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This story was originally performed at KUT's ATXplained Live at Bass Concert Hall on Oct. 23, 2024. !

Krista Reitz was born in Austin, but she didn't stay here. After her parents divorced, she moved around a lot.

“I picked up and I moved and life was gone and the next phase happened,� she said.

That made it hard to keep friends for very long. Now as an adult, Krista meets people who’ve been friends since they were kids and she wishes she had that.

“It’s something to be a little jealous of,� she said.

She’s right. I don’t think we appreciate how rare and special it is to have someone in your life � outside of your immediate family � who’s just always been there. Someone who feels like home.

But it also got Krista wondering: “What are the oldest friendships in Austin and kind of the roots of them?�

Now, I don’t know if we can answer Krista’s question definitively. But we can try. And maybe learn something about what it takes to keep long-term friendships going.

KUT put out a call for people in Austin who’ve been friends for a long time. I was surprised by how many responses we got.

The beginning

We’ll start with the roots of long friendships.

Courtesy Amelia Miller

Some met before they were even born.

Middle school meetings seem to be pretty common.

Sometimes, you don’t even remember when the friendship began.

And sometimes you remember exactly how you met.

Stacey and Jade met online in the late '90s. They were both living in Dallas and into the rave scene. Jade posted on this online message board, asking for a ride to a club. They’re complete strangers at this point, but Stacey said she’d give Jade a ride. They got to the club and Stacey gave Jade a task.

Courtesy Stacey Soto

“She’s like listen: I’m not going to be friends with some punk, OK?� Jade recalled. Stacey pointed to a guy across the room. “And she said ‘I want you to get up, go over to him, push him against the wall and make out with him. And if you don’t do it, I’m not going to be your friend.’�

So Jade got up, walked over and stuck her tongue down the guy’s throat.

“After a couple seconds, I just backed away and was like ‘OK, thanks.' And then I went back and was like ‘OK, we’re friends now,'" Jade said. "And we’ve been best friends ever since.�

This is like a foundational memory for their friendship, one of those stories they tell over and over again.

“I was literally just kidding,� Stacey said. “I was like ‘I just want to see what she was gonna say.� But she did it. And I was like ‘OK, this is it. This is the girl that’s going to be my best friend.’�

Years go by and like all old friends, they make a history together. All those huge changes that happen in adolescence and early adulthood.

Courtesy Steph Douglass

Off to college, like Steph and Nancy.

Getting married, like Amelia.

Having kids like Sofie Leon and Maile Roberts-Loring.

Coming out to their friend, like Nancy.

Courtesy Laura Davis

The bad times.

And the good ones.

They might get separated along the way. In one way or another, a distance happened to almost all the friends I talked to, but if you’re lucky you find your way back.

There’s a kind of luck to keeping a friend over decades. Something like magic. But there are some things you can do to make your odds better.

Here are some lessons I took away from talking to some of the oldest friends I found.

Communicate

Debbie and Sharon had crossed paths a few times before. Their partners were good friends and they’d see each other occasionally, but they didn’t really connect.

Until one day, things just finally clicked, and they became best friends.

“Even now we’ll say or do things and it’s the same thought about a certain situation. So I think we’re just kind of cut from the same cloth,� Sharon said.

Courtesy Debbie Miles Bloxson

Now they’ve been best friends for more than 40 years.

So how do they do it?

“It’s what’s in your heart. How you feel. How you are a constant. Because we’re a constant,� Debbie said.

Even if they’re not talking on the phone every day. They’re texting. Sending prayers. A little “Good luck at your meeting� message.

“Yeah, so I think that strategy goes back to being intentional and being deliberate in your thoughts, words and actions,� Sharon said.

Forgive

Shari Eno is part of a huge group of old friends, most of them from the Round Rock High School
class of 1980. They stayed friends through college and picked up some new people along the way.

Courtesy Shari Eno

But the original group has been friends for 45 years.

When I met with like 10 of them � plus more on Zoom � they had frozen gin and tonics, including one for me. It was just constant laughter. So much laughing. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have difficulties with each other sometimes.

“Sometimes we get our feelings hurt � not understanding,� said one of the friends.

And like family, you sometimes have to just go with it � even when it hurts.

“And it’s maybe like, you don’t get to understand," she adds. "But you just have to forgive and love and have grace anyway. Don’t always get the answer or the thing you want � but you go on � with the friendship.�

Tell them how you feel

Scott Roberts and Greg Bair met at O. Henry Middle School in 1965. A whole group of kids from back then are still friends.

“We all got along together, but it’s also Austin. You know Austin kept us all here,� Scott said. “We’ve watched it grow, but at one time it was small, so we were always running into each other.�

Matt Largey

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KUT

They’ve been friends for almost 60 years now.

I asked them over and over why they’re still friends. Finally, they admitted it.

“The reason why we all stay together is because basically we all love each other," Scott said. "That’s it."

Do they tell each other that a lot?

“No. Hell no,� Scott said.

“That’d be the worst thing we could do,� Greg added. “We couldn’t back bite each other anymore.�

But they know how they feel.

Now this advice might seem kind of obvious. Maybe it is. But I think a lot of us forget this stuff. We take friends for granted. They need tending. Understanding. Forgiveness. And to be told just how much they mean to us.

Show up

There’s one last friend group I wanted to hear from � three women who’ve been friends since they were very young.

“They had a picture of us at Anne’s second birthday party, which means we were all 2,� said Nell Johnston-Martin, who’s 84 now.

(She happens to be the mother of Krista Reitz, the question asker.)

“Well, we lived in the same neighborhood and we went to Sunday school together,� her friend Nancy Kelly-Anderson said

“I think when you’re 2 or 3 years old, you’re friends because your mothers are friends and [they] put you together,� Anne Peterson-Donovan said.

So they became friends by circumstance. But they stayed friends by choice.

“We could tell each other stuff and know it wasn’t going any further. And you know, laugh together and sit out on the front curb and laugh and talk and solve all the problems of the world,� Nell said.

Patricia Lim

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KUT News

They’ve been friends now for 82 years.

“It’s just grown and grown and grown, and we have lots of other friends that we’ve made,� Nell said. “But old friends are good friends!�

Through having kids, divorces, illness, grandkids. Just showing up when they needed each other. The little things that might not seem like a big deal, but “it is a big deal because I know, my life I couldn’t have gotten through without my friends," said Nell.

Even when friends moved away for a time � or stayed away � they were always welcomed back.

Nell and Anne and Nancy might just have the oldest friendship in town. Krista might have had her answer all along.