Adoption advocate Debbie Sargent and I spoke recently about the need to find mentors for older children in the foster care system. "We all know someone like that," she said, "someone who's not really a relative, but is at all the family gatherings, because they're still part of the family."

In the MacGregor's family, I'm one of those people.

My best pal Debbie and I met the first day of fourth grade, more years ago than I care to admit, and since then, our lives have been intertwined. I don't have many childhood memories without her in them somewhere. I know her house was built two or three years after mine was, but I can't remember a time when I couldn't look out my front door into her backyard.

A few weekends ago, I saw her whole family for the first time in several years. Debbie's dad, Charlie, turned 70 last month and his daughters - Deb and her three sisters, Karen, Diane and Susan - threw him a party. All these years later, Charlie still refers to me as his fifth daughter and Karen and Diane's kids call me as "Aunt Christine." Missing this party would be like missing a similar event for one of my own parents.

There was a tent set up in Karen's yard to shelter old friends, neighbors and relatives from the periodic rain. As we walked up the driveway, we cat-called our childhood nicknames to one another. Our friend Joyce, who is Charlie's sixth daughter and used to call me "Auntie" for reasons I no longer remember, screeched when she saw me. I screeched back. As we hugged and carried on, my 3-year-old pulled on my shirt and said, "Mama, I'm not too sure about this party."

I wasn't so surprised. I don't exactly change completely, but I never laugh so hard at more ridiculous things as I do when I'm with those girls. And when we're together, we're not a group of 40-something ladies, we are girls. We make fun of each other. We bring up our most embarrassing moments. We look around the yard and discuss which husbands and cousins have aged gracefully and speculate on why those who aren't there didn't come. We boost each other's failing memories and cackle over things that were hilarious in the '70s and make no sense whatsoever now, unless, of course, you were there to begin with.

Like Disco Night at the Lantern Lodge. The Ohs-mo-bubble. The time we took out the oil pan on Red Mill Road. And the reason we called Diane Itty Bitty Baby Minnie Chooch, which none of us quite recalls but is somehow hysterically funny.

Did your mother ever tell you about the Frog Pond?

No! What's that?

They don't need to know that.

Mom, hush - what's the Frog Pond?

For the record, the Frog Pond [where there was no pond and few frogs] was a path connecting Debbie's street to Joyce's street. It was a shortcut, but it was also out of sight of any of the neighbor's houses, making it the perfect place to sneak an illicit cigarette. We also routinely parked down at the Pits, which was exactly what it sounded like: a huge sand pit, where we could sit at the edge and hang out, pretending to be cool as we lounged on car hoods in the summer sun. As further proof that maybe you can't go home again, there are condos being built there now.

The summer of 1978, when we were 16, Debbie had an old red Corvair with the shift on the dashboard and a roof that leaked in rainy weather. We rewrote the kids' song "I'm a Little Pile of Tin" to fit the car and sang it every time we got in. The car had an 8-track tape deck and we listened to "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights," "Life in the Fast Lane" and "Walk this Way" endlessly; to this day I know all the lyrics by heart. We would pick up our friends Lisa and Jeanne and each pitch in 50 cents. For our two bucks, we could cruise around all night, seeing and being seen. For teenagers in a small town, "hanging out" and "cruising around" was the epitome of weekend life.

Now, most of our children are in high school themselves. Charlie's party was full of teenagers, some of whom looked familiar and some of whom didn't.

OK, there's Ashly and Courtney and Heather - who's that with them?

That's Shannon.

I know, they introduced me. I meant, whose daughter is she?

Mine. She lives two doors down and is always at my house. Basically, she's you.

'Tis true. I had a bed at Debbie's house. I slept there at least one weekend night every single week from fifth grade to graduation. I was there every morning before school and most days after school. All the girls' friends hung out there. Debbie's parents, Charlie and Maraide, used to send us carnations on Valentine's Day signed, "The Bosses: MacGregor Home for Wayward Girls."

I like to think I was the original Wayward Girl. On those days when my house was tense, I threw a pair of clean underwear and a toothbrush in a bag and walked through the yards. Charlie and Maraide always let me in. Maraide died of cancer in 1994 and I am frightened to think that losing my own mother someday will be worse than that experience.

At the end of the night, with all the party guests gone, we put the big kids in charge of the little kids and built a fire in the outdoor fireplace. Or we tried to, anyway.

I can do it. I remember how from Girl Scouts.

Girl Scouts? You were you in Girl Scouts?

When we lived in Southie, before we moved here.

Wait, then what was Campfire Girls?

That's completely different - it's like a different group.

Remember this? "I've got something in my pocket, it belongs across my face ..."

The smile! The Brownie smile!

When Deb moved to Arizona in 1985, I waited for months for her to come back. This was the girl who sometimes refused to go on school field trips because she didn't want to be away from her mother; surely she'd never survive 2,700 miles away from the rest of us. But she did survive, and she and her husband Jim have built a nice life for themselves. They're quite happy there, and though we both wish that Clinton and Phoenix were geographically closer, we're both exactly where we're supposed to be.

But we're still best friends. We still giggle on the phone the way we did at sleepovers. We gossip about each other and her sisters and my brothers. We hold each other's history. And we can still dance the Hustle and sing off-key to "Billy, Don't Be a Hero" or "The Night Chicago Died." I'll never have another friend like her and I'm blessed to be a part of her family.

Christine M. Quirk is the editor of MotherTown. She can be reached at cquirk@cnc.com.