Reading something new

My amazement at reading a work of fiction continues when I find something I can relate to. It connects me with the author when I start to uncover a hidden memory, and then see how my memory works with the new story line. I just finished "the Myth of You and Me" by Leah Stewart. My first thought was, " do military families stay in an area over 5 years?" That part of the story struck me as being a little unbelievable. Isn't a tour of duty about two years? But then I remembered my best friend from high school was from a military family. We bonded in the first class as freshman together, gym, I think it was. She also was in my homeroom, and our required study hall. Anyways we were best friends all through high school, and it was during the Vietnam war, her father was stationed overseas, but the family stayed put. Even a year after high school she and her family stayed in the same house. Her influence on my life was greater that I wanted to admit. She encouraged me to try out for cheerleading for four years with no success. We dreamed about entering the Olympics as we tried to ice skate on a pond, learned to throw shot put, and exercise on the second level of the gymnasium. I joined gymnastics because of her. I majored in pysical education in college because she did, or she wanted to. And I even remembered that I was a third wheel when she had a boyfriend and I didn't. The first guy I ever fell in love with was in love with her. He was a physical education major as well. Funny, just by reading a fiction story written in 2005 I can relive parts of my own life that happened over forty years ago. Therefore, one attraction of fiction or reading in general is the amount of memory it evokes.