You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Memories’ category.
Once upon a time, quite a few years ago, a young girl of about 12 sat curled up on her bed with a red, wide-ruled spiral notebook and a pencil in her hand. After staring at the blank page for a few minutes, an idea came. Her head was soon bent in concentration, her pencil flying over the pages as the words flowed. This is great! she thought. I’m a real writer!
That young girl, as you may have guessed, was yours truly. And what she wrote, I am about to share with you. We’ll call it a cautionary tale.
I’m not sure why, but this story I wrote 5 or 6 years ago randomly popped in my head tonight, right after dinner. So this evening, while I should have been packing, I spent my time digging through a box from the top shelf in my closet, searching for that long-buried red spiral notebook.
Obviously, my search was not in vain. I found the notebook. And I got a kick out of reading it, because it bears some striking similarities to the Mandie series, by Lois Gladys Leppard, which I read countless times when I was young.
This story is solid proof that I should not read.
Yup. You heard me right. Because when I read, I begin to unconsciously copy other writer’s styles. Which is, of course, devastating to my own charming, hilarious and highly entertaining style.
Stop laughing.
You think I can’t hear you, but I can.
And it sounds maniacal.
Anyway, I’m printing this story, this nugget of my childhood, here in it’s complete, unabridged, straight-from-the-notebook form. I hope you’ll get as much amusement from it as I did.
12-year old Ginger McKenna struggled to lift the heavy wooden bucket used for the chickens water. Ginger lived on a small farm with her mother, Myra McKenna, and her 9-year old sister, Madison.
Ginger looked up as Madison came out the back door of their small two-room log cabin. “Mama’s in an even worse mood today, she’s really cranky.”
Ginger sighed. Ever since her father, Joseph McKenna had died 2 months earlier, Myra McKenna was even meaner to the daughters she had never wanted.
Ginger picked up the bucket and started toward the chicken house. For quite some time, she had been entertaining the idea of running away, but, she had no where to run to. She only had one relative that she knew of, uncle Jake Dellson, her mother’s brother. Ginger’s mother hated her brother for running away and getting married when he was only 18. According to Myra McKenna, Jake Dellson was a mean old miser who didn’t care about anyone but himself.
“Well, if it get’s bad enough, I’ll have to go to….him.” Ginger thought, dissapointedly.
“Ginger, Ginger, get in here now and churn this milk!” Ginger’s mother called from the door.
“Coming, Mama!” Ginger hurried into the house.
Things went on like this for a few weeks, when, finally, Ginger had had enough. One night, she pulled Madison aside when her mother wasn’t watching and whispered, “Meet me in the barn after Mama goes to sleep.”
Madison nodded and continued drying dishes.
Ginger hurried up to her room after she finished her evening chores, and gathered together all her things. She only had 3 dresses and one pair of shoes, but she was used to it. After she had wrapped her things in a quilt, she hurried to Madison’s side of the room and gathered all her things.
Ginger tiptoed to her mother’s sleeping quarters and peeked behind the heavy curtain that separated her room from the kitchen. She was snoring loudly. Ginger dropped the curtain and scurried over to the icebox. 2 loaves of bread, a block of cheese, some crackers and leftover biscuits from dinner.
Ginger got a half of a loaf of bread and a large chunk of cheese and the biscuits and hurried out to the barn.
Madison was sitting in the loft with her feet wrapped in a quilt. “I couldn’t find my shoes and the grass was cold.” She said in a half-whisper.
“I have your shoes,” Ginger replied. “We’re going to run away. We’re to Uncle Jake’s home in Mapleton County.”
“Mapleton County. That’s a long ways away, it’ll take a week or more to get there!” Madison exclaimed a little nervously.
“Yes, I know, that’s why we need to go NOW. Mama won’t miss us till after school tomorrow, so we need to hurry.”
The girls quickly put their shoes on and wrapped in a quilt, it was chilly and a stiff breeze was blowing.
“Mapleton is west from here,” Ginger observed, “So we’ll have to go through….”
“The woods.” Madison finished her sister’s sentence. One look at the dense, dark forest sent a chill down the girls’ spine. Madison grasped Ginger’s hand and slowly, they started toward the woods.
To be continued…
…when next I feel like baring my 12-year-old soul for the world to see.
