Sassy 7!

My first dream came true at 7. When I was 7, I discovered something that I really wanted. To be a Girl Scot Brownie. There was a boy in my class named Harley (who declared his love for me and then informed me that he was going to hand cuff me and lock me into a room so no other man could have me… way to be a creeper already at 7 Harley) had told me that it cost $100 to be a Brownie. $100 was a ton of money and I knew that my parents didn’t have a lot of money so I didn’t ask my mom if I could join, but I wanted to so badly. One night I was getting ready for bed in my room and I could hear my mom in her bedroom talking on the phone. When she got off the phone she came in and asked me if I would like to be a Brownie because she had just signed me up. I clasped my hands together and declared to her, “It would be a dream come true.” I LOVED everything about Brownies. My brother’s friend Lindsay passed me down her old Brownie uniform which were polyester pants. Everytime I put on those pants, my sash, yellow bow tie and the belt with the little coin purse for my dues I felt FABULOUS! I remember our induction ceremony, sleeping in A-frames at Girl Scot Camp, and singing Girl Scot Songs… Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the others gold.

The Little Mermaid came to theaters that year and my mom took us and tried to cover my eyes everytime Ursula came on the screen. Finally life made sense- a princess of the ocean who was also a hoarder? My heart had found a hero. I memorized every song and truly believed I sounded just like her when I sang them. Everyday I played little mermaid on the play ground and even had some of the boys willing to play Erik. My other hero was Shirley Temple. She sang and danced her way through life and I was so jealous of her crazy curls. Oh how I wanted to be Shirley Temple!

On the topics of heros...my parents did not let us watch much tv. We weren't allowed to watch Saturday morning cartoons or most modern tv shows. We were allowed to watch Little House on the Prarie, The Brady Bunch, and Gillian's Island. To say I L.O.V.E.D. Ginger is an understatement. I adored her. Then a lady started coming to our church named Ginger who I also thought was glamourous and who would let me sit beside her and she would pull all sorts of fun treats out of her purse for me to play with like lip glosses and smelly lotions (there were not alot of things like lip gloss or smelly lotions in out practical household.) I was so bummed that my mom had not named me Ginger. It made perfect sense to me that I had been given the wrong name. When I asked my mom about this, she informed me that Ginger was an ugly name. That is why my alter-ego began.

In 2nd grade, Courtney and I were put in separate classes and for and only time in my life I experienced bullying. 2 girls in my class decided to make me their target because they knew I was a Christian and they actually informed me I had to “turn the other cheek as a good Christian” and not tell on them. We had assigned seats at lunch and they were the 2 who sat the closest to me. Their biggest thing they teased me about it that I was poor and brought “Ssips” juice boxes in my lunch. The one girl claimed her mom was a nurse and had informed her that only poor people drank Ssips and that they were very unhealthy. This went on for a few months and my mom started sending me little notes of encouragement in my lunch box everyday. I will never forget the day that the girl whose mom was supposed the Ssips bashing nurse, opened her lunch box…. and there with her sandwich and snacks, lay a Ssips juicebox. I never got teased by them again and later they actually tried really hard to get me to be friends with them.

Even though I was bullied, I was certainly not without friends. In addition to the friends I had mentioned from school and camp, Michelle Davis had started going to our church a year earlier. She was a year older than me and was allowed to listen to New Kids on the Block, and watch all the things I wasn’t. She fascinated me and we had so much fun together! Also when I was 7, Justin Conner started coming to our church. Justin was dramatic, extreme, adventurous and had an imagination as big as mine and big blue eyes and freckles as a bonus. Not only did I fall in love, I finally had someone who understood me and was willing to be as outrageous as I was.