON’T STOP RIGHT NOW, I’M GOING TO SLAP YOU IN THE FACE!” which I never would’ve done, but that made her stop real quick! We talked about who was going to get out of the car, who was going to check the damage. Who was going to look at the blood,and the deer! But I already knew the answer to that conversation! It would be me! I was going to do that, it wouldn’t be Leslie! As I was getting out of the car, there was no deer,no blood, and there was no damage! The good Lord above was with us that night.
Both our dreams were pretty much the same.
We were going to marrying the love’s of our live’s,which would changed many times over the years. The one’s we use to dream about, we had soon forgotten.
Living next to each other, having a ton of kids, talking about growing old together as we would set on each other’s porch, swing and reminisce about our younger years!
I decided to move to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and live. Leslie was working at Owens Corning and soon, I found out that Leslie was going to have a baby. So I headed back to Ohio, driving my “75” Chevy Nova V8 with an added bonus wow, my very own FM converter! That baby took those mountains easy peezy!
We ended up going down to the old theater out in Heath. We watching the movie Grease, what a joyous night. I remember Leslie letting me feel her tummy during the movie, as Alisha Dawn was kicking like crazy!
Sooner than later I would be telling Leslie goodbye, as she started to cry.
I was headed back to the beach knowing the next time I saw her, she would have a new bundle of joy, and would be a mother.
I lived at the Plantation Motel, right off of Kings Highway on South 11th Avenue. I rented an efficiency apartment which I loved my new little home.
Back then you didn’t have telephones in your efficiency apartments.
Mr. Mann the owner came knocking on my door saying I had a phone call in his southern accent, a call from Ohio,
“ Hello, Tonya it’s Carol, I’m calling to let you know that Leslie lost her baby.” What, as she repeated it again. I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say. “How, How,” the phone call ended in silence, as I went running back to my little efficiency apartment jumping on my bed crying my eyes out.
Leslie named her beautiful baby girl,
Alisha Dawn, who I’ve been to Alisha Dawn’s grave.
I would find out later, that Alisha Dawn was perfect, but the umbilical cord got wrapped around her neck.
I didn’t know what to do but, hold her in my arms, as she cried, as we both cried, telling me about her pain and suffering for the loss of her beautiful baby daughter. Leslie would be there for me down the road, when I lost my first baby too.
Much later, Leslie came down to visit me in Myrtle Beach, we had so much fun, but still the memories were fresh of losing her baby girl.
We decided to cruise the boulevard. We were already in our pajamas, nightgowns whatever but we had places to be! Back then it was two sides up two sides back, everything that was there then is completely changed torn down, gone in it place of progress are these humongous buildings have moved in since those good old days back at the beach.
Leslie was working at Owen’s Corning when she ask a hometown boy if he wanted to go to a Hay Ride party. Glen said, “yes,” Leslie had found her Prince Charming, we had talked about all those years ago. The True Love of her life,the rest is history.
On a sunshiny day of June 10 1983 at
The United Methodist Church, they became
Mr. and Mrs. Glen Richards.
Nicholas was born December 16 of 1984, Leslie was finally living all her dreams.
I closed that picture that I had stared at for the longest time, putting it back in my special drawer.
Reality had slapped me hard in the face, knowing it was
no more.
Leslie what we had was, the one phrase that comes to my mind is from a famous movie.
Now I Had The Time of My Life
It Wouldn’t Have Been Possible
Without You.
I Love You
Always Have
Always Will♥️
Thank You God ✝️
For Our Friendship
Blood-sister’s too. 🩸
Your Very First Best Friend For Life♥️
Alweys
Tonya Sue♥️