_______________________________
Loving the WELL-written word – (not that I’ve ever written one)…
Abbie.
My only big sister, that is. But still my favorite.
She’s a faithful constant – someone I can always count on to be there with a listening ear and some dang good advice. Truth be told, she’s one of my favorite people in this ol’ world. But don’t tell her I said that.
To her face, I’d probably say she was ‘a decent kind of person’. Kind of like when I cook something relatively successful; she says, “It’s pretty decent.” It’s a code. A code of sisterhood.
We’re not mushy sisters. And I mean no offense to people who are. But it’s just not how we roll.
(Also, some of us clearly are not polite eaters. But that’s another issue for another time.)
We’ve both changed over the years, but she always has been the sweet, ladylike, selfless little butthead that she still is today.
Today, Faith turned 19.
Happy Birthday, Faith. And may you have many more happy years to celebrate life…
…And trick candles that keep re-lighting.
Love,
Abbie.
Remember when you were little and you would be jealous of your big sister? You would be jealous of her bigger room. You would be jealous of her sweet disposition. You would be jealous of her clothes.
You would conspire ways to “get even” with her. You would write in your diary, “YOU’RE SO BOSSY. IF YOU EVER READ THIS, YOU ARE A BRAT!!!!”. You would make a mess and then blame it on her.
And then you would say, “Hey, wanna go play Barbies?”
Wait – that wasn’t you? Oh yeah, I forgot…that was me.
It’s true, and I’m equal parts ashamed and amused now. Well, not so much on the ashamed part anymore. I think I’ve worked through those issues. But I am still highly amused by it. This onset of reminiscence was brought on by unearthing some of my old diaries and flipping through them. In doing so, I discovered that I didn’t experience teenaged angst when I was a teenager. No, I was angst-ridden and deeply conflicted at a much younger age. I was somewhat bitter, and highly jealous of my “perfect” big sister.
But only sometimes. Like when I would sneak candy and get in trouble for it and be sent to my room, where I would pull out my diary and have a full-on pity party and bring up every single, solitary “injustice” I could think of.
What a drama queen I was.
But it was only sometimes – really! I promise! – because Faith says I could never keep a grudge for long. We’d be fighting one second, and I’d pull the Barbie line the next. So thankfully, most of my childhood memories are of playing for hours on end with Faith, the occasional object of my envy. We’d play Barbies. We’d play dress-up. We’d read for hours. We’d watch Barney and Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street. We’d wallow in the freshly-tilled dirt of our cornfield. It really was idyllic. And for that, I will always be thankful.
I still have one lingering, festering splinter of bitterness, though.
Her room is still bigger than mine.
…Every little step she takes!
Thanks to this year’s dance recital, 2 songs will now be repetitively running through my head for the next 11 months: One from A Chorus Line, and another song that I like to call, Ode to the Ridiculously Catchy Tune, that I danced to years ago. That’s when it was originally burned into my psyche, and every year since, another class dances to it and it’s ingrained even deeper.
Yes, it’s true. I danced. I took somewhere around 8 years, allowed chronic laziness to convince me that it “wasn’t my thing”, and quit at the pesky and ill-informed age of 13. Now, due to my tendency toward clumsiness, I wish I hadn’t quit. But no, I had to go and be a malcontented middle child.
There’s me in 1996. Look at me – I look like I want to stomp off that ridiculous white sheet and punch someone. Or at least…verbally abuse someone.
Madness! This is driveling, babbling madness!
(Every single one of my old feather headpieces is yours if you can guess that movie line.)
Contrast the above, if you will, to this:
This little girl is a true dancer. I was merely an impostor in a tutu, annoyed by my rowdy classmates and dreadfully shy.
But she’s a ballerina, all right. Here she is this year:
I can’t decide which I love more, the frizzy hair – (hey, dancing’s hard work!) or the pointy elbows.
Dainty. Confident. Joyful. This girl’s my idol, dadgummit!
Here she is on stage:
Third from the left, gettin’ her jazz freak on!
Watching the jazz dances always makes me want to bust a move. But I restrain myself. For the sake of the masses.
Next, the graceful ballet waltz. (Paige on the far right.)
I can’t get enough of the classical ballet dances. Sigh. They’re just breathtakingly graceful.
Last, but certainly not least: Tap! Woohoo!
I love watching tap. It’s just plain happy. Just think about it…
Shirley Temple
Bill “Bojangles” Robinson
Fred Astaire
Gene Kelly
Old Broadway shows
Happy Feet, for pete’s sake!
It’s just so old-school, awesome. And I can’t resist it’s charm.
Speaking of Fred Astaire and old-school awesomeness…
This little gent stole the show with that bow-tie and cane of his.
And I’m sorry, but there is something absolutely, positively, irresistably cute about a bunch of three-year-olds in green tutus screaming Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star at the top of their lungs.
Take a look at that little gal, third from the right.
She stood there, hands on her hips, through both of the dances her class performed. She just made me grin. I loved it. And I felt a strange kinship with that little girl. *See picture #2.*
Although, make no mistake, I was never brave enough to actually do something that would cause me to stand out like that.
Not knowingly, anyway.
Now, I must backtrack. Because, mid-recital, something happened that I believe validated every one of Paige’s ballerina dreams.
She won the Jr. scholarship award for 2009!
(That’s half a year’s tuition free!)
Here she is with one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, her dance teacher. Who, by the way, is a mere 75 years old, and still going strong.
Yes, you heard me. 75. She started teaching dance lessons when she was 12 years old.
When I was 12 years old…I was obsessing over nacho cheese with my friends, and saying very sophisticated things like “Mondo-coolio to the tenth power!”
Wow. Major, embarassing flashback there.
Let’s divert the attention back to this awesome lady.
Paige decided to write a book about her. So a few weeks ago, she brought in some interview questions, written neatly on notebook paper and bound with yarn.
So her teacher brought that little book out onto the stage when she called Paige’s name, and told the audience a little about it.
That dadgum little girl brought a collective “Aww!” from the whole audience.
Myself included.
Meanwhile, both of my parents were beside me, bawling.
And I can’t really blame them. Because, for heaven’s sake, look at the adoration in the tilt of Paige’s head as she gazes up at her beloved teacher.
Look at the devotion of this amazing woman to each and every one of her students.
Look at their relationship as they giggle with each other on-stage.
It almost makes me want to start bawling. (And only partially because I was a socially-maladjusted little twerp when I had my chance.)
This remarkable woman teaches so much more than the art of dance. And the impact she has on the lives of her girls - my little punk sister among them – is the most profound legacy she could ever leave.
And that, if I may say so, is mondo-coolio. The the tenth power.
So what’s new in my world? Nothin’ much.
I spent 4 1/2 hours on the lawnmower this morning. All I have to say about that is thank goodness for sunscreen and the “mist” setting on the hose nosel.
I came inside, showered, and fell asleep in my chair. I woke up about an hour later, my right leg completely numb. Now, this instantly brought back memories; allow me to divert for a minute.
A while ago, probably over a year now, I had fallen asleep in my chair, legs curled up under me. When I woke, one leg was, of course, totally numb. But I didn’t realize it. So I stood up and started walking…and the numb leg just crumbled beneath me. I remember the fall in slow motion. Down…down, then backwards, thumping my skull on the wooden arm of my chair. A goose egg began immediately forming right behind my ear.
And it struck me funny. Hilarious, actually. I mean, I stood up…and fell over, and knocked myself in the head. HAHAHAHA! What could be funnier?!* However, I was feeling a little lightheaded, so I decided to sprawl on my bed for a few minutes.
Sprawl I did, and within seconds, I was out. Out, as in, I’m pretty sure that conk on the head knocked me out. I woke up some time later and went downstairs to share the hilarious story with The Madre. Who pretty much freaked out and told me how dangerous it was to go to sleep after a head injury. So that little episode is the one and only time I believe I’ve ever been unconscious. And I just love the kicker: I knocked myself out. Ah, the irony.
*(Max, who was just outside my door – for reasons still unknown - later reported hearing me laughing like a demented person. He then ran away, scared. Can’t say that I blame him.)
Now, allow me to divert back away from the story of my self-imposed unconsciousness, and back to my uber-exciting day.
(Did I just say “uber”? I’m sorry. Really and truly.)
After I woke up with my leg numb, I experienced an extreme case of deja vu. So instead of standing up and trying to put weight on the numb leg, I balanced on the unimpaired limb and hobble-hopped to my bed. I just laid there until the numbness went away.
The end.
